Maharshi Valmiki

01The first shloka

Narada came to Valmiki’s ashram on the Tamasa and told him, in brief, the life of Rama. Soon after, walking to the river, Valmiki saw a hunter shoot one of a pair of krauncha birds. The grief that rose in him came out as a curse, and the curse came out in metre. He was astonished at his own words. Brahma then appeared and told him that this metre, the anushtubh shloka, was the form in which he must tell all of Rama’s life. The Bala Kanda tells this at its opening.

02Sita’s refuge

In the Uttara Kanda, when Sita leaves Ayodhya, it is Valmiki’s ashram that receives her. Lava and Kusha grow up there and learn the Ramayana from the poet himself, and they sing it in Rama’s own court during the Ashvamedha. A popular katha, told in the Skanda Purana and in folk retellings, says that before he became a rishi he was a forest robber named Ratnakara who repeated the name of Rama, at first backwards as ‘mara’, until an anthill (valmika) grew over him. Valmiki Jayanti is kept on Ashvin Purnima.

Dynasty · Satya and Treta Yugas into the Kali Yuga (traditional reckoning)Suryavansha (Ikshvaku line)The Solar dynasty descends from Vaivasvata Manu through his son Ikshvaku and ruled from Ayodhya. Its kings include Mandhata, Harishchandra, Sagara, Bhagiratha, Raghu and Shri Rama, and the Puranas carry the line down to Sumitra in the Kali Yuga.Read →