23

I have not found any specific reference in the Ramayana about:

  • What was the age of Dasharatha when Lord Rama was born?
  • What was the age difference amongst the four brothers (Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Shatrughna)?
  • What were the ages of Lord Rama and Ravana during the Ramayana war?
  • What were the ages of Lava and Kusha and Lord Rama when they met each other for the first time?
3
  • Possible duplicate of Lord Shree Rama ruled his kingdom for 11000 years?
    – iammilind
    Dec 17, 2017 at 17:09
  • 1
    @iammilind Disagreed. Why do you think it is a duplicate? This is very old question. 2. It is asking ages of other characters too. It already has a good answer. No need to close it. 3. That question is only asking whether the age of Rama is X or not. There is a lot of difference. Questions make duplicate and not answers. That's the rule we follow on Hinduism.SE. Please stop voting to close linking to the questions where you have answers. Dec 18, 2017 at 5:33
  • @NogShine, you are right that the other Qn is not a perfect duplicate of this and may be it's other way around. I wanted to do that way, but I am not satisfied with the answers here, as they are misguiding. Anyways, I have removed my close vote. BTW you may refer my close votes in profile, mostly I vote for close where my answers are Not there. Anyhow, my close vote here was inspired by this Qn. Even though it was a superset of other Qn, the Mod had closed this Qn. Only few days after, the other Mod covered it up by adding 1 more link. Thanks.
    – iammilind
    Dec 18, 2017 at 5:41

1 Answer 1

23

As you probably know, the birth of Rama and his brothers was caused by Dasharatha's wives drinking divine Payasa obtained from the fire of the Putrakameshti Yagna (ritual for having sons). As a result, the births occurred very close together, with Rama being just one day older than Bharata, Lakshmana, and Shatrugna, as described in this chapter of the Bala Kanda of the Ramayana:

On completion of the ritual, six seasons have passed by; then in the twelfth month, i.e., in chaitra mAsa, and on the ninth day of that chaitra month [April-May], when it is punarvasu nakshatra yukta navamI tithi, i.e., when the ruling star of that ninth day is punarvasu, for which Aditi is the presiding deity; and when five of the nine planets - sUrya, kuja, guru, shukra, shani are in ucCha sthAna-s, namely, when those planets are in ascension in their respective houses - meSha, makara, karkaTa, mIna, tula - rAshI-s; and when chandra yukta guru, karkaTa lagne - Jupiter in conjuction with Moon is ascendant in Cancer, and when day is advancing, Queen Kausalya gave birth to a son with all the divine attributes like lotus-red eyes, lengthy arms, roseate lips, voice like drumbeat, and who took birth to delight the Ikshwaku dynasty and adored by all the worlds, and who is the greatly blessed epitome of Vishnu, namely Rama....

With the dawn of sun on the next day, fair-minded Bharata is born under Pisces where puSyami is the star of day, later the sons of Sumitra, namely Lakshmana and Shatrughna are born under Cancer, where aaSreSa is the star of the day, i.e., the tenth of chaitra month.

As far as Dasharatha's age goes, when Vishwamitra comes and asks for Rama's help in defeating the demoness Thataka, Dasharatha objects, saying this:

Sixty thousand years have passed from my birth, oh! Vishvamitra, and this Rama is engendered at this age, that too with tribulations, hence taking Rama with you will be inappropriate of you.

This may seem like an astronomically large number, but people in earlier Yugas lived much longer.

Regarding Rama's age when he fought Ravana, in the Aranya Kanda of the Ramayana Sita tells Ravana (who is pretending to be a priest) the ages of Rama and her at the time they were exiled to the forest:

My great-resplendent husband was of twenty-five years of age at that time, and to me, eighteen years are reckoned up from my birth.

Since Rama's 14-year exile ended at about the same time as his battle with Ravana (as discussed in my answer here), Rama was about 39 years old when he fought Ravana.

As far as Lava and Kusha go, Rama and Sita spent 10,000 years ruling Ayodhya before Sita became pregnant, as described in this chapter of the Uttara Kanda of the Ramayana:

Sita and Raghava thus spent their days happily. And thus was spent the delightful winter giving all enjoyments. Enjoying various things the high souled Rama and Sita spent ten thousand years.

Once on a time, having performed all the religious ceremonies, in the fore part of the day, Rama, to spend the evening, entered the inner apartment. Sita, too, having performed all religious ceremonies, at first attended to the service of her mothers in law. Thereupon wearing a beautifully coloured cloth and being adorned with various ornaments Sita appeared before Rama like unto Sachi approaching the king of Devas in heaven. And beholding the auspicious signs of pregnancy in his spouse Rama attained to excessive delight.

Sita went to the forest shortly thereafter, and she gave birth to Lava and Kusha in Valmiki's ashram, as I discuss in this answer. Now while Lava and Kusha were born, Rama's brother Shatrugna was also at Valmiki's ashram on his way to kill Lavanasura the demon who was ruling Mathura. After killing Lavanasura, Shatrugna ruled Mathura for twelve years before paying another visit to Valmiki's ashram, as discussed in this chapter of the Uttara Kanda. And shortly thereafter Rama decided to conduct the Ashwamedha Yagna that would lead to him meeting Lava and Kusha.

So at the time they met, Lava and Kusha were 12 years old and Rama was 10,000 years old.

As far as Ravana goes, his age is never explicitly mentioned in the Ramayana, but for one thing, we know that he engaged in Tapasya for 10,000 years, as I discuss in my answer here. But he's far, far older than that because he actually defeated Rama's distant ancestor Anaranya in battle, as described in this excerpt from the Uttara Kanda of the Ramayana. (Ravana was going around challenging kings to battle to conquer their kingdoms, as I discuss in my answer here.) Now as you can see here, Anaranya ruled Ayodhya 27 generations before Rama. Considering how long people lived back then, that would make Ravana inordinately old at the time of his famous battle with Rama.

Regarding Hanuman, he was born, along with many of the other Vanaras, shortly after Kausalya became pregnant with Rama, as described in this chapter of the Bala Kanda of the Ramayana:

When Vishnu attained the sonship of the great-souled king Dasharatha, then Brahma the self-created addressed all of the gods this way. "Let mighty and guise changing helpmates be procreated to that truth abiding and valorous Vishnu who is the well-wisher of all of us." . When Brahma addressed them thus, those gods have agreed to his order and accordingly started to parent sons in the semblance of monkeys. The direct son of Air-god is the marvellous and adventurous Hanuman with an indestructible body, and one identical in the speed of lady Vinata's son, namely Garuda, the divine eagle vehicle of Vishnu, and among all monkey chiefs he is the intelligent and the indefatigable one too.

EDiT: This chapter of the Prabhasa Kanda of the Skanda Purana says that Ravana ruled for 56.16 million years.

21
  • 1
    @learningbrain I just added information on the ages of Ravana and Hanuman. Feb 22, 2015 at 12:48
  • 3
    Wow, i always use to believe that there must have been a different calendar in their times such that the days might have been much less in a year or year must have been altogether a different unit of measuring time but reference regarding Ravana fighting with Anaranya, who is 27th generation ancestor to Lord Rama, has proven that ages at that time were way more than what we have in current days. Thanks for the answer and research Keshav.
    – Aby
    Feb 23, 2015 at 8:04
  • 4
    @Aby To be clear, while people lived much longer back then, the length of generations was also longer so it was not normal for people to live for so many generations. Ravana was an unusual case, because he was a Rakshasa. Note that other characters in the Ramayana are even older; Jatayu was alive during the churning of the ocean, which would make Jatayu about 30 times as old as Ravana's maximum possible age. (The churning of the ocean happened when Chakshusha Manu was ruling the Earth.) Feb 23, 2015 at 11:32
  • 5
    In Sundara Kanda, Sita tells about the age of human beings. See my answer here: hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/9009/…
    – Pinakin
    Nov 21, 2015 at 6:17
  • 3
    @ChinmaySarupria the fact that joy can come after a hundred years tells you nothing about the maximum life span. You still didn't understand
    – user9554
    Jun 24, 2017 at 13:59

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .