Valmiki Jayanti 2024

Valmiki Jayanti (also called Pragat Diwas, Day of Manifestation) celebrates the birthday of Maharshi Valmiki, the sage who composed the Ramayana, the first and greatest Sanskrit epic. He was born on the full moon of Ashwin: the same Sharad Purnima when the moon is brightest and most beautiful. Valmiki is revered not just as a poet but as the Adi Kavi (the first poet), whose grief at witnessing senseless violence became the world's first literary verse.

The origin of the shloka (the Sanskrit metric verse form used in millions of subsequent poems, hymns, and scriptures) is directly traced to Valmiki. He was walking by the Tamasa river when he saw a hunter shoot and kill one of a pair of Krauncha birds (herons) in the act of mating. The female bird's cry of grief pierced his heart and, involuntarily, out of his grief (shoka) came the first spontaneous verse in perfect anustubh metre: Ma Nishada, “O hunter, may you never find peace for eternity.” His grief had transformed into poetry. Shoka had become shloka. That moment is considered the birth of Sanskrit literature.

Valmiki's earlier life is itself a story of transformation. Born a Brahmin named Ratnakar, he became a bandit who robbed travellers to feed his family. When he encountered the sage Narada and asked if his family would share his sin, he found they refused, and was so shaken that he entered meditation for years, so long that an anthill (valmika) grew around him. When he emerged, he was Valmiki: the sage born from the anthill. He then composed the 24,000-verse Ramayana in 7 Kandas, sheltered Sita during her forest exile, and taught Ram's twin sons Lava and Kusha to sing the Ramayana he had written, ensuring the story would reach the world.