In the story
Ṛśyaśṛṅga is the son of the sage Vibhāṇḍaka, raised in the forest in such isolation that he has never seen a woman and does not know what one is. His name means antelope-horned; Vālmīki says nothing further about the horn itself.
When drought ruins the kingdom of Aṅga, its king Romapāda is told that the rains will follow the young ascetic, and sends courtesans to bring him. They charm him without difficulty; he comes; the rains follow; and he is married to the princess Śāntā, which binds the rainmaker to the kingdom permanently.
Daśaratha, childless, then brings him to Ayodhyā, where he officiates at the horse sacrifice and at the son-producing rite. From that rite comes a divine porridge, distributed among the three queens, and from the porridge come the four princes.
Elsewhere
The story of Ṛśyaśṛṅga's seduction circulates independently of the Rāmāyaṇa. It is told in the Mahābhārata, and in Buddhist jātaka literature, with differing details; the account of his birth from a doe, which explains the horn, is the Mahābhārata's rather than Vālmīki's. It is one of the most widely diffused stories in early Indian literature, and it has been read as an old fertility narrative absorbed into the epics.
Its function in the Rāmāyaṇa is simply to get Rāma born, and it occupies the opening chapters of the first book.
An old story
The seduction of the innocent ascetic by courtesans, and the rain that follows him, is one of the most widely diffused narratives in early Indian literature. It appears in the Mahābhārata and in the Buddhist jātakas with different details, and has been read as an old fertility narrative absorbed into several traditions.
The horn is explained in the Mahābhārata by a birth from a doe; Vālmīki gives only the name.
What it is for here
In the Rāmāyaṇa the story exists to produce Rāma. Daśaratha is childless, Ṛśyaśṛṅga is fetched to officiate at the sacrifice, and from the rite comes a divine porridge divided among the three queens — which is why the succession has four sons and a proportion problem.
The whole sequence occupies the opening chapters of the first book, before the epic proper begins.
Further reading
- Bose, Mandakranta. The Ramayana Revisited. Oxford University Press, 2004
- Goldman, Robert P. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India. Princeton University Press, 1984
- Nagar, Shanti Lal. Genesis and Evolution of the Rama Katha in Indian Art, Thought, Literature and Culture. B.R. Publishing, 2005
- Ramanujan, A. K. The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan. Oxford University Press, 1999
- Richman, Paula. Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. University of California Press, 1991
See also
- Daśaratha — Daśaratha is the king of Ayodhyā and father of Rāma in the Rāmāyaṇa, destroyed by two boons he had granted his favourite queen decades earlier and could neither refuse nor survive.
- Śāntā — Śāntā is the princess of Aṅga in the Rāmāyaṇa, given in marriage to the ascetic Ṛśyaśṛṅga when his coming ended the kingdom's drought.
- Bāla Kāṇḍa — The Bāla Kāṇḍa is the first book of the Rāmāyaṇa, covering Rāma's birth, his first expedition with the sage Viśvāmitra and his marriage to Sītā, and generally held with the seventh to be a later addition to the poem's core.
- Rāma — Rāma is the prince of Ayodhyā at the centre of the Rāmāyaṇa, exiled for fourteen years by his father's promise, and worshipped across the Hindu world as an incarnation of Viṣṇu and the model of righteous conduct.
- Ayodhyā — Ayodhyā is the capital of Kosala and the city of Rāma in the Rāmāyaṇa, on the river Sarayū, described as unconquerable — which is what its name means.
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.