Valmiki is celebrated as the harbinger-poet in Sanskrit literature. The epic Ramayana, dated variously from 5th century BCE to first century BCE, is attributed to him, based on the attribution in the text itself. He is revered as ādi Kavi, the first poet, author of Ramayana, the first epic poem.
Ramayana, originally written by Valmiki, consists of 24,000 shlokas and 7 cantos (ka??as) including Uttara Kanda.[citation needed] Ramayana is composed of about 480,002 words, being a quarter of the length of the full text of the Mahabharata o...