Indian mythology · king · fatal promises, grief
King of Ayodhya, bound by two old boons to his wife Kaikeyi that exiled his beloved Rama. He died of grief within days, fulfilling an old curse that he, who had once killed a hermit boy by accident, would die bereft of a son.
On the eve of Rama's coronation, Manthara's whispers turn Kaikeyi's love to fear, and two old boons undo a kingdom: her son crowned, Rama banished fourteen years. Rama accepts without bitterness, Sita and Lakshmana follow him into the forest, and Dasharatha dies of grief.