King of Ayodhya and Rama's father, whose promise to his wife Kaikeyi sets the Ramayana's central exile in motion, and whose grief at losing Rama tradition holds took his life.
रामायण · Ramayana
Dasharatha grants Kaikeyi two boons in gratitude for her having once saved his life in battle; years later, urged by her maid Manthara, Kaikeyi calls in both boons at once, Bharata's coronation and Rama's fourteen-year exile, placing Dasharatha's word as king above his own wish as a father.
Tradition holds that Dasharatha, bound by an earlier curse from a grieving hermit couple whose son he had accidentally killed while hunting, dies of grief within days of Rama's departure, never living to see his son's return.