Daksha, the patriarch, his sacrifice being destroyed, overcome with terror, and utterly broken in spirit, fell prone upon the ground, where his head was spurned by the feet of the cruel Virabhadra. The thirty scores of sacred divinities were all presently bound, with a band of fire, by their lion-like foe; and they all addressed him, crying: “O Rudra, have mercy upon thy servants! O lord, dismiss thine anger!” This spake Brahma, and the other gods, and the patriarch Daksha; and, raising their hands, they said: “Declare, mighty being, who thou art.” Virabhadra said: “I am not a god, nor an Aditya, nor am I come hither for enjoyment, nor curious to behold the chiefs of the divinities. Know that I am come to destroy the sacrifice of Daksha, and that I am called Virabhadra, the issue of the wrath of Rudra. Bhadrakali, also, who has sprung from the anger of Devi, is sent here, by the god of gods, to destroy this rite. Take refuge, king of kings, with him who is the lord of Uma. For better is the anger of Rudra than the blessings of other gods.” Having heard the words of Virabhadra, the righteous Daksha propitiated the mighty god, the holder of the trident, Maheswara. The hearth of sacrifice, deserted by the Brahmans, had been consumed; Yajna had been metamorphosed to an antelope; the fires of Rudra’s wrath had been kindled; the attendants, wounded by the tridents of the servants of the god, were groaning with pain; the pieces of the uprooted sacrificial posts were scattered here and there; and the fragments of the meat-offerings were carried off by flights of hungry vultures and herds of howling jackals. Suppressing his vital airs, and taking up a posture of meditation, the many-sighted victor of his foes, Daksha, fixed his eyes everywhere upon his thoughts. And the god of gods appeared from the altar resplendent as a thousand suns, and smiling upon him, said, “Daksha, thy sacrifice has been destroyed through sacred knowledge, I am well pleased with thee.” And he smiled again, and exclaimed, “What shall I do for thee? Declare, together with the preceptor of the gods.” And Daksha, frightened, alarmed, and agitated, his eyes suffused with tears, raised his hands reverently to his brow, and said, “If, lord, thou art pleased; if I have found favour in thy sight; if I am to be the object of thy benevolence; if thou wilt confer upon me a boon, this is the blessing I solicit, that all these provisions for the solemn sacrifice which have been collected with much trouble and during a long time, and have now been eaten, drunk, devoured, burnt, broken, scattered abroad, may not have been prepared in vain.” “So let it be,” replied Hara, the subduer of Indra. And thereupon Daksha knelt down upon the earth, and praised gratefully the author of righteousness, the three-eyed god Mahádeva, repeating the eight thousand names of the deity whose emblem is a bull. _Public Games._ (Bk. v., c. 10.)