Note 18 — Chapter LXXIV

So the return-messenger went, and gave, when introduced by the warder, that letter to the king of Láṭa. And when Bhímabhaṭa had read that letter, he laughed loudly, and said to the return-messenger of his brother—“Go, messenger, and tell that dancing-girl’s son from me, ‘On that former occasion when you tried to seize the horse, I saved you from Śankhadatta, because you were a child and dear to my father, but I will no longer endure your insolence. I will certainly send you to my father who is so fond of you. Make ready, and know that in a few days I shall have arrived.’” With these words he dismissed the messenger, and then he began his expedition. When that moon of kings, glorious in his magnificence,18 mounted his elephant which resembled a hill, the great sea of his army was agitated and surged up with a roar, and the horizon was filled with innumerable feudal chiefs and princes arrived for war,19 and setting out with their forces; and the earth, swiftly trampled by the elephants and horses trooping along in great numbers, groaned and trembled under the weight, as if afraid of being cleft open. In this fashion Bhímabhaṭa marched and came near Ráḍhá, eclipsing the light of the sun in the heavens with the clouds of dust raised by his army.