into one.  The goddess Earth held the child, taking it up from a heap of gold.  Verily, the child, endued with excellent form, blazed with splendour even like the god of Fire.  Of beautiful features, he began to grow in a delightful forest of reeds.  The six Krittikas beheld that child of theirs looking like the morning sun in splendour.  Filled with affection for him,—­indeed, loving him very much,—­they began to rear him with the sustenance of their breasts.  In consequence of his having been born of the Krittikas and reared by them, he came to be known throughout the three worlds as Kartikeya.  Having sprung from the seed which had fallen off from Rudra he was named Skanda, and because of his birth in the solitude of a forest of reeds he came to be called by the name of Guha (the secret-born).  The gods numbering three and thirty, the points of the compass (in their embodied forms) together with the deities presiding over them, and Rudra and Dhatri and Vishnu and Yama and Pushan and Aryaman and Bhaga, and Angas and Mitra and the Sadhyas and Vasava and the Vasus and the Aswins and the Waters and the Wind and the Firmament and Chandramas and all the Constellations and the Planets and Surya, and all the Ricks and Samans and Yajuses in their embodied forms, came there to behold that wonderful child who was the son of the deity of blazing flames.  The Rishis uttered hymns of praise and the Gandharvas sang in honour of that child called Kumara of six heads, twice six eyes, and exceedingly devoted to the Brahmanas.  His shoulders were broad, and he had a dozen arms, and the splendour of his person resembled that of fire and Aditya.  As he lay stretched on a clump of heath, the gods with the Rishis, beholding him, became filled with great delight and regarded the great Asura as already slain.  The deities then began to bring him diverse kinds of toys and articles that could amuse him.  As he played like a child, diverse kinds of toys and birds were given unto him.  Garuda of excellent feathers gave unto him a child of his, viz., a peacock endued with plumes of variegated hue.  The Rakshasas gave unto him a boar and a buffalo.  Aruna himself gave him a cock of fiery splendour.  Chandramas gave him a sheep, and Aditya gave him some dazzling rays of his.  The mother of all kine, viz., Surabhi, gave him kine by hundreds and thousands.  Agni gave him a goat possessed of many good qualities.  Ila gave him an abundant quantity of flowers and fruit.  Sudhanwan gave him a riding chariot and a car of Kuvara.  Varuna gave him many auspicious and excellent, products of the Ocean, with some elephants.  The chief of the celestials gave him lions and tigers and pards and diverse kinds of feathery denizens of the air, and many terrible beasts of prey and many umbrellas also of diverse kinds.  Rakshasas and Asuras, in large bands, began to walk in the train of that puissant child.  Beholding the son of Agni grow up, Taraka sought, by various means, to effect his destruction, but he failed to