for no social merit can be higher than giving up the
world for the sake of the national ideal of spirituality.
Woodlands-where rectuses live.
Covered, etc. --this seems to have been the custom, to prevent the food from being seen by the passers-by.]
गङ्गातरंगणशीकरशीतलानि |
24. Ah ! is it that those Himalayan solitudes, cooled by the spray of minute bits of Gang’s waves and abounding in beautiful rocky flats such as are the haunts of the Vidyadharas, are all engulfed in destruction, that men in disgrace hang on others for their maintenance ?
[कण and शीकर have much the same sense, For कण some read हिम meaning cold.
The Vidyadharas are unearthly beings with super human skill in arts, specially music.]
किं कन्दाः कन्दरेभ्यः प्रलयमुपगता निर्भरा वा गिरिभ्यः |
25 . Or is it that herbs and roots have all disappeared from caves, and streams have gone