fight, received his axe from his preceptor, Siva, as the prize of his
prowess.

Parasurama addresses Rama thus:--

"How dost thou presume to bend thy brow in frowns on me? Thou must be an
audacious boy, a scion of the vile Kshatriya race. Thy tender years and
newly wedded bride teach me a weakness I am not wont to feel.

Throughout the world the story runs, I, Rama, and the son of Jamadgni,
struck off a mother's head with remorseless arm. This vengeful axe has
one and twenty times destroyed the Kshatriya race, not sparing in its
wrath the unborn babe hewn piecemeal in the parent womb.

It was thus I slaked the fires of a wronged father's wrath with blood,
whose torrents, drawn unsparingly from martial veins, fed the vast
reservoir in which I love to bathe."

Rama replies thus:--

"Give over thy vaunts--I hold thy cruelty a crime, not virtue."

The combat between the two Ramas is suspended by the arrival of Janaka
and Satananda, and Rama's being summoned to attend the Kanchana Mochana,
the loosening of Sita's golden bracelet.

Parasurama awaits Ramachandra's return. He is accosted in succession by
Vasishtha, Viswamitra, Satananda, Janaka and Dasaratha, who first
endeavour to soothe and then to terrify him; but he outbullies them all:
at last Ramachandra returns from the string-removing ceremony and is