Note 57 — UTTARAKĀNDAM (continued 2)

This simile is peculiarly appropriate and beautiful. Pushpaka, the name of Rāvana's car, means composed of flowers; and this signification shining askance, as it were, over the direct sense of the sentence, heightens the delight the reader feels on imagining the principal figure. 'Rāvana seated in Pushpaka, covered with blood, looked like a blossoming Kinsuka.'—T.