In plain words
Remembering the Name of Rāma ceaselessly, ‘Rāma, Rāma’, he gave up his life. But this was not without its due cause.
Śravaṇa Kumāra had aged parents. Both of them were blind. He fitted two bamboo baskets to the two ends of a carrying pole, seated his mother on one side and his father on the other, carried it on his shoulder, and so took them on every pilgrimage. Once Daśaratha went into the forest on a hunt. There, in a lake among the bushes, he saw something seem to move, and heard a sound. Śravaṇa Kumāra, who had come to fetch water for his parents, was trying to clear away the moss covering the water of that pond. Hearing the sound and taking it for some animal, Daśaratha, being one who knew how to strike by sound alone, fitted an arrow and loosed it. At once came the cry ‘Hā!’ and the sound of a fall. When Daśaratha went and looked, what he found there was no beast, but the son of a ṛṣi. Realising his mistake, Daśaratha was stricken with grief. Then Śravaṇa Kumāra: “O king! My parents are suffering from thirst. So take this water quickly and give it to them. Tell them the news of my death only after they have drunk the water,” he said. As soon as they learnt the news of their son’s death, the aged sage and his wife, unable to bear their grief: “O king! Just as we now give up our lives through separation from our son, so you too will die through separation from your son,” and they gave up their lives. The curse of great sages cannot be turned back.
When Rāma completed his fourteen years in the forest and returned to Ayodhyā, all the people welcomed him joyfully, dancing and singing ‘Rāma, Rāma’. It is not enough to think of Rāma and worship Him only on the day Rāma was born; we must put Rāma’s ideals into practice in our daily life. Though so many thousands of years have passed till today, the Name of Rāma is ever new even now. Rāma is always ever new. The Name of Rāma is dear to all.