01
The king who served a cow
Childless King Dilip learns he once failed to honour the wish-granting cow Surabhi. For twenty-one days he follows her daughter Nandini through the Himalayan forest, grazing when she grazes and resting when she rests.
गुरुकुल इतिहास
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Visit Sumer →Featured saga · Kalidasa
Raghuvansh in
six scenes.
Kalidasa's epic follows the kings of Ayodhya across many generations: a childless king who serves a sacred cow, a son who gives away the world, a husband undone by a falling garland, the avatar Rama, and at last a pleasure-loving king whose line rests on a child not yet born.
02
A life for a life
A lion seizes Nandini and Dilip's arrow freezes in his hand. He offers his own body instead. Flowers fall from the sky: the lion was a test, and Nandini grants him a son, Raghu.
03
The empty treasury
Raghu conquers the four quarters, then gives everything away in the Vishvajit sacrifice. When a student comes asking fourteen crore of gold for his teacher, Kubera rains gold into the treasury overnight.
04
The princess and the garland
Raghu's son Aja wins a divine weapon from a cursed Gandharva and is chosen by Princess Indumati at her swayamvara, then spares the rival kings who ambush him.
05
A flower from the sky
A celestial garland slips from the sage Narada's veena and Indumati dies at its touch. She was an apsara under a curse. Aja raises their son Dasharatha, then lets himself go.
06
The long twilight
After Rama, Kusha restores a deserted Ayodhya and a long line of kings follows. The last, Agnivarna, lives for pleasure and dies of a wasting illness. The poem ends with his pregnant queen on the throne.
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