Every day Narada and Sanaka and other great sages all came to Ayodhya to have sight of Rama, the lord of Kosala, and forgot all their asceticism when they saw the city,

with its balconies inlaid with gold and jewels and splendid pavements laid in diverse colours. A most beautiful boundary wall crowned with turrets of diverse hues enclosed the city on all sides,

as though the nine planets had mustered a large army to beleaguer Indra’s capital, Amaravati. The ground (the streets and squares, etc.) was so beautifully paved with many-coloured crystals that great sages who saw it were enraptured.

The glistening palaces were so lofty that they touched the sky with their pinnacles that put to shame the brightness of sun or moon; the lattice windows gleamed, set close with jewels, while every house was lit up with gem-encrusted lamps.

In the mansions shone jewelled lamps, and their thresholds glittering with coral paving. The pillars of jewels and walls of gold inlaid with emeralds were such as the Creator (Brahma) himself might have fashioned. Beautiful, charming and spacious as the palaces were, they had their courtyards inworked with crystal, and every gateway was fitted with folding doors of gold embossed with diamonds.

In every house was a beautiful and well-furnished picture-gallery, where the story of Rama’s exploits was so skillfully set forth that the souls of the sages would be ravished at the sight.

Everyone had a garden planted with all kinds of flowers and trimmed with the greatest care, in which beautiful and lovely creepers of every variety ever blossomed as though it were perpetual spring.