Valmiki

Valmiki is a legendary figure of ancient India, a sage (maharishi) and poet to whom tradition attributes the Ramayana, one of the two great epics of Hinduism, composed in Sanskrit. His importance lies in the fact that his name is tied to the beginnings of epic poetry in that language, although his historical existence cannot be verified from any contemporary document.

The sources offer very different accounts of his life. According to some traditions, he was born a Brahmin named Lohajangha and, during a long drought, turned to robbery to feed his family. After meeting the Saptarishi sages, one of them gave him a mantra; he became so absorbed in reciting it that an anthill grew around his body. This is said to explain his name, vālmīki, which means «anthill». Other accounts present him as an abandoned child raised by thieves, or as a son of the god Varuna. None of these versions can be regarded as historical.

The work attributed to him is the Ramayana, which according to the text itself has about 24,000 verses (shlokas) divided into seven books (kaṇḍas) and roughly 480,000 words. It tells how Prince Rama of Ayodhya, in the kingdom of Kosala, sets out to rescue his wife Sita, abducted by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka. It is a story of duty, loyalty and virtue, written in regular verse that later poets would follow. Tradition holds that the metre was born when Valmiki, moved by the violent death of a bird, expressed his grief in a verse. Scholars place the oldest layers of the text between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE, with revisions continuing to the 3rd century CE, so single authorship is at best uncertain. The final book, the Uttarakanda, was probably not written by him.

His legacy is wide. He is revered as Adi Kavi, the first poet, and his festival, Valmiki Jayanti, is held on the full moon of the month of Ashvin, especially by the Balmiki community. Temples dedicated to him exist in several regions of India and in Nepal, and his life has inspired many films. Later traditions hold that he was reborn as Tulsidas, author of the Ramcharitamanas, a version of the Ramayana in Awadhi.