be decked with streaks of
lightning. Within that mansion sitteth on an excellent seat bright as the
sun and covered with celestial carpets and furnished with a handsome
footstool, king Vaisravana of agreeable person, attired in excellent
robes and adorned with costly ornaments and ear-rings of great
brilliance, surrounded by his thousand wives. Delicious and cooling
breezes murmuring through forests of tall Mandaras, and bearing fragrance
of extensive plantations of jasmine, as also of the lotuses on the bosom
of the river Alaka and of the Nandana-gardens, always minister to the
pleasure of the King of the Yakshas. There the deities with the
Gandharvas surrounded by various tribes of Apsaras, sing in chorus, O
king, notes of celestial sweetness. Misrakesi and Rambha, and Chitrasena,
and Suchismita; and Charunetra, and Gritachi and Menaka, and
Punjikasthala; and Viswachi Sahajanya, and Pramlocha and Urvasi and Ira,
and Varga and Sauraveyi, and Samichi, and Vududa, and Lata--these and a
thousand other Apsaras and Gandharvas, all well-skilled in music and
dance, attend upon Kuvera, the lord of treasures. And that mansion,
always filled with the notes of instrumental and vocal music, as also
with the sounds of dance of various tribes of Gandharvas, and Apsaras
hath become extremely charming and delicious. The Gandharvas called
Kinnaras, and others called Naras, and Manibhadra, and Dhanada, and
Swetabhadra and Guhyaka; Kaseraka, Gandakandu, and the mighty Pradyota;
Kustumvuru, Pisacha, Gajakarna, and Visalaka, Varaha-Karna, Tamraushtica,
Falkaksha, and Falodaka; Hansachuda, Sikhavarta, Vibhishana, Pushpanana,
Pingalaka, Sonitoda and Pravalaka; Vrikshavaspa-niketa, and
Chiravasas--these O Bharata, and many other Yakshas by hundred and
thousands always wait upon Kuvera. The goddess Lakshmi always stayeth
there, also Kuvera's son Nalakuvera. Myself and many others like myself
often repair thither. Many Brahmana Rishis and celestial Rishis also
repair there often. Many Rakshasas, and many Gandharvas, besides those
that have been named, wait upon the worship, in that mansion, the
illustrious lord of all treasures. And, O tiger among kings, the
illustrious husband of Uma and lord of created things, the three-eyed
Mahadeva, the wielder of the trident and the slayer of the Asura called
Bhaga-netra, the mighty god of the fierce bow, surrounded by multitudes
of spirits in their hundreds and thousands, some of dwarfish stature,
some of