{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry317.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry317.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry317.htm","text":"Forth went the legions of the west:\n And wise Sugr\u00edva addressed\n S'atabal, summoned from the crowd.\n To whom the sovereign cried aloud:\n 'Go forth, O V\u00e1narf, go forth,\n Explore the regions of the north.\n Thy host a hundred thousand be,\n And Yama's sons \u00a04b attend on thee.\n With dauntless courage, strength, and skill\n Search every river, wood, and hill.\n Through every land in order go\n Right onward to the Hills of Snow.\n Search mid the peaks that shine afar,\n In woods of Lodh and Deod\u00e1r.\u00a05b\n Search if with Janak's daughter, screened\n By sheltering rocks, there lie the fiend\n \n \n The holy grounds of Soma tread\n By Gods and minstrels visited.\n Reach K\u00e1la's mount, and flats that lie\n Among the peaks that tower on high.\n Then leave that hill that gleams with ore,\n And fair Sudars'an's heights explore.\n Then on to Devasakh\u00e1t\u00a01 hie.\n Loved by the children of the sky.\n A dreary land you then will see\n Without a hill or brook or tree,\n A hundred leagues, bare, wild, and dread\n In lifeless desolation, spread.\n Pursue your onward way, and haste\n Through the dire horrors of the waste\n Until triumphant with delight\n You reach Kail\u00e1sa'stering height.\n There stands a palace decked with gold,\n For King Kuvera \u00a02 wrought of old,\n A home the heavenly artist planned\n And fashioned with his cunning hand.\n There lotuses adorn the flood\n With full-blown flower and opening bud\n Where swans and mallards float, and gay\n Apsarases \u00a03 come down to play.\n There King Vaisravan's \u00a04 self, the lord\n By all the universe adored,\n Who golden gifts to mortals sends,\n Lives with the Guhyakas \u00a05 his friends.\n Search every cavern in the steep,\n And green glens where the moonbeams sleep.\n If haply in that distant ground\n The robber and the dame be found.\n Then on to Krauncha's hill, \u00a06 and through\n His fearful pass your way pursue:\n Though dark and terrible the vale\n Your wonted courage must not fail.\n There through abyss and cavern seek,\n On lofty ridge, and mountain peak.\n On, on! pursue your journey still\n By valley, lake, and towering hill.\n Reach the North Kurus' land, where rest\n The holy spirits of the blest;\n Where golden buds of lilies gleam\n Resplendent on the silver stream,\n \n \n And leaves of azure turkis throw\n Soft splendour on the waves below.\n Bright as the sun at early morn\n Fair pools that happy clime adorn,\n Where shine the loveliest flowers on stems\n Of crystal and all valued gems.\n Blue lotuses through all the land\n The glories of their blooms expand,\n And the resplendent earth is strown\n With peerless pearl and precious stone.\n There stately trees can scarce uphold\n The burthen of their fruits of gold,\n And ever flaunt their gay attire\n Of flower and leaf like flames of fire.\n All there sweet lives untroubled spend\n In bliss and joy that know not end,\n While pearl-decked maidens laugh, or sing\n To music of the silvery string. \u00a01b\n Still on your forward journey keep,\n And rest you by the northern deep,\n Where springing from the billows high\n Mount Somagiri \u00a02b seeks the sky,\n And lightens with perpetual glow\n The sunless realm that lies below.\n There, present through all life's extent,\n Dwells Brahm\u00e1 Lord preeminent,\n And round the great God, manifest\n In Rudra \u00a03b forms high sages rest.\n Then turn, O V\u00e1narsrch no more,\n Nor tempt the sunless, boundless shore.'\n \n \n \n \n377:1b One of the oldest and mightiest of the Vedic deities; in later mythology regard ed as the God of the sea.\n377:2b The knotted noose with which he seizes and punishes transgressors.\n377:3b S\u00e1varni Manu, Manuspring of the Sun by Chh\u00e1y\u00e1.\n377:4b The poet has not said who the sons of Yama are.\n377:5b The Lodhra or Lodh (Symplocoa Racemosa) and the Devad\u00e1rueodaDeodar are well known trees.\n378:1 The hills mentioned are not identifiable. Soma means the Moon. K\u00e1la, black; Sudaras'an, fair to see; and Devasakh\u00e1 friend of the Gods\n378:2 The God of Wealth.\n378:3 The nymphs of Paradise.\n378:4 Kuvera the son of Vis'ravas.\n378:5 A class of demigods who, like the Yakshas, are the attendants of Kuvera, and the guardians of his treasures.\n378:6 Situated in the eastern part of the Him\u00e1laya chain, on the north of Assam. The mountain was torn asunder and the pass formed by the War-God K\u00e1rtikeya and Paras'ur\u00e1ma.","title":"BOOK IV: Canto XLIII.: The Army of The North.","type":"page"}