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MADHURAVIJAYAM
 
16
 
disc, umbrella, lotus, banner, and fish. His tiny fingers,
reddish and soft as tender foliage, were also beautiful to
look at. He bore the hairy sign of Srivatsa on his breast
which suggested that he was an avatāra of Visnu, and,
that unbroken prosperity would mark his life. His
forehead was adorned with a circle of hair between the
eye-brows. His eyes were large like the petals of
blooming lotus. His nose was lofty; and a sweet smile
played on his red lips. Altogether, the child's face was
surpassingly beautiful.
 
31. Tears of joy, for a while, acted as a check on
the steadfast look of his eyes that feasted on the cherubic
form of the child.
 
32. The king embraced the child with his eyes;
and the excessive emotion in his mind burst out as
manifest by horripulation.
 
33. On an auspicious day, the jāta karman rites
of the child were performed as directed by the priest,
and the child grew in splendour like the god of fire
that witnesses those rites.
 
34. The king who always looked ahead named his
child Kampana, as he clearly foresaw in his mind that,
in proper time, the latter would become a matchless
warrior, and was sure to make his enemies in the field
of battle quake with fear.
 
35. Just as the sacrificer tends the fire with ghee
offerings, and just as the cloud sustains the corn with
rains, so too, the king had his child brought up by
trustworthy nurses.
 
36. He was overjoyed to hear the lisping words
and to look at the tottering gaits of his child, who had