300. Rama and others were bewitched seeing the beauty of Lanka.

            After selecting their places for rest for the night on the Suvela mountain for that night, Rama and others looked hither and thither. When their eyes fell on the gardens and groves in Lanka all the eyes were transfixed. They became fascinated seeing those gardens which were leveled, beautiful, spacious, majestic and enchanting to look at. Thick with Champaka, Ashoka, Vakula Sala and palmyra trees, covered with groves of Tamala and Panasa trees, surrounded with rows of Nagakesara trees, Lanka looked splended on all sides like the city of Amaravati reigned by Indra the god of devas, with green lawns and variegated avenues and with beautiful trees of various kinds like Hintala, Arjuna, Nipa, Saptaparna in full flowering, Tilaka, Karnikara and Patal whose crests were laden with flowers and which were intertwined with climbers laden with multi-coloured flowers and red tender leaves. The trees there were laden with fragrant and greatly enchanting flowers and fruits, as human beings were laden with ornaments.

         That gardens, which bore flowers and fruits in relation to the relevant seasons and with full of bees, like Chaitraratha (garden of Kubera, the god of riches), was quite charming, like Nandana (garden of Indra the Lord of Devas). In that gardens abounding in cascades, the songs of birds like gallinules, lapwings(small white cranes), dancing peacocks and cuckoos were heard.

      Then, some of the more brave and inquisitive vanaras, thrilled with rapture and delighted, each assuming that shape he fancied, entered the aforesaid groves and gardens with birds ever excited with joy, wandered by bees, with clusters of trees occupied by cuckoos, having variegated sounds of birds and song of the large bees, abounding with sounds of ospreys, with the music of wagtails and cries of cranes.

      Some troop-leaders of the valiant vanaras, with due permission from sugreeva sallied towards Lanka, the city adorned with flags. They assumed different forms and loitering making noises causing the birds to frighten and displeasing animals including elephants and thereby causing that Lanka to tremble by their noises.
       Those vanaras with great speed marched ahead, making the earth flattened by their feet and the dust thus raised by their feet went up instantaneously. Frightened by that unusual sound, bears, lions buffaloes, elephants, deer and birds were trembled and terrified and hastened towards ten different directions.

          The solitary peak of Trikuta mountain, which looked as tall as the sky, covered all over with flowers resembling gold was charming to look at.

         Lanka, ruled by Ravana, with a breadth of eighty mile and a length of one hundred sixty miles, was located on the apex of the mountain there. 

       The city of Lanka looked beautiful with its towering City-gates resembling white clouds as well as with golden and silver ramparts. The city of Lanka, greatly adorned by palaces and seven storied mansions, looked like the sky with clouds at the end of a summer and as a region of Vishnu  between earth and heaven.

       A palace, duly graced with a thousand pillars, which looked like a peak of Mount Kailasa was there in the City of Lanka, which was always protected by a complete army of rakshashas. The palace seemed to be scraping the skies and was to be seen as an ornament to the City of Ravana.
      Note: You may wonder how Lanka looked so beautiful when Hanuman burned it completely only a few days earlier. Well, my guess is it was re-built as before in a few days, again by Visvakarma.
End Note.

           Lakshmana and the remaining vanaras who chose to stay put  with Rama at the Suvela mountain  saw that charming golden city of Ravana, graced with mountains, picturesque with various minerals, splendid with gardens, reechoing with songs of birds of every kind, frequented by varieties of deer, richly endowed with various kinds of flowers, inhabited by rakshashas of every degree and duly flourishing, having increased its wealth.

         Beholding that City, which looked like heaven and crammed with huge palaces,  Rama was absolutely wonderstruck. Rama with his great army saw that City, full of precious gems, having all kinds of facilities, adorned with rows of mansions, having excellent doors with huge mechanical appliances and with a large armed forces protecting the City.

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