रावणभवनस्य पुष्पकविमानस्य च वर्णनम्

In Rāvaṇa's palace the mighty Hanumān saw a whole cluster of mansions hung with lattices of beryl and gold, like a great mass of rain-clouds laced with lightning and full of birds. There were halls of many kinds — the chief halls for conches, the armouries and the halls of bows — and on top of the mountain-like mansions charming and spacious moon-terraces, open to the sky for pleasure in the moonlight. The monkey saw houses adorned with every kind of wealth, honoured even by gods and asuras, free of every flaw, and won by Rāvaṇa through his own strength; they had been built with great care, as if by Maya himself, the famous craftsman of the dānavas, and the dwellings of the lord of Laṅkā that he saw surpassed every other on earth in every excellence. The poet opens this sarga in a long metre, and by repeating the same words at the ends of lines he makes the abundance of wealth ring in the listener's ear. "Won by his own strength" means that this wealth was seized by Rāvaṇa through force. Hanumān looks at all this only in his search for Sītā, not in wonder.

Then the monkey saw the finest of all houses, belonging to the lord of the rākṣasas and worthy of his might: towering like a cloud, lovely and golden, of a form beyond compare. It was like heaven scattered on the earth, blazing with splendour, strewn with many jewels, covered with the blossoms of many kinds of trees like a mountain peak dusted with pollen. Shining with its jewels among women, it was like a cloud adored by lightning, like a celestial car carried through the sky by swans. As a mountain peak is bright with many minerals, as the sky is bright with planets and the moon, as massed clouds are many-coloured, so he saw that car bright with many gems. Its floor had been made into ranges of hills; the hills were covered with spreading trees, the trees with spreading blossoms, and the blossoms full of filaments and petals. White mansions had been made there, and pools with lovely flowers, and lotuses with their filaments, and bright groves and lakes. There the great monkey saw the great car called Puṣpaka, gleaming and seeming to sway in the radiance of its gems, raised high even above the finest of mansions. Everything in this car is artificial — the hills, the trees, even the lakes were made by a craftsman — and the poet says "made" again and again to make plain that this is a creation not of nature but of art. Puṣpaka is the emblem of Rāvaṇa's pride, for he took it from Kubera by force. Through the images of cloud, heaven, mountain peak and swan-drawn car the poet describes in turn its height, its brilliance, its flowery beauty and its motion, and in one verse a garland of three comparisons — mountain, sky and cloud.

On that car birds had been made of beryl, and birds of silver and coral; there were serpents bright with many gems, and horses with fine limbs true to the best breeds. There were birds with lovely faces and fine wings, their wings made of coral and golden flowers, their curved wings playfully folded, so that they looked like the very wings of Kāma, the god of love. Elephants with fine trunks had been made there, holding lotus filaments and leaves in their trunks as though about to bathe the goddess; and the goddess Lakṣmī herself, fair-handed, a lotus in her hand, stood upon a lotus-pool. This image of Lakṣmī bathed by elephants is an auspicious sign of prosperity. Lakṣmī is present in Rāvaṇa's house as an image, but Sītā is not to be seen there — the poet hints at the contrast to come. The birds' wings like the wings of Kāma show that the whole atmosphere is one of pleasure and desire. Horses, serpents, elephants and birds, all fashioned of jewels and metals, none of them alive — amid all this artificial splendour, the absence of the living Sītā grieves all the more.

Coming to that lovely house, like a mountain with charming caves, like a tree most fragrant at winter's end, the monkey was full of wonder. Yet as he roamed through that honoured city, guarded by the arms of the Ten-headed, he did not see the daughter of Janaka, so worthy of honour and so deeply grieved, won over wholly by the force of her husband's virtues. And as that great-souled monkey — his mind trained in many ways, self-possessed, upright in conduct and clear of sight — wandered on without finding Janaka's daughter, his mind was deeply troubled. After so much splendour, the sudden turn to sorrow shows the sarga's central feeling: the beauty of the aerial car does nothing to accomplish Hanumān's task. "Won over by her husband's virtues" tells of Sītā's devotion to Rāma: she has not been conquered by Rāvaṇa's riches but only by her husband's goodness. Hanumān is called clear-sighted, and even so he could not find her — which shows how hard the search was.