Luv-Kush and the Ashwamedha Horse

In the Uttara Kanda, the final book of the Ramayana, comes the bittersweet meeting of Rama with the two sons he had never known. Luv and Kush, the twin boys of Sita, grew up in the forest hermitage of the sage Valmiki, and their reunion with their father came through a golden horse.

The twins of the hermitage

After Sita was sent away from Ayodhya, she found shelter in Valmiki’s ashram, and there she gave birth to Luv and Kush. Valmiki raised the boys as his own, teaching them the Vedas, the use of arms, and the whole of the Ramayana, his own poem of their father’s life, which they learned to sing without yet knowing that it was their own story.

The sacrificial horse

In Ayodhya, Rama resolved to perform the Ashwamedha, the great horse sacrifice by which a king proclaimed his sovereignty. A horse adorned with a golden plate was let loose to wander where it willed; whatever land it crossed unchallenged acknowledged Rama’s rule, but whoever stopped the horse declared war upon Ayodhya. The horse, guarded by an army, at last came near Valmiki’s forest.

The boys capture the horse

Luv and Kush saw the beautiful horse and read the proud words on its plate, which boasted of the might of Rama, lord of the world. The boys, fearless and full of the spirit of their line, caught the horse and tied it to a tree in defiance, as a challenge. When the army came to recover it, the two children stood against the host of Ayodhya and, with the divine weapons Valmiki had taught them, scattered it.

Father and sons

Rama sent his brothers one after another to take back the horse, and one after another Shatrughna, Lakshmana and Bharata were overcome by the two boys. At last Rama himself came to the field, and a father unknowingly faced his own sons in battle. Only through Valmiki, and through Sita, was the truth revealed: that the two matchless young warriors were the children of Rama and Sita. The boys had already sung the Ramayana in Rama’s court, as told in the story of Lava and Kusha, and now the family stood face to face.

The meaning of the story

The tale of Luv and Kush is the Ramayana turning back upon itself, for the sons are taught their father’s story by the very poet who first told it. It is a story of valour, for the children of Raghu’s line prove themselves against the greatest warriors of the age; and it is a story of sorrow and tenderness, the long-divided family brought together at last, and the poem that began with a king’s longing for sons ending with those sons singing his life back to him.