1 460 The Bum brothers,
2 and the boys were employed as cowherds by the people, hut they were
3 careless of their cattle and devoted themselves to tlieir favourite ^^ame
4 of archery. So the people dismissed first one and then the other. Both
5 of them then took service with the Thakur of Darkoti, but ‘were ao^ain
6 discharged for idleness. They then roamed the country seekino: service,
7 but no one would help them, and so they went down to the plains and
8 reached Dehli, where they enlisted in the kind's army. To test the
9 skill of his archers the king set up a tawa (pole ?) from which hung a horse
10 hair with a small grain in the centre. No one in all his army could split
11 the o-rain with an arrow, except these two recruits, and the king
12 was <^reatly pleased with them, but as his Itani told him that they weie
13 not common soldiers but possessed of magical power and should be
14 dismissed to their native hills with a suitable reward, he gave them a
15 huo'e vessel {cheni) full of coins which they could not lift, and they
16 were about to depart when two deotds, Mahasu and Shrigul, who Avere
17 prisoners at Delhi,' appeared and calling upon the brothers for help, as
18 they belonged to the same hill country as themselves, promised that if
19 they petitioned the king for their release they Avould be set free.
20 The Dum brothers implored the king for the deoids release, and
21 their r^uest was granted. The deotds were so pleased that they bade
22 the youths ask of them any boon they liked, and they asked their help
23 in carrying the vessel home. The deotds told the brotliers to mount
24 their aerial steeds, look toAvards the Kailas hill, touch the ATssel and
25 whip up their horses. So they did, and their steeds carried their
26 riders high up into the sky, flying nortliAvards over the hills and halting
27 at Binu^ a place near Gathan village. The gods AA'ent to their
28 dominions and the vessel full of coin Avas buried at Binu, where it
29 turned into Avater, which Avas made into the haoli nOAv on the boundary
30 of Kumharsain and Keonthal. Tlie aerial steeds disappeared on Mount
31 Kailas after leaving the young Dums at Binu. Binu then belonged
32 to the Thakurs of Rajana, and the Dum brothers made themselves A^ry
33 troublesome, breaking Avith their arrows the ghards full of water which
34 the women Avere carrying home on their heads ^ or setting their bundles
35 of o>rass on fire. The people became so alarmed that at last the
36 Avhole countryside with the Thakur at its head brought ^the brothers to
37 bay in a battle in Avhich the elder, who was called Dum, was killed.
38 Ron 3 the vounger, also died and both were cremated on the spot where
39 they had fallen, "but they emerged from the ashes in the form of idols.
40 Th4e miraculous images punished the Thakur in many ways, haunting
41 him in his sleep and overturning his bed. To appease the images, who
42 were thus become pdp, the Thakur conveyed them to Nagarkct in Kulu,
43 but when presented there before the goddess they vanished. The
44 people were distressed at their loss and fasted before Durga until she made
45 them re-appear. So she gave them back the images ; hut some say that
46 she gave them other images in lieu of the originals. Thereafter Dum
47 1 The deotds Mahasu and Shrigul were captives kept at Delhi for being devil oppressors
48 in the hills.
49 2 See the note in the account of Guga.
50 ^ The descendants of Kon settled in Keonthal State and are called Katban.