Shloka 3.35.15
मारीचाश्रमगमनम् (Ravana’s Journey to Maricha’s Hermitage)
नागैस्सुपर्णैर्गन्धैर्वैः किन्नरैश्च सहस्रशः।अजैर्वैखानसैर्माषैर्वालखिल्यैर्मरीचिपैः।।3.35.14।।अत्यन्तनियताहारैश्शोभितं परमर्षिभिः।जितकामैश्च सिद्धैश्च चारणैरुपशोभितम्।।3.35.15।।
divyābharaṇamālyābhir divyarūpābhir āvṛtam |
krīḍāratividhijñābhir apsarobhiḥ sahasraśaḥ ||3.35.16||
It was filled with thousands of apsarases—of divine beauty—adorned with heavenly ornaments and garlands, skilled in the arts of play and love.
The place looked charming with nagas, garudas, gandharvas, kinneras in their thousands and with the descendants of ajas, vaikhanasas, valakhilyas and with those who drink the rays of Sun and Moon for survival, with sages who were highly disciplined in the intake of food, spiritually accomplished and selfcontrolled hermits and charanas.
The verse depicts sensual and aesthetic abundance; in the Ramayana’s moral universe, such pleasures are not condemned per se, but dharma requires restraint and rightful boundaries. Desire becomes adharma when it violates consent, duty, and truth.
The narrator continues portraying a wondrous, celestial atmosphere populated by apsarases, expanding the sense of a liminal, otherworldly region.
The implicit virtue is self-control: the epic repeatedly teaches that the ability to encounter beauty without being ruled by it is a mark of dharmic strength.