Maharishi Valmiki: The First Poet

Who he is

Maharishi Valmiki composed the Ramayana in Sanskrit, in about 24,000 verses arranged in seven kandas. He is honoured as Adi Kavi, the first poet, and his work as the Adi Kavya, the first poem. Every later Ramayana, including Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi, Kamban's in Tamil and Krittibas's in Bengali, flows from his.

The robber who became a sage

A widely told tradition says he was once a highway robber named Ratnakara, who supported his family by plunder. The sage Narada asked him whether his family, who shared his earnings, would also share his sins. He went home and asked; they refused. Shaken, he returned and begged for a way out. Narada gave him the name of Ram to repeat. He sat in meditation so long that an anthill (valmika) grew over him, and when he emerged he was Valmiki, "born of the anthill".

The first verse

The Ramayana itself opens with Valmiki asking Narada whether there is in the world a man who is truly virtuous, truthful, brave and self-controlled. Narada tells him of Ram. Soon after, by the river Tamasa, Valmiki sees a hunter shoot one of a pair of mating krauncha birds, and hears the cry of the survivor. Grief (shoka) rises in him and comes out as a curse in a perfectly measured verse (shloka). Brahma appears and tells him that this metre was born for a purpose: to tell the life of Ram.

Inside his own story

Valmiki is also a character. He sheltered Sita when she was sent away, raised Luv and Kush, taught them the poem, and stood before Ram's court to vouch for her. See the Uttara Kanda.

What he teaches

No one's past disqualifies them. A man who robbed travellers became the voice of dharma for a civilisation, and the tradition has never hidden where he began. His first verse teaches something too: the greatest poem in India began from compassion for a bird.

Valmiki Jayanti is observed on the full moon of the month of Ashwin. Ayodhya's airport is named after him: Maharishi Valmiki International Airport, Ayodhya Dham. Read the poem he gave us: the Ramayana in seven kandas.