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.