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Canto: VIII
 
The condition of the Tamil country after the Muslim
occupation.
 
Verily has become the abode of tigers, true
... (incomplete).
 
to its name....
 
In Srirangam the lord of serpents is seen
warding off the tumbling debris of brick with his hood
lest their fall disturb the sleep of yoga in which Hari
is wrapped up there.
 
When I look at the state of the temples of other
gods also, my distress knows no bounds. The foldings
of their door are eaten up by wood worms. The arches
over their inner sanctuaries are rent with wild growths
of vegetation.
 
Those temples which were once resonant with
the sounds of mridanga drums are now echoing the
fearful howls of jackals.
 
The river Kāvēri, uncurbed by proper bunds
or dams, has become deflected very much from her
time-honoured course, and flows in all sorts of wrong
directions as if imitating the Turuşkas in their actions.
 
The Brahmin streets, where once the sacrifi-
cial smoke was ever seen rising, and the chanting of
Vēdās always greeted the ears, now exhude the musty
odour of meat, and resound with the lion-roars of
drunken Turuşṣkas.
 
I very much lament for what has happened to
the groves in Madhura. The cocoanut trees have all