Garuda (on hearing this).
He says—"Alas! my son Jímútaváhana!" This then is doubtless his father. How can I burn myself in this fire? I am ashamed to appear before them after slaying their son. Yet why should I be troubled about a fire? Am not I on the ocean's brink? I will cast myself into the submarine fire,[1] terrible as the destined consumer of the world at the end of a "kalpa," having kindled it by the wind of my own wings, fiercer than any supernatural blast, which will make the flames flicker like the tips of the tongue of Death, when enjoying the relish of licking up the three worlds, and which span the sea, and reach even to threaten the sun's domain.
Jímútaváhana.
O king of birds, away with this resolve! This would be no expiation for your sin.
Garuda (falling on his knees, and putting his
hands together).
O magnanimous one, tell me then what expiation is there?
- ↑ "Vádava," or submarine fire. "In Hindu mythology this is represented as a being consisting of flame, but with the head of a mare, who sprang from the thigh of Úrva, and was received by the ocean."—Wilson's Dictionary. He is also called Aurva Bhárgava, He will destroy the world at the end of the "kalpa" or aeon. The Brahmanical "kalpa" consists of four thousand, three hundred, and twenty millions of solar years.
