द्वितीय राजतरङ्गिणी (जोनराज - कल्हणोत्तर मध्यकालीन कश्मीर का प्रामाणिक इतिहास)

KINGS OF KASHMÍRA. 93

seemed like that of an enemy who had surrounded the
city. Then the Brāhmaṇas chanted their incantations
and bowed to the Nāgas, and boys began to cry; but
like the king of death the king of the Nāgas neither felt
fear nor pity. The boys clasped the necks of their
mothers in fear, and the mothers shed tears, as if they
worshipped the lord of the Nāgas with pearls. [As the
water rose], the children got up from the feet of their
mothers to their lap, then to their shoulders, and then
to their head, and finally departed from them even as
life departs from the body; and the agitated water of
the inundation clasped the trembling limbs of the
women like a lover. It covered every thing, small and
large, thin and thick, little and great, and spread itself
over all like darkness. The lord of the Nāgas, unable to
brook the touch of the wicked who were drowned in
that fathomless water, stayed like a good man in the
woods. Kāliya was the name of the lord of the Nāgas,
and his head when pressed by the feet of Nārāyaṇa
received the impression of the feet, and hence he obtain-
ed the name of Mahāpadma. The king heard some
one telling him in a dream that he was an incarnation of
Nārāyaṇa and that his purpose to reconstruct Kashmīra
which lay in ruin would be fulfilled. For a short time
he revolved in his mind as to how he could accom-
plish the work. The Nāga did not refrain from punish-
ing the city for the evil practices of the people; why
should a great being like him put up with a wrong