132 HUNTING IN THE JUNGLE. 



The legend from which all this reverence obtains its 

 authority is as follows : — 



THE LEGEND OF RAMA AND THE APE 

 ANNOUMA. 



Once upon a time Rama, or Vishnu incarnated under that 

 name, lived in Aodya, passing his youth in the silence of the 

 forests, engaged in meditation and prayer. Djamadogny, King 

 of Militta, having seen some of his Avonderful deeds, proposed 

 that he should try to bend an enormous bow, once the property 

 of Siva, the god of war, offering him as reward, if he succeeded, 

 the bow and his beautiful daughter Sita. The latter was so 

 marvellously lovely that all the princes of India had tried to 

 bend the bow, hoping to win her hand, but not one of them 

 could even start it. Rama, without any apparent effort, bent 

 the bow, strung it, and drew the cord an arrow's length, and 

 drove the shaft through the jialace walls with such force that it 

 wounded a Brahman's wife within, and so seriously that her life 

 was in danger. Her husband, furious at the accident, by virtue 

 of spells and sorceries uttered a curse that condemned Rama, 

 although a god, to a life in which he should never be wholly 

 successful in anything he undertook, nor perfectly happy. This 

 power is common to all Brahmans, and is irresistible for mortals 

 and gods alike; and poor Rama saw all his undertakings blighted 

 in the bud by this unhappy curse. He had hardly returned with 

 his lovely bride to his own home, Avhere he was now king, Avhen 

 his late father's second wife came to him to beg him to abdicate 

 in favor of her son, alleging that the gods, through the oracle, 

 had declared that to be their wish. 



