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The Great Epics

Rama Exists Because of His Sister

She appears in the ninth chapter of the first book, makes the entire epic possible, and is never mentioned again.

Rama has an elder sister.

And the reason most people have never heard of her is that she had already been given away before the story starts.

The adoption

Shanta was the daughter of Dasharatha and Kausalya, the first child born to that house, years before the sons.

Romapada, king of Anga, was Dasharatha's close friend, and his queen Vershini was Kausalya's elder sister. They had no children. And in a moment the Ramayana records almost in passing, Dasharatha gave his daughter to them.

A gift between friends. Of a child. To a childless house.

So Shanta grew up in Anga as Romapada's daughter, and by the ordinary law of adoption she was no longer of Ayodhya's line at all.

Read the whole story on Setu

The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.