highly auspicious.  The streams that run there shine in resplendence for the red lotuses blooming upon their bosoms, and for the jewels and gems and gold that occur in their banks and that display the effulgence of the morning Sun.  There are many lakes also in that region on whose breasts are many lotuses, mixed here and there with Nymphoea stellata, and having their petals made of costly gems, and their filaments adorned with a complexion like that of gold.  They are also adorned with flowering forests of the Nerium odorum with thousands of beautiful creepers twining round them, as also with forests of Santanakas bearing their flowery burdens.  There are rivers whose banks are variegated with many bright pearls and resplendent gems and shining gold.  Portions of those regions are covered with excellent trees that are decked with jewels and gems of every kind.  Some of them are made of gold and some display the splendour of fire.  There stand many mountains made of gold, and many hills and eminences made of jewels and gems.  These shine in beauty in consequence of their tall summits which are composed of all kinds of gems.  The trees that adorn those regions always put forth flowers and fruits, and are always covered with dense foliage.  The flowers always emit a celestial fragrance and the fruits are exceedingly sweet, O chief of Bharata’s race.  Those persons that are of righteous deeds, O Yudhishthira, always sport there in joy.  Freed from grief and wrath, they pass their time there, crowned with the fruition of every wish.  Persons of righteous deeds, possessed of fame, sport there in happiness, moving from place to place, O Bharata, on delightful vehicles of great beauty.  Auspicious deed, bands of Apsaras always amuse them there, with music and dance.  Indeed O Yudhishthira, a person goes to such regions as the reward of his making gifts of kine.  Those regions which have for their lords Pushan, and the Maruts of great puissance, are attained to by givers of kine.  In affluence the royal Varuna is regarded as pre-eminent.  The giver of kine attains to affluence like that of Varuna himself.  One should, with the steadiness of a vow, daily recite these Mantras declared by Prajapati himself (in respect of kine).  Viswarupa and viz.,—­Yugandharah, Surupah, Vahurupah, and Matara.[379]—­He who serves kine with reverence and who follows them with humility, succeeds in obtaining many invaluable boons from kine who become gratified with him.  One should never, in even one’s heart, do an injury to kine.  One should, indeed, always confer happiness on them.  One should, always reverence kine and worship them, with bends of one’s head.  He who does this, restraining his senses the while and filled with cheerfulness, succeeds in attaining to that felicity which is enjoyed by kine (and which kine alone can confer).  One should for three days drink the hot urine of the cow.  For the next three days one should drink the hot milk of the cow.  Having thus drunk for three days hot milk, one should