वासवदत्ता (महाकवि सुबन्धु - श्लेष-प्रधान शास्त्रीय गद्यकाव्य सान्वय सटीक)

134 VĀSAVADATTĀ to be¹ a series of ocean shells that had been drunk down too hastily.² [284] The ‹rainy season›, even the ‹fate of rain›, played,³ as if with chessmen⁴ coloured with lac, with yellow and green frogs⁵ jumping in the black enclosures⁶ of the irrigated fields. The lightning gleamed like a streak of gold rubbed by the goldsmith bank of clouds on a seeming touchstone that was like a mass of lampblack⁷ from the torch of the sun. The screw-pine was beauteous⁸ as a saw of the Flower-Weaponed God to cut¹⁰ the hearts of sundered (lovers). [285] The drops of water were as masses of dust shaken off by the violence of the wind from the cloud-tree that was cut by the saw of the slender quivering lightning.¹¹ The hailstones flashed like pearls¹² from the necklaces of the brides of the several quarters (of the sky); as though they were masses of stars reduced to powder by contact with the cloud grinding-stone that was turned by the violence of the fierce wind¹³; handfuls of grain, so to say, of the setting forth of Him⁹ whose banner is a fish, eager to conquer the threefold world.¹⁴ Straightway at the beginning¹⁵ of autumn, with its wagtails not lame¹⁶; with the course of the herons unhampered¹⁷; [286] with ¹ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text omit 'what appeared to be.' ² Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'drunk in the impulse of excessive thirst.' ³ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'the dark lover of the clouds played with the lightning.' ⁴ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'dice'; cf. Thomas, 'The Indian Game of Chess,' in ZDMG. 52. 271–272; 53. 364–365; Reinaud, Mémoire.... sur l'Inde.... d'après les écrivains arabes, persans et chinois, pp. 131–133, Paris, 1849; al-Bīrūnī, India, tr. Sachau, 1. 183–185, London, 1888. ⁵ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'young frogs.' ⁶ Tel. ed., 'gatherings.' ⁷ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'on a touchstone of clouds blackened.' ⁸ Tel. ed., 'the rough screw-pine shone'; Srirangam text, 'the screw-pine flower shone.' ⁹ Kāma. ¹⁰ Tel. ed., 'made to cut.' ¹¹ Tel. ed. omits this sentence. ¹² Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'masses of pearls.' ¹³ Tel. ed., 'whirling from the violence of the wind like masses of stars reduced to powder by contact with banks of clouds.' ¹⁴ Tel. ed. adds 'the new meadow seemed like an upper garment, marked with liquid lac, for the breast of Lady Earth with her cochineal. The maid-servant Rainy Season being departed after bathing the heroine Earth with water from the jars of the clouds, the maid-servant Autumn came, showing bright raiment'; similarly the Srirangam text. ¹⁵ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, 'very beginning.' ¹⁶ Tel. ed., 'with its wagtails well.' ¹⁷ Tel. ed. omits this clause.