SECTION II. Description of the Mountainous Habitation.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
57. The gardens were perfumed with the nectarious fragrance of kunda flowers, and the lakes were redolent with the odour of lotuses, hiding the humble bees giddy with liquor, in their honied cells. The air was reddened with the roseate pollen, flying from the crimson lotuses (sthala padmas) of the land, and mocked the redness of Indra’s palace in the sky.
58. The gargling noise of the rivulets running down precipitately from the hills, and the whiteness of the hoary cloud, hanging with the hue of kundu flowers over them; the beauty of the flowery parterres in the compound of the house, and the melodious warbling of musical birds singing joyous in the air, enchanted the scene.
59. The youths were sporting on their beds of flowers, and the playful damsels were decked with flowery wreaths hanging down to their feet. The ground was adorned every where with sprouting and prickly shrubs and blades of grass; and there was a beauty displayed in the clasping of creepers about the clumps of reeds.
60. The new shooting buds and blossoms covered the trees around, and fragments of clouds shrouded the houses below; the ground was decorated by wreaths of icicles, and the flash of lightnings in the clouds over the houses, terrified the women within.
61. There was the fragrance of blue lotuses exhaling its sweets about, and the hoarse lowings of the kine, hastening to their green grazing ground. The confident deer and does were lying tamely in the house-yard, and the peacocks dancing merrily before the water-falls, as if they were the showers of rain water.
62. The odoriferous breezes were blowing giddily, with the flavour of the fragrance they bore about; and the medicinal plants were lending their lights like lamps at night. The nests of birds were resonant with ceaseless warblings, and the noise of the cataracts deafened the ears of men on the bank.
63. The pearly dew drops, that were continually dropped on the ground, from the leaves of trees and blades of grass; and the gleaming beauty of the ever blooming blossoms above, form with others, the everlasting charms of mountainous habitations, and baffle the description of poets.