Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/220

 8. Flowery trees, bright with their quivering twigs, surrounded its shore, as if they had taken possession of that place in order to contemplate that lake.

9. Swarms of bees, as if attracted by its laughing lotuses, which were rocking on its gently trembling waves, roamed hovering over its surface. 10,11. Here its beauty was enhanced by its various waterlilies, sleepless through the gentle touch of the moonbeams, which made them resemble patches of moonshine piercing through the foliage. There the pollen of lotuses and waterlilies, conveyed by the finger-like waves, would ornament its shore as if with gold wires.

12. In many other places, where it was covered with the lovely petals and filaments of lotuses and waterlilies, it showed a widespread splendour, as if it bore a gift of homage.

13. Another beauty was due to the limpidity and calmness of its water, which was so transparent as to show the sharp contours and the fair hues of its crowds of fishes, no less conspicuous while swimming beneath its surface than they would have been, if moving in the sky.

14. Near such places, where the elephants, dipping their trunks in it, blew forth cascades of spray glittering like a string of loosened pearls, it seened as if the lake carried waves ground to dust after being driven upon rocks and scattered in the air.

15. Here and there it was perfumed, so to speak, with the fragrances emanating from the ointments used by bathing Vidyâdhara women, from the streams of juice of elephants in rut and from the dust of its (own) flowers.

16. Being so brilliant, that lake was like a general mirror for the stars, the wives of the Moon-god. Gay birds abounded, and their warbling resounded in it.

Such, then, was the lake he had ordered to be constructed, and which he gave to the whole nation of birds to have the unobstructed use and enjoyment of it. Accordingly, in order to inspire all birds with