Jímútaváhana (on seeing Śankhachúda).
Alas! my desire has become fruitless through the arrival of Śankhachúda.
Garúda (looking at them both).
Both of you wear the distinctive badge of victims. Which is really the Nága I know not.
Śankhachúda.
The error is a likely one, forsooth. Not to mention the mark of the Swastika[1] on the breast, are there not the scales on my body? Do you not count my two tongues as I speak? Nor see these three hoods of mine, the compressed wind hissing through them in my insupportable anguish? While the brightness of my gems is distorted by the thick smoke from the fire of my direful poison.
Garúda (looking at both, and noticing the hood
of Śankhachúda).
Who, then, is this that I have destroyed?
Śankhachúda.
It is Jímútaváhana, the ornament of the race of Vidyádharas. How was this done by thee, O merciless one?
Garúda (to himself).
Ah! How, indeed, was it done? This, then, is that
- ↑ "Swastika" is a mystical figure in the form of a cross. This passage might serve as a "locus classicus" for the Hindu conception of a Nága. Mr Fergusson gives pictures, taken from sculptures, of Nágas with three, five, or seven hoods.
