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130
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
TRANSLATION
Om !
Adoration to the holy Vasudeva! (Verse 1.) May that Vaikuntha protect you, who, frightening the whole world with his roaring, as boar and as man-lion, slew the three chief Asuras, Kapila and the rest, (who were) terrible in the world, (and who) possessed one body which by the boon of Brahman enjoyed freedom from fear (and) could be destroyed (only) by (Vaikuntha) having assumed those forms!
(2.) May the three strides of the god Hari, (made) when he was cheating Bali, (and) at once praised by the astounded gods and demons, protect the three worlds ! Even now that one father of the three worlds, Hara, bears on his head the holy water which, respectfully then offered by Brahman, fell on (Hari's) lotus-foot.
(3.) May that god protect you, on whose famous breast, broad like the wall of the Añjana mountain, (and) covered with drops of water so that it appeared like the star-covered sky, (and) marked with scars by the swords of the Daityas, fell, withdrawn from all other) inhabitants of heaven, many glances of Lakshmi, agitated with confusion at the proximity of the Mandara mountain !
(4.) Deep like the oceans, pleasing like the moon, radiant with the brilliancy of the sun, firm like the Creator, great like the noblest of mountains, munificent like the trees of paradise, tell me truly, if anywhere there has been another lord, charming with a multitude of spotless excellencies unchangeable to the end of the world, equal to Yasovarman :
(5.) From Nature unmanifested (and) changeless there proceeded here the Great One; from that was born Self-consciousness, which engendered the group of the organs (upagraha); from that in due order the Subtile Elements took their origin, and from them the Gross Elements; from them afterwards proceeded the World."
(6.) Then, when the whole world had come to an end, there was first here by his own greatness the mighty Creator, the first sage of all kinds of knowledge, the divine witness on high, skilful in creating the three worlds, that ruler over all who dwells on the filaments of the opening lotus.
(7.) From that Creator of the universe, that ancient being, that sage who is the abode of sacred knowledge, sprang those early sages of holy conduct, Marichi and the rest. Atri, one of them, begat the sage Chandratreya, who by his ceaseless austerities acquired fierce might, (and) who was a flame of unfeigned intensely radiant knowledge.
(8.) The family proceeding from him, who caused the welfare of the worlds (and) was acquainted with every science (and) a receptacle of sacred lore that came to him of its own accord, is a fit object of laudation; (a family) where neither prowess has caused depression nor flattery elation, in which there has not been a particle even of
• The above gives the general meaning of the verse, I believe, correctly; but the first half of it does not admit of a proper construction.
Compare, ... the Sankhya Aphorisme of Kapila, translated by Ballantyne, Brd Ed., p. 71: Davies. Hindd Philosophy, pp. 20 and 21, 36, 64. The word Tv of the text appears to denote the five organs of sense, the five organs of action, and manas.
