This tale is not meant for rationalists. But for the rest of us it sheds interesting light on Balmiki’s Ramayan. One more thing.
In story-telling of this sort, time goes circular rather than linear, which makes future seem as if it were the past – settled and sealed. We shall come to this in a while. Now for the story.
Raja Dashrath ruled a vast, flourishing and happy domain from Ayodhya. Yet, he was a worried man. Past his prime, he had no male heir.
He did have a daughter though; Shanta, by Maharani Kaushalya. But he had given her in adoption to his friend, Rompad, the raja of Ang (Footnote, page 80, Shrimadvalmikiya Ramayan, Sanskrit-Hindi, Part I, Gita Press, Gorakhpur, Samvat 2080). What would happen to his kingdom when he was gone, Dashrath thought quite often.
One day, it came to his mind to perform the Ashwamedha yagya for the purpose of begetting a son. He planned to make elaborate arrangements for this grand occasion. Then a big problem presented itself before him.
Who would conduct the yagya? It was a very delicate business. A slightest error in the offerings made to gods; and annoyed, they would cause him irreparable damage as the yajaman. Dashrath summoned Sumantra, his all-in-one man, for consultation.
And Sumantra began, in the best tradition of the ancient wisemen, to tell his king a story. Shringi Rishi, an extraordinary hermit “Once,” said Sumantra to Raja Dashrath, “not in a very remote past, the Sanatkumars spoke before a congregation of rishis a.