The mighty one sees a network of houses hung with nets of beryl and gold, like a great net of clouds in the rainy season, bound with lightning and full of birds. He sees halls of many kinds in the dwellings, chief halls for conches, weapons and bows, and lovely, wide moonlit terraces on the mountain-like houses. The monkey sees houses shining with every kind of wealth, honoured by gods and asuras, free of every fault, won by Ravana’s own strength. He sees the houses of the lord of Lanka, built with great effort, as if made by Maya himself, the best on earth in every quality. Then he sees the best of houses, high like a cloud, lovely, beautiful with gold, matching the strength of the lord of the rakshasas, its form without equal: like heaven scattered on earth, blazing with beauty, strewn with many jewels, covered with the flowers of many trees, like a mountaintop covered with pollen; shining as if with the finest women, honoured like a cloud by lightning, as if drawn by the finest swans, a beautiful, well-made celestial chariot in the sky. He sees the celestial chariot, varied with many jewels, varied like a mountaintop with many minerals or like the sky with planets and moon, varied with lovely clouds put together. On it the earth was made full of ranges of mountains, the mountains made full of canopies of trees, the trees made full of canopies of flowers, the flowers made full of filaments and petals. White houses were made, and lotus pools in full flower, and lotuses with filaments, and wonderful woods and lakes. There the great monkey sees the great celestial chariot named Pushpaka, shining, swaying with the radiance of jewels, the highest of the best houses. Birds were made of beryl, and of silver and coral; wonderful serpents of many gems; horses of fine limbs true to their breed; birds with lovely faces and lovely wings, their wings flowers of coral and gold, their crooked wings bent playfully, like the wings of Love himself. Elephants with fine trunks are made, bearing lotus leaves with filaments, attending the goddess Lakshmi, made with lovely hands, with lotuses in her hands, in a lotus pool. So, having come to that beautiful house, amazed, like a mountain with lovely caves, and again to that supremely fragrant, beautiful one, like a mountain with lovely caves at the end of winter, the monkey, roaming the honoured city guarded by the ten-faced one’s arms, does not see Janaka’s daughter, so honoured, so grieved, overcome by the force of her husband’s virtues. Then, not seeing Janaka’s daughter, who keeps to the good path, the great soul, of disciplined and perfected self, though he wanders with seeing eyes, is deeply grieved in mind.
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