Śravaṇa Kumāra

Śravaṇa Kumāra was a young brāhmaṇa of great devotion. He was known for serving his old blind parents without any thought of himself. King Daśaratha of Ayodhyā killed him by mistake. Daśaratha shot an arrow in the dark near a river, and he took the sound of a vessel filling with water for an elephant drinking. The death of Śravaṇa, and the śāpa (curse) that his grieving blind parents spoke against Daśaratha, became the seed of Daśaratha’s own death in putraviyoga (grief at parting from a son), when he was parted from Rāma. This is told in the Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa.

His life of service

Śravaṇa Kumāra gave his whole life to the service of his blind parents. Both had lost their sight in old age and depended on him completely. He looked after them with no thought of himself. When they wished to go on tīrtha-yātrā (a journey to holy places), he carried them in a pair of baskets hung from a pole on his shoulders. He fed them and saw to all their needs.

His devotion was seen as the highest form of dharma, pitṛ-sevā (service to one’s parents). His name became a byword for the ideal of the devoted son.

Daśaratha himself told the account of Śravaṇa in the last days before his death. He then understood that the karma (action and its result) of killing Śravaṇa was being worked out in his own death.

Death at Daśaratha’s hand

One night Śravaṇa went to a river to fill a vessel with water for his parents, who could not go themselves. Daśaratha was then a young king hunting by night. He waited near the river, listening for animals that came to drink. He heard the sound of water filling the pot. In the stillness of the night it sounded like an elephant. Daśaratha had the skill of śabdabhedhi (striking a target by sound alone, without seeing it), and he shot an arrow toward the sound.

The arrow struck Śravaṇa, and he cried out in pain. Daśaratha ran to the river. He found not an animal but a young brāhmaṇa lying wounded, pierced by his arrow. Śravaṇa did not rage or curse. With great patience he told the king that his blind parents were waiting for water and would be worried by his long absence. He asked Daśaratha to go to them, take the vessel of water, and tell them what had happened. Soon after he spoke, Śravaṇa died.

The śāpa of the blind parents

Daśaratha filled the vessel and went to Śravaṇa’s blind parents. He told them the truth and hid nothing. They were broken. They had no one else in the world. Śravaṇa had been their eyes, their hands and their whole life.

In the power of their grief and their tapas (austerity), they pronounced a śāpa on Daśaratha. As they were dying of putraviyoga, grief at parting from their son, so Daśaratha would one day die in grief at parting from his own son, with his son’s name on his lips.

The parents then died of grief at the river. Daśaratha performed their last rites. He carried the weight of this deed and this śāpa all his life.

Only at the end did he tell the account. Rāma had been sent to the forest, and Daśaratha lay dying in grief, calling “Rāma, Rāma”. Then he told it to Kauśalyā and saw that the śāpa had been fulfilled exactly.

What the account teaches

The account of Śravaṇa Kumāra is one of the Rāmāyaṇa’s strongest teachings on karma, the exact match between a deed and its fruit across time. Daśaratha caused a father and mother to die of putraviyoga, and he himself died of putraviyoga. The tapas-śakti (power of austerity) of the blind parents gave their śāpa the force to be fulfilled exactly.

Śravaṇa himself is an example of pitṛ-bhakti (devotion to parents). The tradition cites his story as the ideal of the devoted son.

Sources

• Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa, Chapters 63–64