Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/248

214 living under a father's curse as a hunter. It was Viswamitra who, returning after the famine was over, changed the name of the stream laving his asylum from Kausiki into Pãrã [sic]. It was Viswamitra who, in return for the services of Matanga, himself became the latter's priest for purposes of a sacrifice. The lord of the celestials himself went from fear to that sacrifice for drinking the Soma juice. It was Viswamitra who in anger created a second world and numerous stars beginning with Sravana. He it was who granted protection to Trisanku under a superior's curse. I am frightened to approach him whose deeds are such! Tell me, O Indra, the means that should be adopted so that I may not be burnt by his wrath. He can burn the three worlds by his splendour, can, by a stamp, cause the earth to quake. He can sever the great Meru from the earth and hurl it at any distance. He can go round the ten points of the earth in a moment. How can a woman like us even touch such a one full of ascetic virtue, like unto blazing fire, and having his passions under complete control! His mouth is like unto the blazing fire, the pupile [sic] of his eye are like the Sun and the Moon, his tongue is like unto Yama himself. How shall, O chief of the celestials, a woman like us even touch him? At the thought of his prowess, Yama, Shoma, the great Rishis, the Saddhyas, the Viswas, the Valakhillyas, are terrified! How can a woman like me refrain from gazing at him in alarm? Commanded, however, by thee, O king of the celestials, I shall somehow approach that Rishi. But, O chief of the gods, devise thou some plan whereby, protected by thee, I may safely move about that Rishi! I think that when I begin to play before the Rishi, Maruta (the god of wind) had better go there and rob me of my dress, and Manmatha (the god of love) had also, at thy command, better help me then. And let also Maruta on that occasion bear thither fragrance from the woods to tempt the Rishi." Saying this, and all she said having been duly provided, Menaka then went to the retreat of the great Kaushika.

And thus endeth the seventy-first Section in the Sambhava of the Adi Parva.