All the three queens of King Dashrath were pregnant at the same time and all of them delivered sons. But there is a secret story of King Dashrath and Queen Kausalya’s first born, a daughter called Shanta who did not grow up in the palace of Ayodhya. There are many stories about why she is seldom mentioned in the Ramayan. One of the stories say that Ayodhya witnessed acute famine after her birth and King Dashrath was advised that her planetary charts were not in. favour of the kingdom and so King Dashrath to save his kingdom made a big sacrifice as a father. Shanta was given away to Kousalya’s sister Varshini married to Rompadh, king of Angadesh. Rompadh and Varshini were yearning for a child for years and brought up Shanta as the princess of Anagadesh.
The third story is the most intriguing and according to that, the Kosala kingdom was divided into North Kosala ruled by Dasaratha’s father and South Kosala ruled by Kausalya’s father. When Kausalya and Dasaratha came of age, their fathers decided to get them married and merged the North and South Kosala into one state. A year later, Dashrath and Kausalya’s first born arrived, a deformed baby. In their rush to merge the kingdoms what both the kings forgot was that Dasaratha and Kaushalya came from the same lineage and the deformed bay was a result of the couple coming from the same gotra. It is said that Shanta was a woman of virtues and knowledgeable about the vedas. She was blessed that her deformity will be eliminated when she marries Sage Rishyashringa, (who performed athe putra kameshti yagna for King Dashratha to beget progeny), after which Shanta, Rama, Bharata, and the twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna were born.
To be continued