Râma, often distinguished as Râmacandra, is usually treated as the seventh incarnation and anterior to Kṛishṇa, for he was born in the second age of this rapidly deteriorating world, whereas Kṛishṇa did not appear until the third. But his deification is later than that of Kṛishṇa and probably an imitation of it. He was the son of Daśaratha, King of Ayodhya or Oudh, but was driven into banishment by a palace intrigue. He married Sîtâ, daughter of the King of Mithilâ. She was carried off by Râvana, the demon tyrant of Ceylon, and Râma re-captured her with the aid of Hanuman, King of the Monkeys, and his hosts.[361] Is there any kernel of history in this story? An examination of Hindu legends suggests that they usually preserve names and genealogies correctly but distort facts, and fantastically combine independent narratives. Râma was a semi-divine hero in the tales of ancient Oudh, based on a real personality, and Ceylon was colonized by Indians of Aryan speech.[362] But can we assume that a king of Oudh really led an expedition to the far south, with the aid of ape-like aborigines? It is doubtful, and the narrative of the Râmâyaṇa reads like poetic invention rather than distorted history. And yet, what can have prompted the legend except the occurrence of some such expedition? In Râma's wife Sîtâ, seem to be combined an agricultural goddess and a heroine of ancient romance, embodying the Hindu ideal of the true wife. We have no record of the steps by which Râma and Kṛishṇa were deified, although in different parts of the epic they are presented in very different aspects, sometimes as little more than human, sometimes as nothing less than the Supreme Deity. But it can hardly be doubted that this deification owes something to the example of Buddhism. It may be said that the development of both Buddhism and Hinduism in the centuries immediately preceding and following our era gives parallel manifestations of the same popular tendency to deify great men. This is true, but the non-Buddhist forms of Indian religion while not objecting to deification did not particularly encourage it. But in this period, Buddhism and Jainism were powerful: both of them sanctioned the veneration of great teachers and, as they did not recognize sacrifice or adoration of gods, this veneration became the basis of their ceremonies and easily passed into worship. The Buddhists are not responsible for the introduction of deification, but the fact that it was to some extent the basis of their public ceremonies must have gone far to make the worship of Râma and Kṛishṇa seem natural.