Chapter CVIII - Description of a draught and dearth

Argument. The distress of Chandalas caused by famine and want of Rain.

The king continued to say said:—

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Time passed away, and old age overtook me, and turned my beard to blades of grass covered with hoar frost.

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My days glided away in alternate joy and grief, brought on by my fate and acts; just as a river flows on with the green and dried leaves, which the winds scatter over it.

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Quarrels and broils, misfortunes and mischances, befell on me every moment; and beset me as thickly and as fastly as the arrows of woe flying in a warfare.

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My foolish mind kept fluttering like a bird, in the maze of my wishes and fancies; and my heart was perturbed by passions, like the sea by its raging waves.

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My soul was revolving on the vehicle of my wandering thoughts; and I was borne away by them like a floating straw, to the whirlpool of the eventful ocean of time.

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I that moved about like a worm amidst the woodlands of Vindhya, for my simple supportance, felt myself in the process of years, to be weakened and pulled down in my frame, like a biped beast of burthen.

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I forgot my royalty like a dead man, in that state of my wretchedness, and was confirmed in my belief of a Chandala, and bound to that hilly spot like a wingless bird.

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The world appeared to me, as desolate as at its final desolation; and as a forest consumed by a conflagration; it seemed as the sea-shore lashed by huge surges; and as a withered tree struck by a lightning.

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The marshy ground at the foot of Vindhya was all dried up, and left no corn nor vegetable, nor any water for food or drink; and the whole group of Chandalas, was about to die in dearth and dryness.

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The clouds ceased to rain, and disappeared from sight; and the winds blew with sparks of fire in them. (The hot winds of the monsoon called agni-vrishti).

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The forest trees were bare and leafless, and the withered leaves were strewn over the ground; wild fires were raging here and there, and the wood-lands became as desolate, as the abodes of austere ascetics (dwelling in the deserts).

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There ensued a formidable famine, and a furious flame of wildfire spread all around;it burnt down the whole forest, and reduced the grass and gravels all to ashes.

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The people were daubed with ashes all over their bodies, and were famishing for want of food and drink; because the land was without any article of food or even grass or water in it, and had turned to a dreary desert.

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The mirage of the desert glistened as water, and deluded the dry buffaloes to roll in it (as in a pool); and there was no current of breeze to cool the desert air.

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The call and cry for water, came only to the ears of men; who were parching under the burning rays of the torrid sun (in the Deccan).

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The hungry mob, hurrying to browse the branches and herbs, yielded their lives in those acts; while others sharpened their teeth, in their acts of tearing and devouring one another.

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Some ran to bite the gum of catechu, thinking it to be a bit of flesh; while others were swallowing the stones, as if they were cakes lying on the ground before them.

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The ground was sprinkled with blood, by the mutual biting and tearing of men; as when blood is spilt in profusion, by the lion's killing a big and starving elephant.

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Every one was as ferocious as a lion, in his attempt to devour another as his prey; and men mutually fought with one another, as wrestlers do in their contest.

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The trees were leafless, and the hot winds were blowing as fire-brands on all sides; and wild cats were licking the human blood, that was spilt on the rocky ground.

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The flame of the wild fire rose high in the air, with clouds of smoke whirling with the howling winds of the forest; it growled aloud in every place, and filled the forest-land with heaps of brown cinders and burning fire brands.

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Huge serpents were burnt in their caves, and the fumes rising from these burning bodies, served to grow the poisonous plants on the spot;while the flame stretching aloft with the winds, gave the sky an appearance of the glory of the setting sun.

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Heaps of ashes were lifted like dust, by the high howling winds, and stood as domes unsupported by pillars in the open sky; and the little children stood crying for fear of them, beside their weeping parents.

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There were some men who tore a dead body with their teeth, and in their great haste to devour the flesh, bit their own hands and fingers, which were besmeared in their own blood.

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The vultures flying in the air, darted upon the smoke, thinking it a turret of trees, and pounced upon the fire brands, taking them for bits of raw flesh.

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Men biting and tearing one another, were flying in all directions;when the splitting of the burning wood hit upon their breasts and bellies, and made them gory with blood gushing out of them.

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The winds were howling in the hollow caves, and the flames of the wild fire flashing with fury; the snakes were hissing for fear of these, and the burnt woods were falling down with hideous noise.

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Thus beset by dangers and horrors, with no other shelter than the rugged hollows of rocks, this place presented a picture of this world, with its circumambient flames, burning as the twelve zodiacal suns on high.

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The winds were blowing hot amidst the burning woods and rocks, and drying up all things; and the heat of the fire below and the sunbeams above, together with the domestic calamities caused by influence of the planet Saturn, made this place a counterpart of this woeful world.