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lousy against Râma. Kaikeyî had a quarrel and a long struggle with her husband, but he at length consented to install Bharat, and to send Râma into exile for fourteen years. Râma departed with his wife Sîtâ, and his ever devoted brother Lakshamana, and travelling southwards, he took up his abode at Chitrakûta, in Dandakâ forest between the Yamunâ and the Godâvart. Soon after the departure of Râma, his father Dasharatha died, and Bharata was called upon to ascend the throne. He declined and set out for the forest with an army to bring Râma back. When the brothers met there was a long generous contention. Râma refused to return unntil the term of his father's sentence was completed, and Bharata declined to ascend the throne. At length it was arranged that Bharata should return and act as his brother's vicegerent. As a sign of Râma's supremacy, Bharata carried back with him a pair of Râma's shoes, and these were always brought out ceremoniously when business had to be transacted. Râma passed ten years of his banishment moving from one hermitage to another, and went at length to the hermitage of the sage Agastya. This holy man recommended Râma to take up his abode at Panchavati on the river Godâvarî, and the party accordingly proceeded hither. This district was infested with Rakshasas. Here Râvana, king of Lankâ, came, and, in the absence of Râma and Lakshamana, assuming the form of a religious mendicant, by force carried off Sîtâ to Lankâ, but after a variety of adventures and incidents, and many fiercely contested battles, Lankâ was taken, Râvana was killed, and Sîtâ rescued.*

*From Dowson's Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, religion, &c.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN RÄMA'S MOTHER,

AND

RÂMA, LAKSHAMANA, AND SITA.

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Then Râma and Sîtâ and Lakshamana turned to Kausalyâ to take their leave of her; and Kausalyâ said to Râma:-"Sîtâ is unprotected, and Lakshamana is a mere boy do you take care of them in the wilderness, and above all take care of yourself, and never forget me, who am your unfortunate mother." Here she was choked with grief and could speak no more; and Râma said to her:-"Lakshamana is my right hand, and Sîtâ is my shadow: so you need have no fears on their account: for myself fear nothing, but engage yourself wholly in consoling my father Dasharatha : By your favour I hope to be successful at last, and to absolve my father from his promise, and return again to the Râj." Kausalyâ then said to Lakshamana :-"I rejoice to see your attachment to Râma; you should mutually protect each other, and Sîtâ should be the object of your common care: Consider Râma as your father, and Sîtâ as your mother, and serve them as you have served us." Kausalyâ then embraced Sîtâ and kissed her and said: "The nature of women who have been constantly honoured by their beloved husbands, is to neglect their lords in time of trouble; but in the heart of a virtuous woman her husband is esteemed sacred, and regarded as the pure fountain of happiness: Thus though my son Râma is exiled to the jungle, he is not contemptible in your sight, but is regarded as your deity, in poverty the same as in wealth." Then Sîtâ, with joined hands, replied thus to the mother of her husband :-"O excellent one, I will do all you have commanded; for I am acquainted with the duty of a woman towards her lord, and could

no more depart from virtue, than light could depart from the moon : The lute yields no music, if it be divested of its strings; the chariot moves not without wheels; and a woman bereft of her husband has no pleasure though she have a hundred children; scanty is the joy derived from a father, a brother, or a son; but who does not honour a husband, as the source of happiness without bounds; to the wife a husband is even as a god." *

"RAMAYANA."

Speeches at the time of going into exile-from Wheeler's History

of India.

125. REFORM.

Goethe says that the world is governed by three things: wisdom, authority and appearances. By wisdom, the educated are ruled, while the multitude is controlled by authority, and appearances direct the frivolous.

Tyrant custom makes a slave of reason.

-OLD ITALIAN PROVERB.

Custom does often reason over-rule,

And only serves for reason to the fool.

-ROCHESTER.

Custom hangs upon us, with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.

-WORDSWORTH.

No savage is free. All over the world his daily life is regulated by a complicated and apparently most inconvenient set of customs as forcible as laws.

-SIR JOHN LUBBOCK.

It is not easy for the mind to put off those confused notions and prejudices it has imbibed from custom. -LOCKE.

Prejudice may be considered as a continual false

medium of viewing things.

-BUTLER.

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You cannot without guilt and disgrace, stop where

you are. The past and the present call on you to advance. Let what you have gained be an impulse to something higher. Your nature is too great to be crushed. You were not created what you are merely to toil, eat, drink, and sleep, like the inferior animals. If you will, you can rise. No ship in your condition, can in knowledge, power, virtue,

consent.

power in society, no harddepress you, keep you down, influence, but by your own

-REV. CHANNING.

There is nothing so revolutionary, because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive to society, as the strain to keep things fixed, when all the world is, by the very law of its creation, in eternal progress; and the cause of all the evils in the world may be traced to that natural but most deadly error of human indolence and corruption, that our business is business is to preserve, and not to improve.

It is not so difficult a task to plant new truths, as to root out old errors; for there is this paradox in men, they run after that which is new, but are prejudiced in favour of that which is old.

-COLTON.

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