Vedic Kathas
In his youth, King Dasharatha, hunting by sound alone, mistook the sound of a pitcher filling for an elephant and killed Shravan Kumar, the devoted…
The death of King Dasharatha, broken-hearted at the exile of Rama, did not come by chance. It was the ripening of a curse he had earned long before, in his youth, through a single arrow loosed in the dark.
Shravan Kumar was the only child of an aged, blind couple who lived as forest ascetics. His love for his parents was complete.
One night the travellers halted near a forest, and Shravan went down to a river to fetch water for his thirsty parents. In that same forest the young prince Dasharatha was hunting.
Dasharatha ran toward the cry and found, to his horror, a dying youth. With his last breath Shravan did not curse the prince;
Dasharatha took the water to the old couple. When they understood that the one who approached was not their son, and heard how he had died, their grief was beyond bearing.
Years later, when Queen Kaikeyi's demand sent Rama into the forest for fourteen years, Dasharatha could not endure the parting.
The story holds up Shravan Kumar as the eternal model of devotion to one's parents, and it teaches the inexorable law of karma: no act, however unintended or long past, escapes its fruit, and even a just king…
Vedic Kathas
The complete story, its characters and sources, on Vedic Kathas.