The whole roadway was watered with mingled perfumes; here and there were festal squares filled in with elegant patterns. The bazaar was decked beyond all telling with triumphal arches, flags and banners and canopies.

Trees of the areca-nut and the plaintain and the mango, the maulasiri, the kadamba and the tamala, all laden with fruit, were transplanted there, so burdened that their branches touched the ground; they had basins of precious stones constructed round their roots with exquisite skill.

Festal vases of every kind were ranged in order in every house, and Brahma and all the gods were filled with envy when they gazed upon Raghubara’s city.

At that time the king’s palace was so resplendent that Love himself was distracted when he saw such magnificence. It was as though auspicious omens and loveliness, affluence and mystic powers, joys and smiling prosperity.

- and all kinds of rejoicings had assumed sweet forms of natural loveliness and taken their abode in the palace of Dasharath. Tell me, who would not long to get a sight of Rama and Videha’s daughter?

Troops of married women, whose husbands were alive, sallied forth, each exceeding in loveliness Kama’s lovely consort (Rati); all were singing, with festal lamps and auspicious objects in their hands, as though Sarasvati (the goddess of speech) had appeared in so many forms.

The king’s palace was full of hilarious tumult, and the rejoicings there at that glad time were beyond all description. Kausalya and the other queens were so overcome with love that they forgot their own bodies.