Chapter 26

“Sauti said, ‘And then Indra, the king of gods, having the best of horsesfor his bearer, thus adored by Kadru, covered the entire firmament withmasses of blue clouds. And he commanded the clouds, saying, Pour ye, yourvivifying and blessed drops!’ And those clouds, luminous with lightning,and incessantly roaring against each other in the welkin, poured abundantwater.

And the sky, in consequence of those wonderful andterribly-roaring clouds that were incessantly begetting vast quantitiesof water, looked as if the end of Yuga had come. And in consequence ofthe myriads of waves caused in the falling torrents, the deep roar of theclouds, the flashes of lightning, the violence of the wind, and thegeneral agitation, the sky looked as if dancing in madness. The skybecame overcast, and the rays of the Sun and the Moon totally disappearedin consequence of that incessant downpour.

“And upon Indra’s causing that downpour, the Nagas became exceedinglydelighted. And the Earth was filled with water all around. And the cool,clear water reached even the nether regions. And there were countlesswaves of water all over the Earth. And the snakes with their motherreached (in safety) the island called Ramaniyaka.”

And so ends the twenty-sixth section in the Astika Parva of the Adi Parva.