l with the breath of their nostrils, that
passed through their snake-like trunks spotted with dust. Indeed, the
elephants, as they breathed on the ground, looked beautiful like hills
scattered (on the field of battle) over whose breasts hissed gigantic
snakes. Steeds, in trappings of gold and with manes mingling with their
yokes, stamping their hoofs made even grounds uneven. Thus every one, O
king, slept there with the animal he rode. Thus steeds and elephants and
warriors, O bull of Bharata's race, very much worn out with exertion,
slept, abstaining from battle. That slumbering host, deprived of sense
and sunk in sleep, then looked like a wonderful picture drawn on canvas
by skilful artists. Those Kshatriyas, decked in ear-rings and endued with
youth, with limbs mangled by shafts, and immersed in sleep, having laid
themselves down on the coronal globes of elephants, looked as if they
were lying on the deep bosom of beautiful ladies. Then the moon, that
delighter of eye and lord of lilies, of hue white as the checks of a.
beautiful lady, rose, adorning the direction presided over by Indra.[244]
Indeed, like a lion of the Udaya hills, with rays constituting his manes
of brilliant yellow, he issued out of his cave in the east, tearing to
pieces the thick gloom of night resembling an extensive herd of
elephants.[245] That lover of all assemblage of lilies (in the world),
bright as the body of Mahadeva's excellent bull, full-arched and radiant
as Karna's bow, and delightful and charming as the smile on the lips of a
bashful bride, bloomed in the firmament.[246] Soon, however, that divine
lord having the hare for his mark showed himself shedding brighter rays
around. Indeed, the moon, after this seemed to gradually emit a bright
halo of far-reaching light that resembled the splendour of gold. Then the
rays of that luminary, dispelling the darkness by their splendour, slowly
spread themselves over all the quarters, the welkin, and the earth. Soon,
therefore, the world became illuminated. The unspeakable darkness that
had hidden everything quickly fled away. When the world was thus
illuminated into almost daylight by the moon, amongst the creatures that
wander at night, some continued to roam about and some abstained. That
host, O king, awakened by the rays of the sun. Indeed, that sea of troops
was awakened by the rays of the moon bloomed (into life) like an
assemblage of lotuses expanded by the rays of the sun. Indeed, that se