And pouring in a great
quantity of water and filling the whole earth, they quench that terrible
inauspicious fire (of which I have already spoken to thee). And urged by
the illustrious Lord those clouds filling the earth with their downpour
shower incessantly for twelve years. And then, O Bharata, the Ocean
oversteps his continents, the mountains sunder in fragments, and the
Earth sinks under the increasing flood. And then moved on a sudden by
the impetus of the wind, those clouds wander along the entire expanse of
the firmament and disappear from the view. And then, O ruler of men, the
Self-create Lord--the first Cause of everything--having his abode in the
lotus, drinketh those terrible winds and goeth to sleep, O Bharata!
"'And then when the universe become one dead expanse of water, when all
mobile and immobile creatures have been destroyed, when the _gods_ and
the _Asuras_ cease to be, when the _Yakshas_ and the _Rakshasas_ are no
more, when man is not, when trees and beasts of prey have disappeared,
when the firmament itself has ceased to exist, I alone, O lord of the
earth, wander in affliction. And, O best of kings, wandering over that
dreadful expanse of water, my heart becometh afflicted in consequence of
my not beholding any creature! And, O king, wandering without cessation,
through that flood, I become fatigued, but I obtain no resting place!
And some time after I behold in that expanse of accumulated waters a
vast and wide-extending banian tree, O lord of earth! And I then behold,
O Bharata, seated on a conch, O king, overlaid with a celestial bed and
attached to a far-extended bough of that banian, a boy, O great king, of
face fair as the lotus or the moon, and of eyes, O ruler of men, large
as petals of a full blown lotus! And at this sight, O lord of earth,
wonder filled my heart.
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