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8
 

 
durlabhaām cha ganaya kshudrān janān mādṛiśān, Any-
a

ā
padeśaśataka, 68.
 

 
The clouds of the highest lineage, as Kālidāsa

would have it, of the Pushkalas and Āvartakas, jātam

vamse bhuvanaviīdite pushkalaāvartakaānām, Meghaduūta, 1,

6, represent assurance of the highest celestial abundance

of prosperity from on either side of Lakshmiī as Gajal-

akshmiī, and bring on Dhānyalakshmiī and Bhāgya-

lakshmiī. These clouds are none other than the celestial

elephants of the quarters which are in another heavenly

world of clouds, that as normal clouds have a silvery

downpour of rain on earth, but sometimes as wonder

clouds a certain downpour of gold as well. There is a

belief that the elephants of the quarters, immense in

their size, and potent in their drawal of the oceanic

waters, fill themselves to their heart's content of the

water from the ocean and propelled by strong gusts pour
freely from time to time in one place or another on

freely from time to time in one place or another on
earth to promote wealth and prosperity: hasti samudrād
ada
ī samudrād
ādā
ya karena jalam ipsitam, dadyad dhanaya tad dadyād
īpsitam, dadyād dhaṇāya tad dadyād
vātena prerito ghanaḥ, sthāne prithivyām cha tathā kāle

kale yathochitam.
 

 
There is probably nowhere else the dipiction of

clouds so telling and picturesque as at Barabudur in

Indonesia, where, in three successive panels, the rain of

corn, of cloth and gold (Fig. 11) is depicted. The depic-
tion of the contours of the clouds in sculpture is difficult,

tion of the contours of the clouds in sculpture is difficult,
but the sculptor has wonderfully succeeded. Kālidāsa has

no words to describe the showers of the impossible, by

clouds, in themselves as beautiful as to be almost impo-

ssible, and naturally their sudden downpour is of the

most fragrant heavenly flowers to express the joy of

heaven gandhodagram tadanu vavrishuh pushpam asṛishuḥ pushpam āśch-