7. The or, briefly, a king of Lanka, or Ceylon, a monster with ten heads and twenty arms, had, by dint of austerities, obtained from Brahman the promise that neither gods nor demons should be able to take his life. In consequence, he oppressed the whole universe: the sun dared not shine hot, or the fire burn, or the wind blow, where he stood, and the ocean, when it saw him, became motionless. The gods, thus seeing the world and their own existence endangered, implored Brahman to protect them; and he, remembering that the demon, when askin,g for the boon he had granted him, omitting to include men among the beings that should not hurt him, advised the gods to pray to Vishn'u to become incarnate. This they did, and Vislin'u granted their prayer. At that time, Das'aratha, a king of Avodbya, of the solar line of Hindu kings, performed the great horse-sacrifice in order to obtain sons; for though he had three wives, Kaus'alya, Sumitra, and Kaikeyi, he was without male progeny. This sacrifice became successful, for, when on the point of completion, a I supernatural being appeared to him with a divine beverage, one-half of which he was I to give to Kaus'alya, one-fourth to Sumitra, and the remaining fourth to Kaikeyt. And as this nectar which he gave them contained the divine essence of Vislin'u, Rama, the son whom Kaus'alya brought forth, became one half, the twins Lakshman'a, and gatrughna, born by Sumitra, together one-fourth, and Bharata, the son of Kaikeyt, another fourth, of the substance of Vishnlii. While Rama and his brothers were still boys. the sage Vix' mdmitra (q.v.) came to the court of Das'aratha, requesting him that he should allow Rama to proceed to his hermitage, in order to destroy there the Bak sha.sas, or fiends, who infested it, and disturbed his sacrificial rites. Though reluctantly, Das'aratha gave his consent to his departure; and Rama accompanied by his brother Lskshman'a—who, throughout his brother's career, remained his faithful companion and ally—started on his first eventful journey; for it was marked by a number of won lain] exploits which he performed in killing the demons and which already then revealed his divine mission. Having fulfilled the desire of Viswamitra, he proceeded. to Mithilit, where king Janaka held a great assembly of kings, having promised to give in marriage his daughter (q.v.) to the prince who would be able to bend the bow with which S'iva (q.v.) once conquered the gods at the sacrifice of Daksha, and which now was in his trust. Yet so large and heavy was this bow, that not even the strongest of them could so much as move it. But when Rama arrived, and the bow was shown him, he lifted it up and bent it, as it were in sport, and ultimately even broke it in the middle. Snit became thus the wife of Rama; while Janaka gave to Lakshman'a, ..ifdn'd'arl to Bharata, and S'Y rutakirtti to S'atrughna. On his way home, Rama met Paras' urrima (see the sixth Avatara) who, having heard of his namesake's bow-feat at the court of Janaka, challenged him to bend also the bow of Vishn'u, which be had received from his father, Jainadagni, and if he could do so, to a single combat. Rama, displeased with the doubt of Paras'urama in his streng.th, immediately seized the bow, bent it, and would have killed the son of Jamadagui, had he not respected his quality as a Brahman: still, lie destroyed the worlds which the latter had acquired by his pen ance, and thus excluded him from heaven. (This account given of the meeting of the two llamas, in the Rilmayan'a, would seem to show that at the time when this poem was composed, the Pared quanta was not yet conceived as an incarnation of Vishniu, since he is represented in it as jealous of the defeat which S'iva's bow had suffered at the hands of the son of Das'aratha.) After this event, Bharata, and his brother S'at rughna, were sent by their father on a visit to Bharata's maternal uncle, As'wapati; and Das'aratha, who was old, and desired to retire from the world, made all preparations for installing his eldest son, Rama, as heir-apparent to the throne of Ayodllyit. But in this design he was frustrated; for, through the intrigues of Mantharti, the hunchbacked nurse of Bharata, and his queen Kaiker, he was, in a weak moment, prevailed to upon grant any wish which the latter would ask of him; and Kaikeyl, availing himself of Das ara tha's rashly-given promise, demanded of him the installation of her own son, Bharata, as heir apparent, and the banishment to the forest of Rama for a period of 14 years. A promise once uttered being irrevocable, and Rama having resolved not to cause a word given by his father to remain vain, neither the wishes of the people of Ayodhya nor those of Bharata and S'atrughtia, who meanwhile bad returned, and were enraged at what had occurred, could shake his determination to submit to his exile. Das'aratha died in con
sequence heart-broken, and Bharata assumed, till the return of Rama, the government of Ayodhya.
the long exile of Rama which now followed, and was shared in by his brother Lakshman'a, became, then, the source of the wonderful events which should hereafter lead to the destruction of the demon Ravan'a. They began with a series of conflicts which he had to sustain with the Rakshasas, who infested his forest abode, and which invariably, of course, ended in the destruction of these beings. One of these conflicts, however, was especially pregnant with the destiny be had come to fulfill. Ravan'a's sister, S'iirpan'aklai (lit. a female whose finger-nails were like winnowing baskets), was one of those demons who haunted the woods. She fell in love with Rama, but was re pelled by him; and when, in a fit of jealousy, she attacked Sita, Lakshman'a cut off her ears and nose. Enraged at this treatment, she repaired to her brother Ravan'a, and in order better to stimulate his revenge, she also excited in him a passion for Sta. Ravan'a therefore started off for the forest Dan'd'aka, where Rama lived; and, aided by another demon, Marian, who transformed himself into a golden-colored deer, and thus enticed both brothers away from the hermitage, to chase after it, succeeded in carrying off Sita to his capital. By means of some other supernatural events then happening, Rama dis covered the fate of his wife; and the remainder of his exile is now filled up with his preparing for war with Ravan'a, conquering and destroying him, and recovering Shit, whose honor had remained untarnished during her long and severe trials when kept as a prisoner in the harem of Ravan'a. Some of the incidents of this struggle are of special interest, inasmuch as they are the basis of traditions still prevalent in India. They chiefly relate to the allies of Rama, who were no other than miraculous bears and mon keys, and by their magic powers mainly brought about the defeat of Ravan'a and his armies, while also helping him to communicate with Sita during her captivity. All these bears and monkeys were of divine origin, produced at the behest of Brahman by the gods for the express purpose of becoming the allies of Rama. Thus, the bear-king, antbuvat, issued from the mouth .of Brahman himself; Bali was a son of Indra; Sugriva, of the Sun; Tara, of Wihaspati; Gandhatadana, of Kuvera; _Yak, of Vis' wakarman; _Ma, of Fire; Sushen'a, of Varun'a; Sarabha, of Parjanva; and the most renowned of all, lianumat, was a son of Wind. See the article IlAsmatA'x, where several of his feats are mentioned. They overbridged the sea, to carry their armies to Ceylon—whence the line of rocks in the channel is still called Ilamasetu, or Rama's bridge—in the English maps, Adam's bridge; they brought large rocks from the Hima layato support the bridge—whence the numerous rocks scattered all over India are supposed to have arisen as they dropped down on their transport to the sea; and they performed similar other feats, still commemorated in festivals performed in honor of Ilauumat and his tribe. As is the case iu other Avataras of Vislin'u, there is also in the Rama-Avatara a personage who, though nearly related to the fieud doomed to destruct don, acknowledges the divine nature of the incarnate god, and dissuades his friends from opposing him. In this Avatara. such a personage is Vibhishan'a, the uncle of Raven'a, whose counsel, however, is disregarded. Similarly disposed is also Kumbha karn' a, the brother of Itavania, who likewise understands that Rama is Visbn'u; but, as he yields to the orders of his brother, his fate is death. Vibliishanfa, however, in reward of his conduct, is, after Raven's's death, placed on the throne of Ceylon. When, at the end of this fierce war, the time fixed for llama's exile had expired, he returned to Ayodhyl with SRA, whose purity had previously been tested by an ordeal of fire, i and there received back from Bharata the sovereign power which, in the mean time, the latter had exercised in his stead; and at the end of a long and glorious reign, he became reunited with the splendor of Vishn'u. The story of this incarnation is briefly told in an episode of the Mahabliaritta (q.v.), and in several Puran'as; with the fullest detail, however, in the Rtimayani a (q.v.). A copious abstract of the latter is given in the poem Mat' trilalvya. See SAxsanrr LITERATURE. The English reader may consult, for some further detail, an " Analysis of the Ratnayan'a," in prof. Monier Williams's Indian. Epic .1',detry (Load. 1803).