25. No doubt, on that occasion the Celestials, residing about that forest, were affected with the utmost astonishment. From the ecstasy of their gladness the hairs on their body bristled, and they swung their arms in the sky, their fine fingers turned upwards.
26. Some overspread him with a thick shower of flowers sweet-scented and tinged with sandal-powder. Others covered him with their upper garments, wrought of (celestial) unwoven stuff and resplendent with golden decorations; others with their ornaments.
27. Others again worshipped him with hymns they had devoutly composed, and with the reverence of the añgali, their folded hands resembling opening lotus-buds. Or they honoured him with bent heads, lowering their beautiful head-diadems, and with prayers of veneration.
28. Some fanned him with an agreeable wind, such as arranges garlands (of foam) on the waves and is perfumed with the scents borrowed from the dust of flowers. Others held a canopy of dense clouds in the sky over his head.
29. Some were prompted by devotion to make Heaven echo his praise with the sounds of the celestial drums. And more, others enamelled the trees with an untimely outburst of new twigs, flowers, and fruits.
30. The sky assumed the lovely splendour of autumn, the sun's rays seemed to become longer, and the Ocean trembled and shook its wave-surface as from impatience to go and visit him out of gladness.
Meanwhile those men, following the way pointed out to them, had reached the lake; and after refreshing themselves and recovering from heat, thirst, and fatigue, going on as the High-minded One had instructed them, they saw at no great distance from that place the body of an elephant that had died not long before. And they reflected: 'What a strong likeness this elephant has to that chief of elephants!
31. 'Is he perhaps a brother to that mighty being, or some kinsman of his, or one of his sons? In fact, it is the self-same beautiful figure equalling a snow-peak that we behold in this body, even though it be crushed.
32. 'It looks like a condensation of the lustre of many groups of waterlilies, like the concrete form of moonshine, or rather like His image, reflected in a mirror.'