01.202
Pancharatra: Sunda and Upasunda cause overall destruction.
Nārada said.
But just after the festival was completed, both, desiring the three worlds, consulted together and then those two ordered the army.
With the permission of their friends, the elder Daityas, and counselors, after performing the departure ceremony at night under the Maghā constellation, they set out.
The one bearing a mace and spear, holding a trident and club in her hands, set out together with her wife and the great army of Daityas.
Accompanied by auspicious songs, praises, and victory chants, and being praised by celestial bards, they proceeded with great joy.
Then the two Daityas, able to move at will, rose into the sky and, intoxicated by the prospect of battle, went straight to the gods' abode.
When the gods learned of the arrival of those two and the boon granted by the lord, they left heaven and went to Brahma's world.
Those two, possessing intense valor, after conquering Indra's world and the hosts of Yakṣas and Rākṣasas, also desired to defeat the sky-dwelling beings.
After defeating the Nāgas who had gone underground, those two mighty Asuras also subdued all the foreign tribes living by the ocean.
Then, both with stern command, began their conquest of the whole earth; having summoned the soldiers, they spoke sharp words.
Royal sages and the twice-born, through great sacrifices and offerings to gods and ancestors, increase the splendor, strength, and prosperity of the gods.
Therefore, of all those enemies of the asuras who have thus grown powerful, we all must unite and with all our strength bring about their destruction.
Thus, after instructing everyone on the eastern shore of the great ocean, and adopting a cruel resolve, they set out in all directions.
Seeing all those twice-born who worship by sacrifices and those who cause others to perform sacrifices, the two strong ones then killed them all by force.
The soldiers of those two (Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa), confidently took the sacrificial fires of the sages whose minds are purified in the hermitages and threw them into the waters.
Even the curses uttered by the enraged ascetics of great soul do not affect those two, for they are protected by the boon granted to the yawning ones.
When the curses and arrows released did not go beyond (their mark), like arrows striking stones, then the twice-born, abandoning their restraints, fled.
On earth, those perfected in austerity, self-restrained and devoted to tranquility, out of fear of the two, the serpents fled as if from Garuḍa.
The world, with its hermitages churned, water pots and ladles broken and scattered, appeared empty, as if it had been destroyed by time.
The two great asuras, invisible to the royal sages and the sages, both having resolved, engaged in battle, each intent on killing the other.
Having assumed the form of intoxicated, broken-tusked elephants, they drove even those concealed in the fortresses to their death.
The two, having taken the forms of lions and then tigers, and then vanishing again, by various means, those two cruel ones, upon seeing the bulls, killed them both.
At that time, sacrifices and self-study ceased, kings and Brāhmaṇas were lost, festivals and sacrifices were destroyed, and the earth became like this.
They had become wailing, stricken with fear, with all market-trading and divine activities ceased, and devoid of auspicious marriages.
Agriculture and cow protection ceased; cities and hermitages were destroyed. The earth became filled with bones and skeletons, appearing terrible.
When the ancestral rites had ceased and the auspicious Vaṣaṭ-chant was absent, the world took on a fearful appearance and became difficult to behold.
The moon, sun, planets, stars, constellations, and all the gods were filled with grief when they saw what Sunda and Upasunda had done.
Thus, having conquered all directions by cruel deeds, the two Daityas, now without rivals, established their settlement in Kurukṣetra.
