BRAHMINS VERSUS KSHATRIYAS 407
determined, the divine sage Vishvamitra, his eyes reddened by anger, called to mind the chief of rivers. She being thus the subject of his thoughts, became very anxious, as she knew him to be very powerful and very irascible. Then trembling palid, and with joined hands, the Sarasvati stood before the chief of munis. Like a woman whose husband has been slain, she was greatly distressed; and said to him, ‘What shall I do?” The incensed muni replied, ‘Bring Vashishtha hither speedily, that I may slay him.’ The lotus-eyed goddess, joining her hands trembled in great fear, like a creeping plant agitated by the wind”………. Vishvamitra, however, although he saw her condition, repeated his command. “The Sarasvati, who knew how sinful was his design, and that the might of Vashishtha was unequalled, went trembling, and in great dread of being cursed by both the sages, to Vashishtha, and told him what his rival had said. Vashishtha seeing her emaciated, pale, and anxious, spoke thus: ‘Deliver thyself, O chief of rivers; carry me unhesitatingly to Vishvamitra, lest he curse thee’. Hearing these words of the merciful sage, the Sarasvati considered how she could act most wisely. She reflected, ‘Vashishtha has always shown me great kindness; I must seek his welfare.’ Then obsering the Kausika sage praying and sacrificing on her brink, she regarded that as a good opportunity, and swept away the bank by the force of her current. In this way the son of Mitra and Varuna (Vashishtha) was carried down; and while he was being borne along, he thus celebrated the river: ‘Thou, O Sarasvati, issuest from the lake of Brahma, and pervadest the whole world with thy excellent streams. Residing in the sky, thou dischargest water into the colouds. Thou alone art all waters. By these we study.’ ‘Thou art nourishment, radiance, fame, perfection, intellect, light. Thou art speech; thou art Svaha; this world is subject to thee. Thou, in fourfold form, dwellest in all creatures’…….
Beholding Vashishtha brought near by the Sarasvati, Vishvamitra searched for a weapon with which to make an end of him. Perceiving his anger, and dreading lest Brahmanicide should ensue, the river promptly carried away Vashishtha in an easterly direction; thus fulfilling the commands of both sages, but eluding Vishvamitra. Seeing Vashishtha so carried away, Vishvamitra, impatient, and enraged by vexation, said to her: ‘Since thou, O chief of rivers, hast elued me, and hast receded, roll in waves of blood acceptable to the chief of demons,” (which are fabled to gloat on blood). “The Sarasvati, being thus cursed, flowed for a year in a stream mingled with blood….. Rakshasas came to the place of pilgrimage, where Vashishtha had been swept away, and revealed in drinking to satiety