Maya Retrieves Treasures and Builds the Sabha
Maya travels to the sacred peaks near Kailasha, retrieves the club, conch, and crystal treasures, and then marshals his rakshasa servants to construct a matchless, jewel-encrusted assembly hall. In fourteen months, a divine sabha stands complete, and Maya presents the weapons to Bhima and Arjuna.
Maya journeyed to the north of Kailasa, to the illustrious peak named Hiranyashringa, filled with great gems. Nearby was the beautiful Lake Bindu, a place of profound sacred history. It was here that King Bhagiratha had performed austerities to bring the Ganga to earth. It was a site where Indra, the thousand-eyed king of the gods, had attained success, where the creator Brahma was worshipped, and where the sages Nara and Narayana performed sacrifices at the end of cosmic cycles. It was a landscape woven with divine presence.
Arriving at this potent ground, Maya took what he had come for: the supreme club from the lake, the great conch shell Devadatta, and the crystal objects stored in Vrishaparva's sabha. With the assistance of servant rakshasas, he brought everything back.
Then he began to build.
The asura, a master architect, constructed a matchless sabha. It was beautiful, divine, encrusted with jewels, and famous throughout the three worlds. He gave the supreme club to Bhimasena and the conch Devadatta to Arjuna. The hall itself had golden pillars and a vast circumference. Its radiant, divine form seemed to challenge the splendour of the sun. It was spacious, smooth, and flawless, a place that removed fatigue. Its walls were garlanded with gems, and it was filled with the best objects, built as if by Vishvakarma, the divine architect of the gods. The beauty Maya gave it was such that even Sudharma, the hall of the Yadavas, or Brahma's own palace, could not match it.
On Maya's instruction, eight thousand rakshasas known as kinkaras—terrible, large, strong, capable of flight, with red and yellow eyes and ears like conch shells—stood guard to protect the sabha.
Inside, Maya built a peerless tank full of lotuses. Their leaves were made of vaidurya (cat's eye gem), their stalks of brilliant gems. The water was clear and pure, stirred by the wind, adorned with fish and turtles, and fragrant with flowering lotuses. Gentle steps led down to it. The illusion was so perfect that some visiting kings, failing to recognize the water, fell into it out of ignorance.
Around the sabha grew giant, ever-flowering trees that cast cool, fragrant shade. The gardens and ponds were adorned with swans, karandavas, and chakravaka birds. The wind carried the mingled scent of water and land blossoms everywhere, pleasing the Pandavas.
In fourteen months, the work was complete. Maya then went to inform King Dharmaraja, Yudhishthira, that his celestial assembly hall was ready.