Luv and Kush: The Sons of Ram and Sita

The story

Luv and Kush were born in the ashram of Maharishi Valmiki on the bank of the Tamasa, where Sita lived after leaving Ayodhya. The story is in the Uttara Kanda. Valmiki named them, raised them, trained them in the scriptures and in arms, and taught them the poem he had composed: the Ramayana, twenty-four thousand verses set to music.

They were its first singers. When Ram held his Ashwamedha yajna, Valmiki sent the twins to the gathering with instructions: sing a few cantos each day, accept no payment, and if asked whose sons you are, say only that you are disciples of Valmiki. For days the king and his court listened to two forest boys sing the life of Ram to Ram himself. As the story reached Sita's exile, he understood who they were.

A widely loved later telling adds that the boys had earlier captured the sacrificial horse and held off Ayodhya's army, including their uncles, without knowing whom they fought.

After Ram

Before his departure Ram divided the kingdom. Tradition says Kush ruled from Kushavati and Luv from Shravasti in the north; some traditions connect Luv's name with the city of Lahore. Kalidasa's Raghuvamsha tells that Ayodhya, left empty after Ram, appeared to Kush in a dream as a grieving woman, and that he returned and restored the city. The Nageshwarnath Temple in Ayodhya is traditionally said to have been founded by Kush.

What we learn

The twins grew up without a palace, a kingdom or a father's presence, and lacked nothing that mattered: they had a mother of unshakeable character and a teacher of genius. What a child becomes depends far more on who raises and teaches him than on what he inherits. See The dignity and strength of Sita.

They are also the reason we have the story at all. The Ramayana reached the world through two children singing. Return to the start of the line: Ikshvaku.