Page:Nine Ideal Indian Women.djvu/188

 PROMILA

It was when Ramchandra reigned that there lived in the south of India where Ceylon is now, a Maharajah of Danab race, named Ravana. He bad several sons and all were brave, but the eldest was the bravest and most handsome of them all. He had met Indra, the king of devas, in single combat, and long and fiercely they had fought, till the Rakshasa defeated the god Indra. That was the reason he was called Indrajit, the Conqueror of Indra.

Thus, through his son’s valour, Ravana became a still more powerful king and people trembled at his name, and his capital was famed for its strength and riches.

Indrajit had been married to a fair and gentle princess. Promila was her name, and she was the daughter of a Danab Maharajah of the same race as Ravana. She was a beautiful girl, and she loved her husband with all her heart and soul, and be returned her love with every fibre of his being.

Indrajit, with his Promila, went to his garden-house, by the sea, and here they wandered in the sylvan glades, and all their days were one long-continued happy dream. Indrajit drank the nectar of love from Promila’s lips, and for her the world was Indrajit. Thus the gladsome days slipped past and they knew not what was happening in the world of strife and woe.

On the north of the island, beyond the narrow sea, stretched the great land of India, and travellers and traders brought tales from there of kings and courts. And thus King Ravana heard of the beauteous Sita, daughter of the saintly Janak, King of Mithila, and how, in the great durbar, Rama, the Crown Prince of Ajodhya, had broken Janak’s magic bow and won the peerless Princess for his bride.

The glowing accounts of Sita’s loveliness inflamed the Rakshasa’s heart, and often Ravana brooded as to how he might obtain possession oft her Then