Part 9: Description of Vinītā (Ayodhyā)

He (Kubera) made the city Vinītā, also called Ayodhyā, twelve yojanas long and nine wide. After laying it out, the Yakṣa-king, free from deceit, filled it unceasingly with inexhaustible clothes, ornaments, money, and grain. Even without a wall (as background for painting) a painting was made in the sky from the variegated light from palaces of diamond, sapphire, and cat’s eye. In it the appearance of challenge-papers, as it were, to the peaks of Meru was made by the lofty golden palaces in the guise of banners. The rows of coping of bright jewels on its wall became without effort mirrors for the Khecara-women after a long time. Girls play the karkaraka-game^[1] at will with the pearl settings of the svastikas in its court-yards. The cars of the Khecarīs become nests in a moment, being obstructed day and night by the tops of the tall trees in its gardens. By those who have seen the heaps of jewels piled up in its markets and palaces Mt. Rohaṇa is considered a heap of their sweepings. The house-pools there have the beauty of Tāmraparṇī from the broken pearl-necklaces of women enjoying water-sports. There are rich men in it, the merchant-son of any one of whom, I think, having gone to trade, is like Kubera. Its roads everywhere have the dust laid by water dripping at night from houses with walls of moonstone.^[2] With its lacs of tanks, wells, and ponds whose water was like nectar, it surpassed Nāgaloka with its nine nectar-tanks.