His garden is a place "where the inhabitants enjoy a natural perfection, attended with complete happiness, obtained without exertion. There is there no vicissitude, nor decrepitude, nor death, nor fear; no distinction of virtue and vice, none of the inequalities denoted by the words 'best,' 'worst,' and 'intermediate,' nor any change resulting from the succession of the four Yugas. There is neither grief, weariness, anxiety, hunger, nor fear. The people live in perfect health, free from every suffering, for ten or twelve thousand years." [*+] As Sugriva was sending forth his armies to search for Sita, he thus speaks of this garden to Satabal, the leader of the army of the North--

"Pursue your onward way, and haste
Through the dire horrors of the waste,
Until triumphant with delight
You reach Kailasa's glittering height.

[paragraph continues] There stands a palace decked with gold,
For King Kuvera wrought of old,
A home the heavenly artist planned,
And fashioned with his cunning hand.
There lotuses adorn the flood
With full-blown flower and opening bud,
Where swans and mallards float, and gay
Apsarasas [**] come down to play.
There King Vaisravan's self, the lord
By all the universe adored,
Who golden gifts to mortals sends,
Lives with the Guhyakas, [*+] his friends." [*++]

As Rama and Lakshman were wandering in the forest, they were attacked by a giant named Viradha; but as they could not slay him with their weapons, they buried him alive, and as a result he regained his proper form. Formerly Kuvera had cursed him, for "loving Rambha's charms too well," to assume the hideous form in which Rama met with him, and the only relief Kuvera would give him was--

"When Rama, Dasaratha's son,
Destroys thee, and the fight is won,
Thy proper shape once more assume,
And heaven again shall give thee room." [* section]

When Ravana had risen to the summit of his power, he made the gods perform various offices in his house: thus Indra prepared garlands, Agni was his cook, Surya gave light by day and Chandra by night, and Kuvera became his cash-keeper.

Kuvera married Yakshi or Charvi; and two of his sons, through a curse of the sage Narada, became trees, in which condition they remained until Krishna, when

an infant, uprooted them. Narada met with them in a forest, bathing with their wives, in a state of intoxication. The wives, ashamed of themselves, fell at Narada's feet and sought for pardon; but as their husbands disregarded the presence of the sage, they suffered the full effects of his curse.

Footnotes

^388:* "Mahabharata: "Muir, O. S. T., iv. 481.

^389:* Muir, O. S. T., v. 483.

^389:+ Ibid., iv. 488.

^390:* Griffiths's "Ramayana," ii. 20.