Rám, rám, is a usual salutation, like our good-morrow, between friends at meeting or parting. It is reverently reiterated at times in aid of abstraction, and in moments of enthusiasm or distress.
On the birthday of this god the Hindoo merchants in general begin their year’s accounts; and on this day the gods caused a shower of flowers to fall from heaven.
“Ravuna, a giant who reigned at Ceylon, having seized Hŭnoomān, ordered his tail to be set on fire. The enraged monkey, with his burning tail, leaped from house to house, and set all Lŭnka (Ceylon) on fire; after finishing which, he came to Seeta, and complained that he could not extinguish the fire that had kindled on his tail. She directed him to spit upon it; and he, raising it to his face for this purpose, set his face on fire. He then complained, that when he arrived at home with such a black face, all the monkeys would laugh at him. Seeta, to comfort him, assured him, that all the other monkeys should have black faces also; and when Hŭnoomān came amongst his friends, he found that, according to the promise of Seeta, they had all black faces as well as himself.
“Mŭndodŭrēē, the chief wife of Ravuna the giant, whom Ram had killed, came to Ram weeping; and he, not knowing who she was, gave her this blessing, that she should never become a widow. Finding his mistake, having just killed her husband, he ordered Hŭnoomān continually to throw wood upon the fire, according to a proverb amongst the Hindoos, that as long as the body of the husband is burning, a woman is not called a widow.
“To this day, therefore, Hŭnoomān keeps laying logs on the fire; and every time a Hindoo puts his fingers in his ears and hears a sound, he says he hears the bones of the giant Ravuna burning[48].”
The marks on the foreheads of Ram’s followers very much resemble a trident.
At the time of death many Hindoos write the name of Ram on the breast and forehead of the dying person, with earth taken from the banks of the Ganges; and thence those persons after death, instead of being dragged to Yamu, the Holy King, the Judge of the Dead, to receive sentence, immediately ascend to heaven.
The mock fights at the Ram Leela are in remembrance of the time when Hŭnoomān and his monkeys constructed a bridge from the continent of India to Ceylon (Lŭnka), over which Ram’s army passed, and rescued the imprisoned Seeta from the hands of the giant Rawan or Ravuna, who had carried her off. Seeta then passed through the ordeal of fire, and by her miraculous incombustibility assured the world of her purity; Ram placed the mālā, the chaplet of marriage, around her neck, and the monkeys capered and gambolled with delight.
The white marble figure in the [frontispiece] to the left of Ganesh represents Ram, the deified hero, with his bow and quiver. The brass figure in front of the latter is Hŭnoomān, bearing Ram Seeta on his shoulders.