e lesser gods helped
him in the guise of monkeys.

"One only way I find
To slay this fiend of evil mind.
He prayed me once his life to guard
From demon, god, and heavenly bard,
And spirits of the earth and air,
And I, consenting, heard his prayer.
But the proud giant in his scorn
Recked not of man of woman born;
None else may take his life away
And only man the fiend can slay."

At Brahma's request, Vishnu not only consented to become man, but
elected to enter the body of the rajah's oldest son--one of the four
children obtained in answer to prayer. Meantime he charged his fellow
gods diligently to beget helpers for him, so they proceeded to produce
innumerable monkeys. The poem next informs us that Rama, son of the
Rajah's favorite wife, being a god,--an incarnation of Vishnu,--came
into the world with jewelled crown and brandishing four arms, but
that, at his parents' request, he concealed these divine attributes,
assumed a purely human form, and cried lustily like a babe. Two other
wives of the rajah, having received lesser portions of the divine
beverage, gave birth to three sons (Bharata, Lakshmana, and
Satrughna), and the news that four heirs had arrived in the palace
caused great rejoicings in the realm.

These four princes grew up in the most promising fashion, Rama in
particular developing every virtue, and showing even in childhood
marked ability as an archer. Such was his proficiency in athletic
sports that a hermit besought him, at sixteen, to rid his forest of
the demons which were making life miserable for him and his kin. To
enable Rama to triumph over these foes, the hermit bestowed upon him
divine weapons, assuring him they would never fail him.

"And armed with these, beyond a doubt,
Shall Rama put those fiends to rout."

The hermit also beguiled the weariness of their long journey to the
forest by relating to Rama the story of the Ganges, the sacred stream
of India. We are told that a virtuous king, being childless, betook
himself to the Himalayas, where, after spending a hundred years in
austerities, Brahma announced he should have one son by one of his
wives and sixty thousand by the other, adding that his consorts might
choose whether to bear one offspring or many. Given the first choice,
the favorite wife elected to be the mother of the son destined to
continue the royal race, while the other brought into the world a
gourd, wherein a hermit discovered the germs o