61. I oft remember said one, the giddy song and dance of celestial nymphs, in the thick and shady groves of sailendra-trees, and in the coverts of mountains beside the heavenly stream; and it rends my heart like the lotus flower, as it opens its petals in the morning.
62. Another one said:—Look at this ocean of blood, sparkling like the melted gold on the top of the golden mountain of Meru; and brightening the beams of the rising and setting sun, or as the moon-beams spread over the face of all sides of heaven.
63. Alas! we know not where the earth is gone, with all her circumambient oceans about the continents; nor do we know where that high hill of Himálaya has fled, which was the resort of many rainy clouds, and yielded the lotus flowers on its summit.
64. We know neither where those rivers, forests and groves have gone, which decorated the earth before; and pity for the cities and villages and their people, that are now to be seen no more.
CHAPTER CXXXV.
Disappearance of the Carcass, and the Reappearance of the Earth.
Argument:—The corpse was eaten up by the ghosts, and its blood sucked up by the goddess.
Vasishtha resumed and said:—After the corpse had been partly devoured by the demons, the gods who had been sitting on the polar mount, with Vásava or Indra at their head spoke to one another in the following manner.
2. Lo! the voracious goblins have not yet wholly devoured the corpse; but flung its fat and flesh into the air to prove the paths of vehicles of Vidyádharas; and these being wafted away and scattered about by the winds, appear as huge masses of clouds overspreading the skies.
3. See them also throwing away the relics of their food and drink, over the seven continents and oceans of the earth, and making it again to reappear to view (in the forms of its mud and waters).
4. Alas! that the once delightsome earth, is now polluted by the impure carrion and blood; and covered under the garniture of its forests, as the sky is over shadowed by clouds.