Vedic Kathas
The childless King Dasharatha of Ayodhya performed the Putrakameshti yagna, conducted by the sage Rishyasringa.
Every telling of the Ramayana begins with a longing: the great king Dasharatha of Ayodhya, lord of the solar Ikshvaku line, had everything a king could wish for except the one thing he wanted most, a son to…
Dasharatha had ruled long and well, with three noble queens, Kausalya, Kaikeyi and Sumitra, yet no child had been born to any of them.
To conduct the Putrakameshti the sages chose Rishyasringa, a young ascetic of such innocence and power that rain itself was said to follow wherever he went.
As the fire blazed, a radiant being rose from the flames, tall and glowing, bearing in his hands a golden vessel filled with divine payasam, sweet rice blessed by the gods.
At that very time, in the heavens, the gods were in despair. The rakshasa king Ravana had grown unconquerable through a boon that no god or demon could slay him, and he tormented the three worlds.
In due time the queens conceived, and on the ninth day of the bright half of the month of Chaitra, under an auspicious conjunction of stars, Kausalya gave birth to Rama, dark as a rain-cloud and bearing the…
The story joins a father's prayer for a child with the world's prayer for rescue from evil, teaching that the divine descends in answer to sincere need, and that the greatest events may begin in the quiet…
Vedic Kathas
The complete story, its characters and sources, on Vedic Kathas.