Rishi Valmiki

Valmiki is the sage to whom tradition attributes the Ramayana. He is called the Adikavi, the first poet. In the epic he is a hermit who lives by the river Tamasa, near the Ganga. He questions Narada about the ideal man, hears the story of Rama, and is told by Brahma to compose it in verse. Later he shelters Sita and teaches the poem to her sons.

He names his own father in the Uttara Kanda. Standing before Rama, he says: "I am the tenth son of Pracetas" [Ramayana, Uttara Kanda 96 in Shastri's translation; verse 7.87.17 in the numbering of another edition]. Later tradition takes Pracetas to be Varuna. The name Valmiki is explained by valmika, an anthill.

A later legend says he began as a robber. In the Skanda Purana, as encyclopedias summarise it, a Brahmin named Lohajangha turns to robbery in a famine, is given a mantra by sages and meditates until an anthill grows over him. Popular tellings call the robber Ratnakara and say Narada taught him to repeat "mara", which became "Rama". The Adhyatma Ramayana has a version of this. The Ramayana does not tell it. Its first verse calls Valmiki an ascetic (tapasvi), and one scholar on the INDOLOGY list calls the robber story "rather late".

Scholars date the earliest stage of the Ramayana to about the 8th to 4th century BCE, with later additions up to about the 3rd century CE. Much of the Uttara Kanda is narrated by other speakers, and it may not be Valmiki's work. What is known of him beyond the poem comes from later tradition.

1. Narada's account: Valmiki asks Narada who is a man with all the great virtues. Narada answers with a short account of Rama's life [Ramayana, Bala Kanda 1].
2. The first verse: At the Tamasa, with his pupil Bharadvaja, Valmiki sees a hunter kill one of a pair of krauncha birds. Moved by the female bird's cry, he speaks a verse in a new metre. Tradition links the word shloka to shoka, grief [Bala Kanda 2].
3. Brahma's instruction: Brahma appears and tells him to compose the story of Rama. He says the verse came from his own wish and that the poem will last as long as the mountains and rivers [Bala Kanda 2].
4. Lava and Kusha: Valmiki composes the Ramayana in 24,000 verses and teaches it to Lava and Kusha, the sons of Rama and Sita. They recite it among sages and in the streets of Ayodhya, and Rama hears them in his court [Bala Kanda 4].
5. Sita at his hermitage: When Lakshmana leaves the exiled Sita on the far bank of the Ganga, sages' sons find her weeping. Valmiki tells her she is under his protection and places her with the women ascetics of his hermitage [Uttara Kanda 48 and 49].
6. Vouching for Sita: Valmiki brings Sita before Rama's assembly. He says her twin sons are Rama's, that he has never spoken a lie, and that meditation has shown him her purity [Uttara Kanda 96].

• The bank of the Tamasa river, near the Ganga
• A forest hermitage with women ascetics and pupils
• The assembly in Ayodhya where Lava and Kusha recited the poem