Verse 17

¹⁷Hearing that the Kurus were making ready for war with the Pandavas, Rama, who stood between the two of them, went away, it is said, on the pretext of bathing at the holy fords. ¹⁸He bathed at Prabhasa, satisfied the gods and the sages and the fathers and men with offerings, and went up the Sarasvati against her current, with brahmins around him. ¹⁹He went to Prthudaka, to Bindusaras, to Tritakupa, to Sudarsana, to Visala, to Brahmatirtha, to Cakra, and to the Sarasvati where she runs east, ²⁰and to all the places that lie along the Yamuna and along the Ganga, Bharata; and he came to Naimisa, where the sages sit at their long sacrifice.

²¹The sages of the long sacrifice understood that he had come, and welcomed him as is right, and stood up and bowed and did him honour. ²²Honoured so, with his following, and having taken the seat that was given him, he saw Romaharsana, the great sage's pupil, sitting there.