resounding with the cries of birds and beasts and
covered with various trees and creepers and inhabited
by monkeys, and romantic and furnished with many lotus-lakes
and having marshes and extensive forests. And
then with their down standing erect, they saw the
mountain Gandhamadana, the abode of Kimpurushas, frequented
by Siddhas and Charanas and ranged by Vidyadharis and
Kinnaris and inhabited by herds of elephants and thronged
with lions and tigers and resounding with the roars
of Sarabhas and attended by various beasts. And
the war-like sons of Pandu gradually entered into the
forest of the Gandhamadana, like unto the Nandana
gardens, delightful to the mind and heart and worthy
of being inhabited and having beautiful groves.
And as those heroes entered with Draupadi and the
high-souled Brahmanas, they heard notes uttered by
the mouths of birds, exceedingly sweet and graceful
to the ear and causing delight and dulcet and broken
by reason of excess of animal spirits. And they
saw various trees bending under the weight of fruits
in all seasons, and ever bright with flowers—such
as mangoes and hog-plums and bhavyas and pomegranates,
citrons and jacks and lakuchas and plantains and aquatic
reeds and parvatas and champakas and lovely kadamvas
and vilwas, wood-apples and rose-apples and kasmaris
and jujubes and figs and glomerous figs and banians
and aswatthas and khirikas and bhall atakas and amalkas
and bibhitakas and ingudas and karamardas and tindukas
of large fruits—these and many others on
the slopes of the Gandhamadana, clustered with sweet
and nectarine fruits. And besides these, they
beheld champakas and asokas and ketakas and vakulas
and punnagas and saptaparnas and karnikaras, and patals,
and beautiful kutajas and mandaras, and lotuses, and
parijatas, and kovidaras and devadarus, and salas,
and palmyra palms, and tamalas, and pippalas, and
salmalis and kinsukas, and singsapas, and saralas and
these were inhabited by Chakoras, and wood-peckers
and chatakas, and various other birds, singing in
sweet tones pleasing to the ear. And they saw
lakes beautiful on all sides with aquatic birds, and
covered all around with kumudas, and pundarikas, and
kokanadas, and utpalas, and kalharas, and kamalas
and thronged on all sides with drakes and ruddy geese,
and ospreys, and gulls and karandavas, and plavas,
and swans, and cranes, and shags, and other aquatic
birds. And those foremost of men saw those lotus-lakes
beautified with assemblages of lotuses, and ringing
with the sweet hum of bees, glad, and drowsy on account
of having drunk the intoxicating honey of lotuses,
and reddened with the farina falling from the lotus
cups. And in the groves they beheld with their
hens peacocks maddened with desire caused by the notes
of cloud-trumpets; and those woods-loving glad peacocks
drowsy with desire, were dancing, spreading in dalliance
their gorgeous tails, and were crying in melodious
notes. And some of the peacocks were sporting
with their mates on kutaja trees covered with creepers.