National Epics

At the time when Ravana’s outrages were spreading terror throughout the land, and Brahma, looking down from his throne, shuddered to see the monster he had gifted with such fell power, there reigned in Ayodhya, now the city of Oude, a good and wise raja, Dasaratha, who had reigned over the splendid city for nine thousand years without once growing weary. He had but one grief—that he was childless—and at the story’s opening, he was preparing to make the great sacrifice, Asva-media, to appease the gods, that they might give him a son.

The gods, well pleased, bore his request to Brahma in person and incidentally preferred a request that he provide some means of destroying the monster Ravana that was working such woe among their priests and disturbing their sacrifices. Brahma granted the first request and, cudgelling his brains for a device to destroy Ravana, bethought himself that while he had promised that neither gods, genii, nor demons should slay him, he had said nothing of man. He accordingly led the appealing gods to Vishnu, who proclaimed that men and monkeys should kill the monster and that he would be re-incarnated as Dasaratha’s eldest son and, in this form, compass the death of Ravana.

Over time, as a reward for his performance of the great sacrifice, four sons were born to Dasaratha, Rama by Kausalya, his oldest wife, Bharata, whose mother was Kaikeyi, and twin sons, Lakshmana and Satrughna, whose mother was Sumitra. Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu, destined to destroy Ravana, grew daily in grace, beauty, and strength. When he was but sixteen years old, having been sent for by a sage to kill the demons who were disturbing the forest hermits in their religious rites, he departed unattended, save by his brother Lakshmana and a guide, into the pathless forests, where he successfully overcame the terrible Rakshasa, Tarika, and conveyed her body to the grateful sage.

While journeying through the woods, destroying countless Rakshasas, he chanced to pass near the kingdom of Mithila. He heard that its king, Janaka, had offered his peerless daughter, Sita, in marriage to the man who could bend the mighty bow of Siva the destroyer, which had been kept at Janaka’s court since its owner’s death.