The Bow of Mithila
King Janaka of Mithila kept, in a hall built for no other purpose, an iron bow so immense that eight hundred men were needed simply to wheel its chest into place — a gift entrusted to his ancestors by in an age before memory. Janaka had a daughter, too, found as an infant in a furrow while he ploughed a sacrificial field, and named Sita for the furrow itself. As she grew into a young woman of uncommon grace, Janaka made a vow: she would marry only the man who could string that bow. Kings had come from every corner of Bharata to try, and every one of them had left Mithila humbled, some unable even to make the great bow shift on its wheeled altar. When Vishwamitra arrived with the two young princes of Ayodhya and asked to see the famous weapon, Janaka welcomed them with the weary courtesy of a man who no longer expected anything to change.
✦ Visual cue — A colossal, ornately carved iron bow resting on a massive wheeled altar inside a grand pillared hall, dozens of kings and courtiers gathered around it in awe, King Janaka seated on a raised throne nearby.