There was once a king named Dasaratha who ruled the kingdom of Ayodhya. However, the king had no sons from any of his wives. He therefore decided to perform a ritual in which he made large sacrifices to the gods, in want of a son. The gods finally gave him a fruit which would enable his wives to bear a son. He split the apple into to halves and gave them to two particular wives. One half went to his eldest wife, Kausalya, whilst the other half went to his favourite queen, Kaikeyi. Both Kasusalya and Kaikeyi favoured the queen Sumitra. Eventually, each person gave a portion of their share to Sumitra, so she may bear a son too.

About nine months later, the sons were born. The eldest son was born by Kasusalya, and his name was Rama. Rama was in fact an incarnation of the Preserver, Vishnu, who had taken the form of Rama to kill the demon god Ravana when he grew up. The other sons that were born were Bharat, born by Kaikeyi, and the two sons of Sumitra who had gotten two shares of the apple, Laxman and Shatrugna.

Very soon the four sons grew into fine princes. There were taught by the sages and brought up by the royal family. They were traveling one day, when they came to another city, where the King, King Janaka, was holding a ceremony in search for a husband for his daughter, princess Sita. It was a contest for the prospective grooms to lift a heavy bow, which Shiva personally presented, and anyone who passed the test would have Sita's hand in marriage. The princes tried the bow each, but none of them were able to lift it, except Rama, who did it with ease.

There was much celebration, and the wedding of Rama and Sita was held there and then, before the whole company, this time with addition of Rama's wife, returned to Ayodhya.

However, things were not so smooth for Rama. In the palace, Queen Kaikeyi, mother of prince Bharat, had remembered the two wishes the king had promised to her. Many years before, Kaikeyi had saved the king from a tiger, and to repay her, the king had promised her two wishes, which she had not taken yet. Under the instigation of her maid, Kaikeyi now demanded two wishes from the king. Firstly, it was that her son, Bharat, should become king, and not Rama as it should otherwise be. The second wish was that Rama should be banished to the deep jungles for fourteen years. Dasratha had no choice but to grant her the two wishes, and soon after passing the decree, he died.

When Rama left for the forest, his wife, Sita, and his favourite brother, Laxman, followed him. Bharat soon found out about this, and he was appalled by what his mother had done. He tried to persuade his brother to come back to rule the kingdom, but Rama had his mind on abiding by the late king's decision, and told Bharat to wait fourteen years before he returned. In the mean time, Bharat did not wish to take the throne, but yet he could not leave the place vacant. He finally decided to rule on behalf of Rama, and he placed Rama's slippers upon the throne, and became a wise and benevolent ruler.

Back in the forest, many events happened revolving about Rama. The most important of these events was when the sister of Ravana, the demon king, whose name was Surpanakha, fell in love with Rama when she saw him walking in the forest. When she approached Rama for his hand in marriage, Rama refused her bluntly, asking her to take his brother, Laxman instead. However, Laxman too did not wish to take Surpanakha as his wife, which made Surpanakha very angry. She saw Sita as the obstacle to her proposition of marriage, and therefore set out to killing Sita. The brothers, however, were skilled in the ways of fighting, and they managed to defend Sita, while Laxman sliced off her nose and ears.

Now Surpanakha was not to be undone so easily. She got her brother Khara, to try to take revenge for her upon Rama, but Rama managed to defeat him easily and kill him. Finally, she took her last resort and went to Ravana for help. Ravana was immune to all creatures, from a boon he had gotten from the Destroyer, Shiva himself. However, humans had been left out from the group because Ravana thought humans too little of a threat to him. In fact, Ravana himself had taken quite a fancy to the beautiful Sita, and so they engaged their uncle who was a magician, and together hatched a ploy to abduct Sita.

They struck while Rama, Sita and Laxman were in the forest one morning. The magician transformed himself into a graceful deer, and attracted Sita's attention, who quickly asked Rama to chase it. When Rama was out of sight, the magician made the sounds of Rama shouting for help, which quickly alerted Laxman. Laxman wanted to go to help Rama, but yet he was afraid that Sita might come to harm alone. Therefore, he drew a line on the ground and asked Sita to stay behind the line where she would be safe, before running off in the direction of the cries. With Laxman gone, Ravana now appeared in the form of a poor beggar. He approached Sita for alms, and Sita, in all innocence, crossed the line to give the alms to the begger. Once she was past the line, Ravana turned back into his form and snatched Sita.

When Rama and Laxman came back, they could not find Sita anywhere in sight. They searched high and low for her, for many miles around, and finally came to the kingdom of Kishkindha, which was inhabited entirely by monkeys. Outside the city walls, they met the monkey named Sugreeva. Sugreeva was the rightful heir to the throne, but had been removed by his brother. In a stroke of luck, Sugreeva had found some jewels that Sita had dropped during her abduction by Ravana. Picking on this lead, Rama and Laxman helped Sugreeva regain the throne, and Sugreeva mobilized his army of monkeys to searching out Sita's whereabouts. Finally, after much searching, a monkey reported to have seen Sita in Lanka, across the sea from the mainland.

Immediately, the party set out to attacking Lanka. The monkeys formed a bridge across the sea and they managed to pass across. Finally, Rama managed to beat Ravana, and he got Sita back. Just about this time, fourteen years of banishment was up, and Rama, together with Laxman and Sita returned to Ayodhya to rule as the rightful king and queen.

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