28. The sportive fire danced about like a playful actor, in the ruinous stage of the world.
29. The fire ravaged through all lands and islands, and desolated all forests and forts; it filled all caves and caverns and the hollow vault of sky, till at last it over reached the tops of the ten sides of heaven.
30. It blazed in caverns and over cities and in all sides of dales, and the lands; it blazed over hills and mountain tops, and the sites of the siddhas and on the seas and oceans.
31. The flames flashing from the eyes of Siva, and the Rudras, boiled the waters of the lakes and rivers; and burned the bodies of devas and demons, and those of men and serpent races; and there arose a hoarse whispering sound from everywhere.
32. With column of flaming fire over their head, they began to play by throwing ashes upon one another; like the playful demon’s flirtation with dust and water.
33. Flames flashed forth from subterranean cells and caves on earth, and all things situated amidst them, were reddened by their light.
34. All the sides of heaven lost their azure hue, under the vermilion colour of the clouds which hung over them; and all things and the rubicund sky, lost their respective hues, and assumed the rosy tint of the red lotus (sthala padma—growing on land).
35. The world appeared to be covered under a crimson canopy, by the burning flames which overspread it all around, and resembled the evening sky under the parting glories of the setting sun.
36. Overspread with the flaming fires, the sky appeared as an overhanging garden of blooming Asoka flowers, or as a bed of the red kinsuka blossoms hanging aloft in the sky.
37. The earth appeared to be strewn over with red lotuses and the seas seemed to be sprinkled with red dye; in this manner the fire blazed in many forms, with its tails and crests of smoke.