Part 13: Description of Śatruñjaya

In some places like Vaitāḍhya in a foreign country because of its heaps of silver slabs; in other places like the slopes of Meru transferred here, with its piles of golden slabs; here with its jewel-mines like another Latnācala; there with its herbs like Himādri put in another place; looking as if it had put on a jacket in the form of dense clouds clinging to it; as if an upper garment were hanging from the shoulder in the form of cascades; wearing a lofty diadem by day, as it were, in the form of the sun near its peak; wearing a sandal-tilaka by night in the form of the moon; with a thousand heads, as it were, in its peaks filling the sky; having many arms, as it were, in the form of tall palm trees; crowded with monkeys falling quickly on clusters of ripe reddish fruit in the tall groves of cocoa-nuts under the impression they were their own children; with Saurāṣṭra-women engaged in picking mangoes and singing sweet songs to which the deer listened with pricked up ears; its table-lands filled with old ketakī-trees with gray hair made, as it were, in the guise of thorns that had appeared; just as if it had a row of auspicious tilakas made on the body by the sinduvāra-trees^[1] pale as sandal-paste, here and there; with an imitation of the waved-leaf fig-tree and the banyan made by the tamarind trees twisted together by the tails of monkeys on their branches; adorned with bread-fruit whose fruit always has erect hair^[2] as if delighted at the wealth of their great extent; marked with śleṣmātaka-trees resembling the darkness of the night before the new moon, like peaks of the Añjana Mountains that had been brought here; adorned with kiṃśukas with a wealth of flowers red like parrots’ bills, like an elephant with marks of saffron;^[3] with parties formed of Śabara-women drinking wine sometimes made of grapes, sometimes from date-palms, and sometimes from palmyra-palms; wearing an armor, as it were, in the form of pavilions from groves of betel-creepers, not to be pierced even by the unhindered arrows of the sun’s rays; with the cud being chewed by groups of deer delighted with the sweetness of green dūrvā-grass shoots, under the big trees; adorned with parrots close together, like real cat’s eye, their closed bills buried in the sweetness of mango-fruit for a long time; the slabs of stone dusty from the pollen of the ketakī, campaka, aśoka, kadamba, and bakula trees blown up by the wind; with the ground of its slopes and at the foot of the mountain made muddy all around by the juice of the cocoa-nuts split open by caravans of travelers; adorned with a mass of trees like one grove distinguished by abundance from Bhadraśāla, etc; fifty yojanas at the base, ten at the peak (in circumference), and eight high, the mountain was ascended by the Lord.

The Blessed One, benefiting all, sat down in the samavasaraṇa made immediately by the gods and delivered a sermon. The mountain repeated, as it were, by echoes arising from the caves the Lord’s sermon delivered in a deep voice. The Lord of the Three Worlds ceased speaking when three hours had passed, like a cloud in the rainy season ceasing rain. Then the God of gods rose from that place, and seated himself on the dais made by the gods inside the middle wall. Then the chief gaṇadhara, Śrī Puṇḍarīka, sat down on the Lord’s footstool, like a crown prince on that of the sovereign. The best of gaṇabhṛts delivered a sermon on dharma, as easily as the Blessed One, to the assembly seated in the same way. He completed his sermon in the second period of the day, like the wind the sprinkling of the nectar of frost at dawn. The Lord remained there for some time, as on Aṣṭāpada, delivering sermons on dharma for the benefit of the people.