Dasaratha’s Curse

Dasaratha’s Curse

Sumantra accompanied Rama to Bharadvaja’s hermitage and then, from there, he returned to Ayodhya to give the latest news to the king. Dasaratha was gloomy, absorbed in sad kind of thoughts. He listened to the story of his son’s itinerary without saying a word. Then he got up and retired to his rooms.

He couldn’t sleep. There was a myriad of images in front of him, and among all, Rama’s face was predominant. Suddenly, he jumped: A memory that came to his mind made him shed hot tears.

At that moment he figured out why he was suffering so bitterly. He got up and called his first wife, Kausalya, Rama’s mother. He asked her to sit on the bed and looked at her, as if he wanted to apologize for what he had done. She looked at him fondly. 

“I feel the need,” Dasaratha told her, “to tell you and no one else a story that happened to me in my youth. I can’t keep it to myself anymore. In fact, I had almost forgotten this episode, but I still have clear in my memory what happened in those cursed days. Listen to me.”

“In my youth I learned the art of archery. I learned so well that I could only hit a target by hearing the sound it made. People called me ‘the one who hits the sound’. During those days I made an unforgivable mistake, of which I am now serving the reactions. It was the rainy season. One day I went hunting, and when the sun went down I continued to hunt. Night had fallen, and I was wandering in search of prey. Suddenly I heard a rustle coming from the stream, a sound like that of an elephant’s trunk drinking water. So, I thought it was an animal and shot an arrow. Nevertheless, it wasn’t an elephant’s roar that answered me, but a man’s muffled cry. I ran to the place and there, mortally wounded, I saw a young hermit.

“Oh, king,” he told me in a faint voice, “I don’t know why you hit me, but now I’m dying. I don’t worry about my life, which is ephemeral anyway, but about my elderly parents who won’t be able to survive without me. You are cruel because you killed a defenseless hermit, but promise me to go to them and give them the news of my death.”

“Thus the young ascetic died. I ran to look for his parents and didn’t take long to find them. I was horrified when I realized that they were not only very old, but also blind. When I gave them the terrible news they said nothing, but their pain was visibly. Then they performed the funeral rites for their son and made the dramatic decision to give up their life by committing suicide in the funeral pyre.

Before entering the fire, they cursed me:

«One day you too will experience the deep pain of being separated from your child.»

“Now, now the curse of the ascetics becomes tragically true.”

Dasaratha was sobbing. Then, looking at his wife he said almost in a gasp:

“Kausalya, I can’t bear the pain of being separated from Rama.”

Dasaratha spent the night distraught. His heart could not endure so much suffering and at dawn, it stopped.

 

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