22 PADUMAWATI. [42-45. Ye are but soft clay, still mounted on the Potter's wheel. Still whirl ye round (in the circle of existence) nor can ye remain steadfast. As the clock is fulfilled, your life diminisheth. Tell me, why sleepest thou secure, O wayfarer? Yea, watch by watch, the chimes ring forth, yet your hearts are careless, and no soul awakeneth.' Saith Muḥammad, Life is but the filling of water, as in a clock or in a Persian-wheel. The hour cometh, and life is filled. Then it is poured forth, and all man's days are gone. 43. In the fort are two rivers, the Nira and the Khira, .each endless in its flow like unto (the store of) Draupadi. Also there is a spring which is built of crushed pearls, whose water is nectar, and whose mud is camphor. Only the king drinketh its waters, which give him continual youth so long as he liveth. By it is a golden tree, like unto the wishing tree in Indra's palace. Deep down to hell go its roots, and up to heaven go its branches. So life-giving a tree, who can reach it? Who can taste it? Its leaves are like the moon, and its flowers like the stars, so that by it is the whole city illumined. Some by austerities obtain its fruit, and eating it in old age obtain renewed youth. Kings have made themselves beggars when they heard of its ambrosial delights. For he who hath obtained it becometh immortal, nor suffereth pain or disease. 44. Above the fort dwell only captains of castles, captains of horses, cap- tains of elephants, captains of land, captains of men. All their palaces are decked out with gold, and each is as a king in his own house. Handsome wealthy, and fortunate, their very portals are overlaid with philosophers' stones. Ever enjoying happiness and magnificence : no one ever knoweth what is sorrow or care in his life. In every palace is there the game of caupār, * and there the princes' sit and play upon the boards. They throw the dice, and fine is the game, each without an equal in his sword and in his generosity. Bards sing of glorious deeds, and receive as their gift elephants and horses of Simhala. In every palace is a garden, odorous of perfumes and of sandal. There night and day is it spring, through all the sis seasons and through all the twelve months. 45. Again went I forward and saw the royal gateway; (so great a crowd surroundeth it that) a man might wander round and round and not find the door. At the gate are tied elephants of Simhala, standing up- right like unto living mountains. Some of them are white or yellow or bay; others sorrel or black as smoke. Of every hue are they, like clouds in the sky, and there they sit like pillars of that sky. My tale is of Simhali elephants of Simhala, each one mightier than the other. Mountains and hills can they thrust aside; trees do they root up, and shake, and thrust into 1 From their names we may assume that one flowed with water and the other with milk. According to the Mahābhārata (Vana-p.. 3. 72–74). Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandavas was a todel housewife. No matter how little she cooked, it was always exactly enough to satisfy her five husbands, and it was impossible to empty her store room. As soon as she had eaten her meal, after her husbands, the store room was found empty for the time being 2 Again Indra's heaven, Amaravatī, is confused with Çiva's. 8 Bhoga means pleasures of the senses, vilāsa external magnificence.
- See verse xxxvi. The board on which the game is played is called sära.
