The Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic, composed in Sanskrit by the sage Valmiki around the 5th century BCE. It is one of the two important epics of Hinduism, the other being the Mahabharata.
Valmiki Ramayana Composed: around 5th century BCE (traditional date) Original language: Sanskrit Number of verses: approximately 24,000 Description: The epic tells the story of Rama, prince of Ayodhya, who is exiled to the forest along with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana. It narrates their struggles and eventual return to Ayodhya.
The Ramayana was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and the Hindu life and culture, and its main figures were fundamental to the cultural consciousness of a number of nations, both Hindu and Buddhist. Its most important moral influence was the importance of virtue, in the life of a citizen and in the ideals of the formation of a state (from Sanskrit: रामराज्य, romanized: Rāmarājya, a utopian state where Rama is king) or of a functioning society.
The name Rāmāyaṇa is composed of two words, Rāma and ayaṇa. Rāma, the name of the main figure of the epic, has two contextual meanings. In the Atharvaveda, it means 'dark, dark-coloured or black' and is related to the word rātri which means 'darkness or stillness of night'. The other meaning, which can be found in the Mahabharata, is 'pleasing, pleasant, charming, lovely, beautiful'. The word ayana means travel or journey. Thus, Rāmāyaṇa means "Rama's journey" with ayana altered to yaṇa (due to the amalgamation of "a" in Rama and the "a" in ayana, as per the Sanskrit grammar rule of internal sandhi).