Verse 24

¹⁶Having asked pardon of the generous one in this way, and given leave by Brahma, he carried the rite on with his teachers and his priests and the rest. ¹⁷To carry the sacrifice on, the best of the twice-born offered Visnu his cake on three potsherds, to make clean what the hero's touch had left. ¹⁸Lord of men, as the priest took up the offering, the man holding the sacrifice held him in mind with a mind made wholly clean; and Hari showed himself. ¹⁹His own light lit the ten quarters and stole the brightness out of theirs; and he was carried there by Tarksya, whose wings are the hymns of praise. ²⁰He is dark, a golden girdle at his waist, wearing a crown like the sun, his face set off by his earrings and by the bees that are his dark curls; his golden arms are busy with conch and lotus and disc, arrow and bow, mace and sword and shield, like a karnikara in flower.

²¹His lady rests on his chest and he wears a garland of the woods; with a shade of open smiling in his look he gives the world delight. Fans and yak-tail whisks moved at his sides like royal geese, and above him the white parasol shone on him like a moon. ²²Seeing him come, all the hosts of the gods and the rest, with Brahma and Indra and the three-eyed one at their head, stood up at once and bowed. ²³Their brightness put out by his, their tongues failing them, in awe, with their folded hands held to their heads, they stood before the one beyond the reach of the senses. ²⁴Though their minds fall short of his greatness, the self-born and the others praised him as far as they could understand him, him whose very body is a grace done.