Kausalya was the senior queen-consort of Kosalain the Hindu epic Ramayana. The senior wife of King Dasharatha and the mother of Lord Rama, who ruled Kosala from its capital of Ayodhya. There are many interesting stories about why she was chosen to be the mother of Ram. As per the legend Kausalya in her earlier birth (Shatrupa) was a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu. She had no children, so Shutrapa and her husband Swayambhumanu did intense penance for years pleading the deity to grant them a child.
When Lord Vishnu finally granted them darshan, he said they were destined to be childless. But Shatrupa wanted Lord Vishnu as her child and Vishnu said Tathastu. “I will come into your life in your following births but it will be a relationship of longing and separation” Shutrapa was too happy to be a mother and without thinking it through, agreed. Lord Vishnu kept his promise. The first time he was born as Lord Ram to queen Kausalya and the second time as Lord Krishna brought to his foster mother Yashoda.
The epic says that Kausalya ascended to heaven after Lord Ram’s return from his exile but another story says that when Lord Brahma told Dashanand/ Ravan that the son of Kausalya and Dasharatha would be the cause of his death, Ravan abducted Kausalya before her wedding, and placed her in a box on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. How she got out of the ocean and married King Dashrath to give birth to Lord Ram is a story that will unfold in the forthcoming episodes.
To be continued