Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. (IA mobot31753002412036).pdf/224

HIKAYAT SRI RAMA. of the journey, the destruction of a giantess (rakshasi) named Tadaka, and other exploits, is continued in subsequent chapters. Visvamitra hears that Janaka, king of Mithila, proposes to give his daughter Sita in marriage to anyone who can string the bow of Siva, and suggests that he should take Rama and Lakshmana with him. Rama with a single arm raises the ponderous bow, and in stringing it snaps it asunder. He is rewarded with the hand of Sita. King Dasaratha is summoned to the wedding, and brings his other two sons with him, and brides are provided not only for Rama, but also for all his brothers. On the way back to Ayodhya, Rama is challenged by Parasu Rama, a former incarnation of Vishnu; Rama hurls an arrow and destroys the fruit of his asceticism, but spares his life, remembering that he was a Brahman. The word Sita means "a furrow," and it is stated that she was not born of a woman, as explained in the following lines taken from Griffith's metrical Translation of chapter 66, Book I, where King Janaka says: 183 Once, as it chanced, I ploughed the ground, When sudden, 'neath the share was found An infant springing from the earth, Named Sita from her secret birth.+ BOOK II. At the beginning of the second Book we have the account of the preparations made at Ayodhya for the ceremony of inaugurat- ing Rama as Heir Apparent. The day is fixed, and the people are filled with joy, because they love the hero and his beautiful wife, when suddenly a humpbacked female slave of the queen Kaikeyi, seeing the stir from the palace roof and learning the object of the preparations, rushes down to her mistress, and persuades her to claim that Bharata be installed as the heir in place of Rama. Kai- keyi reminds King Dasaratha that formerly, when he was wounded in battle, she had watched by his beside, and the king had promised her that Bharata should be the heir, and that Rama should be banished for fourteen years to the forest of Dandaka as a devotee (tapasa). The king feels that he is bound to keep his promise. Rama's mother is heart-broken, and Lakshmana urges Rama to rebel, but the hero is unmoved. He thinks only of his duty to his father. He comforts his mother, and begs her to stay and care for 4 The Malay story of the birth of Sita, both in our text and in that of Roorda van Eysinga, makes her to be a daughter of King Dasarata, born in Ravana's palace, but thrown by him into the sea in an iron coffin, and picked up by Maharisi Kala, who came some years later to invite Dasa- rata's sons to compete for Sita's hand by attempting to shoot a single arrow through a row of forty palm trees. Sri Rama, having previously killed a giantess named Jagina, and destroyed a rhinoceros and a dragon, arrives at Durata Purwa, where Maharisi Kala lives, and pierces the forty palm trees at a single shot, thus winning the hand of Sita. On his way back, Sri Rama is attacked, out of jealousy, by four of the other princes who had taken part in the contest; two are killed, and the lives of the other two are spared on their doing homage to Sri Rama. R. A. Soc., No. 70. 1917.