Verse 17
Trees, beasts and the river· Verses 17–24
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17There are jackfruit and cluster fig, asvattha and plaksa and banyan and hingu, birches and healing herbs, areca and royal areca and rose-apple, 18date and hog-plum and mango and the rest, priyala and madhuka and ingudi; and it shines with other kinds of tree, and with bamboo and hollow reed. 19It is rich with thickets of white and blue and red water lilies and of hundred-petalled lotuses, and lovely with flocks of birds crooning softly over the lotus pools. 20There are deer and monkeys, boars and lions, bears and porcupines, wild oxen and sarabhas, tigers and ruru deer and buffalo and the rest, 21and karnantras and one-footed creatures, horse-faced ones and musk deer. Its glory is the sandbanks of its lotus pools, closed in by groves of plantain.
22It is ringed by the Nanda, whose water was made holier still by Sati's bathing in it. Looking on the mountain of the lord of beings, the gods were struck with wonder. 23There they saw the lovely city called Alaka, and the wood called Saugandhika, where the lotus of that name grows. 24Outside the city run two rivers, the Nanda and the Alakananda, made cleansing beyond measure by the dust from the lotus feet of him whose feet are the holy fords.