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किं द्वादशात्मनि रवौ भगवन् धृतेर्ष्यः चन्द्रस्ततोऽप्यधिकतामधिगन्तुमेव ।
एते तवेह दश भान्ति पदाङ्गुलीषु स्वात्मान इत्यजनि चित्तदृगर्णवेभ्यः ॥४८॥
T: Oh supreme Lord, is it that the moon, envious of the twelve-fold aspected sun, in order to excel him, made his home in Your ten toenails, and added three more- incarnating in the mind, Ṛṣi Atri's eye and his rising from the Milky Ocean?
Explanation: द्वादशात्मो दिवाकरः states Amarakośa (the celebrated thesaurus of Sanskrit). Thus the sun has twelve forms. Seeing this, the moon became jealous and wanted to show himself in thirteen forms! So what he did, in the imagination of the poet, first came and settled in each of the ten toenails of Bhagavan Bhagavān Śrī Varadarāja in Kāñcī. Then, he incarnated in the mind चन्द्रमा मनसो जातः। अत्रिनेत्रसमुद्भूतः declares the Purāṇa, meaning that the moon was born in the eye of Ṛṣi Atri. Finally, the moon rose in his thirteenth form when the Milky Ocean was churned! Thus, with thirteen forms of his own, the moon got one over the sun with twelve forms. The poet is declaring here that the toenails of Lord Śrī Varadarāja shine like ten moons. It is moot if the moon really acted jealously towards the sun, but the poet has come up with this Utprekṣā figure of speech.
