The trees and the creepers were all laden with fruits and blossoms; birds and beasts and bees all made a melodious concert. The forest was bursting with bliss at that hour, fanned by a cool, soft and fragrant breeze delightful to everyone.

The enchantment of the forest beggared description; it was as though Earth herself were welcoming king Janaka as her guest. In the meantime all the citizens finished their ablutions and taking permission from Rama, Janaka and the sage, gazed with rapture on the many magnificent trees and began to encamp here and there, while leaves and fruits and roots and bulbs of every description – pure, lovely and delicious as ambrosia -

-were sent to all in heaps with due courtesy by Vasishtha, Rama’s guru; and having worshipped the manes, the gods, the guests and the guru, they began to partake of this fine, frugal fare.

In this manner four days were spent; the people, both men and women, never tired of gazing on Rama and feeling gratified. In both camps the feeling uppermost in the hearts of all was: ‘It is not good for us to return without Sita and Rama.

Life in the woods in the society of Sita and Rama is as delightful as to love in a myriad heavens; adverse is his fate who, abandoning Lakshmana, Rama and Janaki, loves his home.

The privilege of living in the woods near Rama can be had only when God is kind to us all. Bathing three times a day in the Mandakini, enjoying the sight of Rama, the abode of all joy and blessedness,

- rambling about on Rama’s hill and in the forest and among the hermitages of ascetics situated thereabout, and feeding on ambrosial bulbs and roots and fruit! In this way will the fourteen years pass like a moment without our knowing how they go,’