Rama's younger brother, who left his own bride and the comforts of Ayodhya to accompany Rama and Sita into fourteen years of forest exile.
रामायण · Ramayana
Lakshmana serves as Rama's constant companion and protector through the exile, drawing the protective line, the Lakshmana rekha, around their forest dwelling that Sita crosses to help a disguised Ravana, setting her abduction in motion. He later leads forces in the war against Ravana and is revived from a battlefield wound by a mountain of herbs Hanuman famously carries back whole to save him.
Tradition holds Lakshmana as an avatar of Shesha, the cosmic serpent upon whom Vishnu reclines, tying his devotion to Rama to a bond the tradition holds as older than the events of the epic itself.