The "Ramayana."

Prince Rama, eldest son of Dasaratha, King of Ayodhya (Oudh), in northern India, bent "the great bow of Siva," as could no other prince, and thus proved himself the successful suitor for the hand of the Princess Sita, the earth-daughter of Janaka, King of the Mithila (Tirhut). The marriage was celebrated with Oriental pomp, and on the return of the bride and groom to Ayodhya, Rama was appointed heir to the throne of his father. But court intrigue is as old as the story of Ramayana. Rama and his lovely bride, Sita, were banished from the kingdom for fourteen years, that another might reign in his stead. Amidst the tears and lamentations of the people they departed from the city, accompanied by Rama's brother, Lakshmana. The exiles wandered southwest, towards the Coromandel coast; the people of India have marked their footsteps by temples and memorials from Ayodhya to Cape Comorin. For ten years the exiled prince and princess and their devoted brother wandered through the forests of the Dekan. The poem is filled with their thrilling experiences. The whole of southern India was then thickly inhabited by non-Aryan races, or tribes, driven from their homes in the great plains of northern India by the invading and all-powerful Aryans. The poet has introduced the aborigines as bears and monkeys, and the natives of Ceylon as huge monsters and demons.

Rama at last incurs the vengeance of a female demon of Ceylon, and she, in revenge, induces her brother, the monster King of the "Golden Isle," to enter the forests and carry off the wife of Rama during his absence. On his return Rama makes an alliance with "the monkeys and bears" to go with him in search of his lost Sita. They finally obtain a clue. The monkeys and bears tear down trees and roll down boulders from the mountains until they have built a bridge across the strait to Ceylon, the "Golden Isle." The natural causeway is still called by the Hindus "Rama's Bridge;" the Mohammedans call it "Adam's Bridge." With the assistance of his brother and the monkey-general, Hanuman, and a brother of the demon-king of Ceylon, Rama is able to march an army across and lay siege to Lanka, the capital of Ceylon. Chief after chief is sent out against them and killed. Finally King Ravana makes a sally, and is killed by Rama. The battle is won, and Sita is released. Rama then places the brother of the late King upon the throne of Ceylon, and returns with his weird victorious army to the mainland. Sita there proves her untainted virtue by throwing herself into a lighted pyre and coming out uninjured.

At the end of their fourteen years of exile Rama and Sita are sought for, and a triumphal entry is awarded them at Ayodhya, where Rama ascends the throne. But the suspicions of the people are soon aroused when they hear of the episode of the demon-king of the "Golden Isle." So Rama, bowed with grief, yields to the will of his people, and sends Sita again into exile. In her wanderings she meets the ascetic saint, Valmiki, who takes her to his hermitage, where her twin boys, Lava and Kusa, are born.

The boys grow "manly and warlike." Valmiki teaches them the Vedas, and finally writes for them his famous epic, the "Ramayana," and teaches them to chant it. Years passed before Rama decided to celebrate the famous "horse-sacrifice" in token of his sovereignty. According to custom, a horse was let loose whom none might hinder or restrain. The horse found its way to the hermitage of Valmiki, where the spirited boys immediately mounted it and determined to retain it. The guardsmen of the King reported the where-abouts of the horse, and Rama came himself to the hermitage. Here for the first time he met his princely boys, but did not know them until they chanted for him a record of his noble deeds. In a passion of remorse and repentance he hears of Sita's loneliness and sorrow, and then recognizes his sons and embraces Sita and them. Rama and his wife and sons return to Ayodhya.

But joy is not long for Sita. The earth from whence she came receives again her long-suffering child.

In the Rig Veda, the oldest Indian poem, Sita is called "the field furrow," having sprung from the earth before the eyes of Janaka while he was ploughing in the field; she is worshipped in the Vedas as an agricultural deity.

But the allegory of the Veda is lost upon the Hindu women of to-day. There is not a woman in the length and breadth of the land to whom the story of Sita is unknown. She is to them the model of gentleness, patience, virtue, abiding faith, and enduring love. Yet for her sad fate, no woman in India would name a child "Sita."

Rama, too, is a model to men for his faithfulness to Sita, his obedience to the will of his people, and his unfailing devotion to his religion.

Thus Rama is the darling hero, Hanuman the favorite general, Sita the model wife and princess throughout India. And so to millions of people this epic poem has been a moral education, an inspiration to right living.