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गङ्गाच्छलेन तव निःसृतमूर्ध्वगाढसङ्घट्टनात् पदनखाग्रमयूखलेशम् ।
आलोक्य नूनममराः पतितं पयोधावामथ्य तं जगृहुरीश तदिन्दुरूपम् ॥५०॥
T: Oh Lord of the three worlds, carried then by the force of Gaṅgā's flow, a bit of the luminous glow of Your toenail was dropped at the moment when Your foot struck the roof of the universe Brahmāṇḍa, and that glow was dropped into the Milky Ocean. Seeing this, the gods retrieved that glow in the form of the moon from the Milky Ocean.
Explanation: When the Lord took up the Avatāra of Trivikrama, His foot was raised and struck the roof of the universe i.e. Brahmāṇḍa. According to the poet's imagination, that friction dislodged the luminosity from one of His toenails. That was carried rapidly in all directions by the holy river Gaṅgā during her descent and deposited finally in the Milky Ocean. When the gods churned the Milky Ocean, they managed to retrieve that glow in the form of the moon, who famously rose from the Milky Ocean during Samudra Manthana. This imaginative construction is the poet's way of drawing our attention to the moonlike glow of Lord Śrī Varadarāja's toenails.
