Ramayana: Ayodhya

In the great city of Ayódhya, the king decides to abdicate in favor of his beloved son Rama; but just as the celebrations reach their climax, a court intrigue involving one of the king’s junior wives and a maidservant results in Rama being forced into a fourteen-year banishment. He dutifully accepts his fate, and goes off to the jungle, accompanied by his wife, Sita, and his loyal brother Lákshmana. With the old king dead of a broken heart, another brother, Bhárata, refuses to profit by his own mother’s scheming, which leaves nobody to run the city. Eventually persuaded to act as regent, Bhárata consents to do so only on the condition that he live in a village outside the capital and act in Rama’s name, having installed that rightful ruler’s sandals symbolically on the the throne.