"In the heart of the city lies the great Ram Kot, the fort of Rama, with its gates guarded by the immortal monkeys who accompanied him on his return from Ceylon. On its western side is the Janam Bhum or Janam Asthan, the birth place of the hero. To visit this on the Rama-Nomi, that sacred ninth which falls in Chait, delivers the pilgrim from all the pains of the transmigration of souls. The virtue of this act is as if the pilgrim had given 1,000 cows, or performed a thousand times the sacrifices of the Raj Suiji or Agin-hotra, “but the fool, who eats on that day shall go to hell, where all the vicious are thrown into boiling oil.” They say there was once a band of five thieves, who had been banished from their native country for highway robbery, adultery, murder of cows and other heinous crime. These five men spent their days alternately in robbing pilgrims and in riotous living. A party of pilgrims from Delhi passed through the forest in which was the den of these robbers, and the robbers joined them in the guise of travellers from a far country. But as they neared Ajudhia the guardian-angels of the holy city, who are stationed to prevent the entrance of the deliberately wicked, took visible shape and began to beat the robbers with their clubs. A sage who lived near by, Asit Muni, hearing their cries, interfered in their behalf. They were released at his intercession, and in gratitude they obeyed their preserver’s command to complete the pilgrimage to Ajudha, and secure salvation by performing the prescribed ritual. As they entered the city Ajudha appeared as a beautiful goddess, clad in white robes, and attended by her maidens. The men trembled with fear. On a sudden their sins arose before them, shrouded in the blue garbs of mourning, of horrible countenances, red-haired, blear-eyed, mis-shapen, their iron ornaments clanking like chains. Then the goddess beat the sins, and they fled out of the city and took refuge under a pipal tree, and the thieves went on rejoicing and bathed at Swargdwar, and kept the fast of Nomi, and worshipped at the birthplace of Rama, and they were purified from sin, and Yama called Chitra Gupta the recorder, and their sins were blotted out from the Book of the Judge of the dead. Meanwhile the messengers of Yama traversing the earth fell in with the sins of the robbers, standing crying under the pipal tree. On these the messengers took compassion, and prayed of Yama that the sins might be re-united to the robbers. But Yama said that the advantages of bathing at Ajudhia were irrevocable, and retired to meditate on the banks of the Sarji. Ajudhia was pleased with the wisdom of Yama, and the place of his meditation she named Jama Asthal, and appointed a holy day in his honour on the 2nd of Katik, and the sins were destroyed under the pipal tree."