My brother, exalt thyself though in o’erthrow!Sri Aurobindo
Translations
CWSA.- Volume 5
Part One. Translations from Sanskrit
Section Four.
Bhartrihari. The Century of Life
On Pride and Heroism
My brother, exalt thyself though in o’erthrow!
Five noble planets through these spaces roll,
Jupiter is of them; – not on these he leaps,
Rahu1, the immortal demon of eclipse,
In his high magnanimity of soul.
Smit with God’s thunders only his head he keeps,
Yet seizes in his brief and gloomy hour
Of vengeance the great luminous kings of heaven,
Day’s Lord and the light to whom night’s soul is given;
He scorns to strive with things of lesser power.
1 Rahu, the Titan, stole or seized part of the nectar which rose from the world-ocean at the churning by the Gods and Titans and was appropriated by the Gods. For this violence he was smitten in two by the discus of Vishnu; but as he had drunk the nectar, he remains immortal and seeks always to revenge himself by swallowing the Sun and Moon who had detected his theft. The Tortoise mentioned in the next epigram upheld the mountain Mandar, which was the stick of the churning. The Great Snake Ananta was the rope of the churning, he on whose hood the earth now rests.