The Prince He Asked For

King Daśaratha of Ayodhyā was considering whom his sons should marry when Viśvāmitra arrived at his gate. The king came out to meet him with his priests and honoured him, and said, Your coming is as welcome as nectar, as rain in a dry land, as a son born to a childless man. Tell me what you want, and I will do it.

Viśvāmitra told him. I am performing a rite, he said, and two rākṣasas, Mārīca and Subāhu, strong and skilled in illusion, rain flesh and blood on the altar. I am under a vow and may not curse them in anger. Give me your eldest son Rāma, still wearing a boy's side-locks, for ten nights. Under my protection he will destroy them.

Daśaratha was stricken. Rāma is not yet sixteen, he said. He has no skill in war. Take my army; I will fight them myself. I cannot give you Rāma. When the king went back on his word, Viśvāmitra rose in anger, so that the whole earth shook and the gods were afraid. You promised, and now you break your promise, he said. This does not suit the house of Raghu, your forefather. If this is how it is, I will go back as I came, and you may be happy with your kin, king who does not keep his word.

It was Vasiṣṭha, Viśvāmitra's old rival, who spoke up for Viśvāmitra then. You were born in the line of the Ikṣvākus like a second dharma, he told the king. You must not abandon dharma. You are known in the three worlds as a man of dharma. Having promised, you must not refuse. Let Rāma go. Armed or unarmed, the rākṣasas cannot touch him while the son of Kuśika guards him, as no one can touch the nectar that fire guards. This man is dharma in bodily form, the greatest of the strong, the first in wisdom, the very home of austerity. He knows weapons of every kind in all the three worlds, as no other man knows them or ever will, neither god nor seer nor asura. He knows everything that has been and will be. Have no doubt about letting Rāma go. He could destroy those rākṣasas himself; he asks for your son for your son's own good. And Daśaratha, his mind at ease, gave his son to Viśvāmitra.