Long long ago in the kingdom of Koshala, there ruled a noble king, Dasharatha. His capital, Ayodhya, was as beautiful as Amaravathi, the capital of Lord Indra.
King Dasharatha was very sad, however. Although he had three queens, Kaushalya, Sumitra and Kaikeyi, he did not have any children. He decided to perform a sacrifice to pray and be blessed with a son. This sacrifice was called Putrakameshti Yajna.
The sacrifice was done by very expert brahmanas and after all the offerings were made, a beautiful person came out of the fire.
He had in his hands, a pot. This he handed to King Dasharatha and told him to make his three queens eat the sweet which was in the pot. The king took the pot and gave his queens the sweet that was in it.
The three queens became mothers after a while. Kaushalya's son was named Rama, Sumitra's twins were named Lakshmana and Shatrughna and Kaikeyi's son was Bharatha.
The four princes grew up to be brave, strong, handsome and noble young men. They were not only good in the art of warfare, but were kind and helpful.
They were very loving and although they were born of different mothers, they were very affectionate to each other. But King Dasharatha was most fond of Rama.
He was the king's life and soul. Dasharatha could not bear to be away from Rama even for a day.