Storytelling for Week 2: King Dasharatha and his ego.

As King Dasharatha lay on his deathbed, he remembered the story of the time he was forewarned about his separation from his son.

Dasharatha had always been really good at archery and had loved it ever since he was a little boy. When he was still a prince, he would always go out to the forest and practice shooting whenever he got an opportunity. Every once in a while, he would also hear and see an animal and try to hunt it down using his bow and arrows.

One day he heard the leaves rustling from behind the bushes. Thinking it might just be a fox or other small animal, he took an arrow and shot it in the direction the noise was coming from. Eager to see what he had just shot, he ran around the bushes. There was a boy lying there who had been shot. Dasharatha thought to himself, “What have I done?” After realizing what had just happened, he went up to the little boy and asked, “ What is your name? I am really sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” The boy, unable to speak, just pointed in the direction of the his parents and passed away.

Dasharatha, unaware of what the little boy was pointing at, walked over in the direction that the boy pointed in. As he went in the direction, he saw two blind elderly people. He realized that these were the little boy's parents and he was just on his way to the pond to get some water for them. Dasharatha picked up the little boy and his bottle of water and took both the boy and water to his parents and placed both in front of them.

The parents, hearing the noise, asked, “Shravan, is that you?”

Dasharatha replied, “ No. This is Prince Dasharatha. I have come in front of you to ask for forgiveness. I have made a huge mistake.” He then explained to the parents what had happened.

The father angrily yelled, “Do you not even realize how big of a problem you have created?”

Dasharaha being the prince wasn’t used to people yelling at him and replied, “How dare you speak to me in that manner? Do you even know who I am? I am Dasharatha, the prince of Ayodhya.”

The father replied, “ It doesn’t matter who you are. You have just stolen our one and only son from us and now we stand here before you with nothing to live for. We are as good as dead. “

Instead of helping the poor elders, he got up and left the couple with their son. As he was leaving, the father cursed him, saying, “ You won’t realize this mistake now, but when you get older and have a kid of your own. Your death will also come as your son leaves you and you will surely learn then.”

The king smiled to himself, realizing that he had let his ego blind him when he was younger and made a huge mistake a long time ago, but it had finally caught up to him. The curse of the blind elder parents had finally come true. Even though it was Kaykeyi who wished Rama's exile so Bharatha could be king, Dashratha was finally separated from his beloved son, Rama. He finally knew the pain of being separated from one's own son. Then, he looked up and saw his wife and Rama's mother, Kausalya, sitting there, staring at him. He told her, “ Make sure that our sons always stay humble and never allow their ego to get in the way of their decisions.” As he was saying that, he closed his eyes and went on to his next life.

The swing the boy used to carry his blind parents. Source Wikimedia Commons.

Bibliography

Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana.

Author’s note

In this story, I chose to tell it as a story that Dasharatha is thinking to himself. The reason I chose to tell the story in this manner was because it went perfectly with the moral of my story. The moral was that you should never let your ego get in the way of any of your decisions. I feel if Dasharatha had maybe handled the situation a little better, he might not have had to die such a miserable and painful death. In this story, I made Dasharatha look a little egotistical, but most adolescents usually are and tend to let their ego get in the way. In the original story there was also very little dialogue between the parents and King Dasharatha. I also made sure that the moral of the story was clear so it is easier for children to learn from the story and not have them just think of it as a silly story. This would be a great children's story because it teaches children to learn to treat each individual as an equal rather than thinking of themselves as better than someone else. This story also has a great concept of karma, since King Dashratha has to deal with something due to his ego in his younger days.

Week 2: Reading Diary B

The story continues as Rama goes and says bye to everyone as he is leaving to go on exile and follow his father's commands. Once he is done saying bye, Lakshman, Sita and Rama take off to go to the forest. The sorrow of having to send his son in exile causes king Dasharatha to pass away. Since Ayodhya was left ruler less, Kaikeyi sends for her son to be brought back immediately. Once Bharatha is back, he questions all this misery in Ayodhya and asks what has happened. When he learns what his own mother has done, he curses her in shame and embarrassment. He travels to Chitrakuta with the whole army and the men and women of Ayodhya to bring Rama back. This made the gods, worried and so they told them that Rama would have to complete the fulfillment and Bharatha would have to take the duties of king while Rama was in exile.

Rama scared that the people of Ayodhya would keep coming to ask him to return goes deeper into the forest. On his journey to find the perfect place, he meets a sage named Atri and his wife Anasuya. Anasuya gives all of her jewelry and clothes to Sita and insists she puts them on right away. Next, they meet Jatayu, who was a friend of King Dashratha. They were so close at one time that the King was quoted saying, " You are the soul, I am the body. We are one." These events ended with them reaching their destination, which was Panchavati on the Godavari River.

Once day after they had built their house and settled down, Rama met the sister of Ravana, Soorpanaka. She was really beautiful and it is said that all the gods wanted her. She fell in love with Rama and insisted that he marry her. Soorpanaka being jealous of Janaki tried to attack her, but before she could Lakshmana cut off her nose, ears, and breasts. Infuriated, she ran to Kara, Ravana's stepbrother. Hearing what had happened, he sent an army of his 14 chiefs to defeat Rama, but even they weren't capable. Then, he gathered his own army and went out there himself, but was also defeated by Rama. Seeing this from afar, Soorpanaka ran to Lanka, the kingdom of Ravana, her brother.

When Ravana saw what had happened to Soorpanaka, he asked who had done it and Soorpanaka told him about Rama, Lakshmana , and Sita. The descriptive details of Sita got Ravana to fall in love with the image of Sita. Now that he had heard of her beauty, he had to have her. He went to see his uncle, Maricha, whom told Ravana not to go through with his plans, but Ravan is stubbornly continued. The plan was for Maricha to turn into a golden deer and get Rama and Lakshmana out of the house.  Rama realizes that he had been fooled took out an arrow and shot the deer. This gave Ravana a chance to approach Sita as a sanyasi. He picked up the soil around her and put her in the chariot to take her with him, since he was cursed for never being able to touch a women without their consent. When he is running off with Sita, he fights off and kills Jatayu, who vowed to protect her but is unable to.

Week 2: Reading Diary A

In this week's reading, Narayana begins with describing the great city of Ayodhya and the ruler, King Dashratha. King Dasharatha has one major problem; he has no heir to take over his throne ones he passes away. King Dasharatha talks about his problem to his trusted priest, Vashishtha. The priests advise the king to perform a Yagna. On the other hand, the gods are in a need of a human-being to defeat the demon Ravana due to the protection from gods given to him by Shiva and Brahma. This is an issue; Vishnu decided to reincarnate in the form of a human being called Rama, the son of Dasharatha. Once the Yagna was complete and the offerings were eaten by Dashratha's wives, they were pregnant with the future of a Dashratha's throne. Rama was born to Kausalya, Bharatha was born to Kaikeyi, and Lakshmana and Sathrunga was born to Sumithra.

One day Viswamithra visited the King Dasharatha and asked him for a favor. He was going to perform a Yagna at the Sidhasrama and needed his help due some demons creating problems for the sages. King Dasharatha hesitated at first, but finally accepted to offer their helps. On their way, Viswamithra tells stories about the location and Rama has to face a lot of the demons on their way. The first story comes up when they come in contact with a really arid desert. Rama questions why the desert is so arid and dry. Viswamithra tells him about the curse on Thataka and how she resides there causing it to be really dry and arid. Once he is done telling this story, Thataka appears and tries to destroy them, but Rama is able to defeat her. The next story was of Mahbali and his defeat to Vishnu. Vishnu disguised as a dwarf asks for a gift. This gift was the land size of three foot step. Mahabali not recognizing Vishnu grants the wish and gets sent to the underworld with the third step. Next was the story of Bhagiratha and how he brought Ganga to Earth to obtain salvation. The last story was about how Indra got the name of thousand eye god. He once fell in love with a beautiful lady named Ahalya. One day he disguised himself as her husband and made love to her. Upon returning the husband realized what had happened, and cursed god Indra to be covered in thousands of female private parts. When asking for forgiveness, the punishment was lessened to thousand eyes.

King Janaka had placed a challenge in return for her daughter's hand. No one had been able to complete this challenge and everyone thought the princess was going to alone forever. Viswasmithra asked that Rama gets a chance at this challenge. Since King Janaka had lost hope, he set it up immediately. It is said that Rama completed the challenge so fast that no one was even able to see it. Rama and Sita were happily married

One day King Dashratha was pondering his future. He was getting old and needed to retire soon. He finally set up everything for Rama to be crowned king, but when Kaikeyi heard this she couldn't stand it.Kaikeyi remembered that King Dashatha had given her two boons. She asked that his exile, Rama for fourteen years to the forest and that her son Bharatha be crowned king.