Page:Gódávari.djvu/291

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GAZETTEER.
265

force of 125 sepoys was then sent up the river, the Gódávari and Saveri were patrolled by steamers, and posts were established along their banks. By September the people had resumed their ordinary occupations and quiet was restored. The Rékapalle country was again disturbed by an incursion of Tamman Dora in October 1880. He looted a few defenceless villages, but his stay in this quarter did not last long.

Srí Rámagiri ('holy Ráma's hill') lies forty-four miles south by east of Bhadráchalam. It is supposed to have been here that the bird Jatáyu, who had tried to hinder Rávana's abduction of Síta but been mortally wounded in the attempt, told the news of the abduction with his dying breath to Ráma as he passed that way. The grateful Ráma performed the funeral rites of the faithful bird at Srí Rámagiri. The god is known as Kulása ('the joyful') Ráma, because he here had news of his lost wife; while the Ráma at Parnasála is Sóka ('the sorrowful'), because his bereavement occurred there. The temple is supported by the zamindar of Rékapalle, who devotes to its maintenance the net income derived from the village of Kúnnavaram, which ordinarily amounts to about Rs. 800 a year.

The neighbouring hill called Váli Sugríva is so named from the legend that it was there that Ráma obtained further news of Síta from Sugríva, the brother of Váli and king of the monkeys.