66. It resembled a wanton woman, besmeared with red powder as the sunbeams, and sandal paste like the moonbeams; and attentive to the whistlings of the breeze. (Thinking them to be hissings of men).
67. The god of the winds having travelled all over the seven continents and their seas, and being tired with his long journey on the surface of the earth; rested his gigantic body which fills the infinite space in all directions, on the top of that mountain; like a butterfly resting on the twig of a tree, after its wearied flight in the air.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
Consummation of Súchí’s Devotion.
Argument. Return of the god of winds to the Indra, and his narration of the Devotion of Súchí and her desired Boon.
The god of the winds beheld Súchí standing erect, like a crest on the summit of the mountain, amidst that vast tract of the desert all around.
2. She stood upon one leg fixed in her meditation and roasted by the burning sun over her head; she was dried up to a skeleton by her continued fasting, and her belly was contracted to the shrunken skin. (i.e. She was threadbare as skin in all her body and belly).
3. Now and then, she inhaled the hot air with her open mouth, and then breathed it out, as her heart could not contain the repeated influx of air. (Respiration of air is practised by Yogis, to sustain their lives therewith for want of solid food).
4. She was withered under the scorching sunbeams, and battered in her frame by the hotter winds of the desert; yet she moved not from her stand-point, as she was relieved every night by the cold bath of moonbeams.
5. She was content with covering her head under the particles of dust, and did not like to change her state for a better fortune. (i.e. She preferred her poverty to high dignity).
6. She gave up the possession of her forest to other living beings, and lived apart from all in the form of a crest of hair. Her breathings being withdrawn to the cranium, appeared out of it as a tuft of hairs or bushes clapped on her head. (Air confined in the cranium, is said to keep the body alive for ages).