Chapter 181

Vaisampayana said, “While they were dwelling at that place, there set inthe season of the rains, the season that puts an end to the hot weatherand is delightful to all animated beings. Then the black clouds, rumblingloudly, and covering the heavens and the cardinal points, ceaselesslyrained during day and night. These clouds, counted by hundreds and bythousands, looked like domes in the rainy season. From the earthdisappeared the effulgence of the sun; its place was taken by thestainless lustre of the lightning; the earth became delightful to all,being overgrown with grass, with gnats and reptiles in their joy; it wasbathed with rain and possessed with calm. When the waters had coveredall, it could not be known whether the ground was at all even oruneven;–whether there were rivers or trees or hills. At the end of thehot season, the rivers added beauty to the woods being themselves full ofagitated waters, flowing with great force and resembling serpents in thehissing sound they made. The boars, the stags and the birds, while therain was falling upon them began to utter sounds of various kinds whichcould be heard within the forest tracts. The chatakas, the peacocks andthe host of male Kohilas and the excited frogs, all ran about in joy.Thus while the Pandavas were roaming about in the deserts and sandytracts, the happy season of rain, so various in aspect and resoundingwith clouds passed away. Then set in the season of autumn, thronged withganders and cranes and full of joy; then the forest tracts were overrunwith grass; the river turned limpid; the firmament and stars shonebrightly., And the autumn, thronged with beasts and birds, was joyous andpleasant for the magnanimous sons of Pandu. Then were seen nights, thatwere free from dust and cool with clouds and beautified by myriads ofplanets and stars and the moon. And they beheld rivers and ponds, adornedwith lilies and white lotuses, full of cool and pleasant water. And whileroving by the river Saraswati whose banks resembled the firmament itselfand were overgrown with canes, and as such abounded in sacred baths,their joy was great. And those heroes who wielded powerful bows, werespecially glad to see the pleasant river Saraswati, with its limpidwaters full to the brim. And, O Janamejaya, the holiest night, that ofthe full moon in the month of Kartika in the season of autumn, was spentby them while dwelling there! And the sons of Pandu, the best of thedescendants of Bharata, spent that auspicious juncture with righteous andmagnanimous saints devoted to penance. And as soon as the dark fortnightset in immediately after, the sons of Pandu entered the forest named theKamyaka, accompanied by Dhananjaya and their charioteers and cooks.”