Shravan was a hermit.

According to the story told in the Ramayan of Valmiki, One day, when Dashrath was still young, he was out hunting and rode to the bank of the Sarayu in search of game. The sun had set and the king heard at a distance what he believed to be the trumpeting of a wild elephant.

The king, who was expert at hitting an invisible mark by its sound, discharged an arrow that struck a young hermit, Shravan by name, who had been filling a pitcher for the use of his blind and aged parents. The king discovered to his great chagrin that what he had mistaken for the trumpeting of an elephant had been the gurgling sound caused by the filling of the pitcher. The hermit did not mind his own death, but he was worried about his helpless parents, who wholly depended on him. He, therefore, implored the king to carry the water to the hermitage and inform his parents of what had happened to their son. With these dying words the hermit breathed his last and the king did as he was bid by the young anchorite.

Shravan's parents, when they heard of his sad fate, begged the king to conduct them to the place where their son was and in their excessive agony pronounced pronounced a curse on the king that he too would die of grief for the loss of a son.