A Kingdom Without an Heir
Ayodhya prospered under King Dasharatha — its granaries full, its people content, its ramparts unbreached in living memory. Only one shadow crossed the king's heart: he had three queens, Kaushalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra, and after long years of marriage, not a single child among them. An empire with no one to inherit it is a house built on sand, and Dasharatha felt the sand shifting beneath him with every passing year. He confided his sorrow to his family's guru, the sage , who had guided the Ikshvaku line for generations. listened gravely and said, 'There is a rite for exactly this grief, O King — the Putrakameshti, the sacrifice for sons. But it must be conducted by one whose penance is equal to its power. Send for the sage Rishyashringa.' Dasharatha, who had spent a lifetime commanding armies, found himself instead sending messengers on a gentler errand — to fetch a hermit from the forest who alone could unlock what all his wealth could not buy.
✦ Visual cue — An aging King Dasharatha standing alone on a high palace balcony at dusk, looking out over the prosperous city of Ayodhya with a troubled expression, three queens' silhouettes faintly visible in separate windows below.