17. The princes who were wet with perspiration, bathed joyfully in the almost dried up channel; as when the three gods Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva lave their sweating limbs, in the limpid stream of Ganges. (The three powers of the soul, like the three persons of the Puránic trinity, were respectively possessed of the three qualities of action; and yet their pure natures preferred to bathe in the pure stream of goodness—_satva_, as in the holy waters of heavenly Ganga—the hallowed Mandákiní). 18. They sported a long while in the water, and drank some draughts of the same, which was as sweet as milk, and cheered their spirits with full satisfaction of their hearts (meaning that _satwika_ or good conduct is sweeter far to the soul, than any other done as unjust or showy—_rajas_ or _tamas_). 19. They resumed their journey, and arrived at the end of the day and about sunset, to their future abode of a new-built city, standing afar as on the height of a hill. (This new-built city was the new-made earth; to which the spirits descended from their Empyrean). 20. There were rows of flags fluttering like lotuses, in the limpid lake of the azure sky; and the loud noise of the songs of the citizens was heard at a distance. 21. Here they saw three beautiful and goodly looking houses, with turrets of gold and gems shining afar, like peaks of mount Meru under the blazing sun. (These were the human bodies, standing and walking upright upon the earth, and decorated with crowns and coronets on their heads). 22. Two of these were not the works of art, and the third was without its foundation; and the three princes entered at last into the last of these. (The two first were the bodies of men in their states of sleep and deep sleep, called _swápa sopor_ or _swapnas-somnus_ and _sushupti-hupnos_ or _hypnotes_, which are inborn in the soul; but it is the _jágrata_ or waking body which is the unstable work of art). 23. They entered this house, and sat and walked about in it with joyous countenances; and chanced to get three pots as bright as gold therein. (These pots were the three sheaths of the soul, mind and of the vital principle, called the _ pránamáyá-kosha_). 24. The two first broke into pieces upon their lifting, and the third was reduced to dust at its touch. The far sighted princes however, took up the dust and made a new pot therewith? It means, that though these sheaths are as volatile as air, yet it is possible to employ the vital principle to action. 25. Then these gluttonous princes cooked in it a large quantity of corn for their food; amounting to a hundred _dronas_ minus one, for subsistence of their whole life-time. (It means that the whole life-time of a hundred years, allotted to man in the present age of the world, is employed in consuming so many measures of food, except perhaps one _Drona_, which is saved by his occasional fasts during his long life).