01Mother of Rama
Kausalya was Dasharatha’s eldest queen and received half of the payasa that rose from the yajna fire. Valmiki says she shone with her son as Aditi shone with Indra. She had the honour of the first queen and, the Ayodhya Kanda lets us see, little of the king’s company, which went to Kaikeyi. All her hope was in Rama. On the eve of the coronation she sat in the shrine in silk, keeping silence, praying to Janardana for her son, with Sumitra and Sita beside her.
02At the fire when Rama came
Rama found her in white silk, making offerings into the fire for his coronation. When he told her he was going to the forest she fell to the ground like a sala tree felled by an axe. She begged to go with him. Rama told her gently that a wife’s place is beside her husband, and the king needed her now. So she stood, sprinkled water, and gave him a long svastyayana, a blessing for the road, calling on the devas, the rivers, the seasons and the stars to guard him through the forest.
03Hard words and folded hands
In her grief Kausalya reproached the king bitterly: he had destroyed his son, his wife and his kingdom. Dasharatha folded his hands and asked her pardon. She was horrified to see the king so, took his joined hands to her head, and asked his forgiveness in turn. That night he told her of the curse, and died. When Bharata came home she suspected him and he swore oaths until she took him into her lap. Rama found her again, fourteen years older, in Nandigram.
A regional tradition makes her a princess of Dakshina Kosala; the Mata Kaushalya temple at Chandkhuri, near Raipur, stands in a lake.