Luv and Kush Sing the Ramayan

The Valmiki Ramayan tells at its very start how the epic came to be. One day by a river, Valmiki saw a pair of krauncha birds. Just then a hunter killed one of them. Hearing its mate's cries, the sage's heart filled with grief, and a curse flowed from his lips in metre.

Valmiki himself was amazed: words born of sorrow had become a beautiful shloka. Tradition regards it as the world's first poem. Then Brahma inspired him to tell the whole life of Ram in that same metre. That is how the Ramayan was composed.

Valmiki taught this Ramayan to Luv and Kush. The two brothers learned to sing the whole story in sweet voices, with the veena. They did not know that the Ram whose story they sang was their own father.

Meanwhile Ram performed the Ashvamedha yagya at Naimisharanya. A wife's presence was needed at the ritual. Ram did not marry again; instead he kept a golden image of Sita beside him. (Some later tellings add a story of Luv and Kush capturing the sacrificial horse and fighting, but it is not in the Valmiki Ramayan.)

Valmiki brought Luv and Kush to the yagya. The boys sang the Ramayan in the streets and then in the royal assembly. Everyone was spellbound. When Ram offered them gold, they politely refused: we live in the forest; what would we do with gold? Gradually Ram learned that these boys were Sita's sons.