The Ramayana of Valmiki (BBC)

"One does not build a dike, my precious, after the water is gone. Get up, appraise the king,
and see to your own welfare!"

- from The Ramayana of Valmiki, Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: Volume One.

Ramayana is an epic poem of India which narrates the journey of Virtue
towards vice. Sage poet Valmiki authored it and as with any other
classical poems written in ancient times, dating of Ramayana is still to
be determined accurately by historians. Those in India believe that
Rama lived in Satya Yug (Truth age), millennia BC and many are presently
concerned with what Ramayana tells us, rather than when it was told.
The epic poem Ramayana is passed on to the present age by word of mouth
rendering like a ballad. However, scholars, grammarians, historians
have put all their efforts to standardize the original text, by verifying
various manuscripts available from various parts of India, thus "stabilizing
and saving the text from further encroachment of apocryphal stories."
The structure of the Ramayana is arranged into six Kandas, or Books, and
they are:

1.Bala Kanda ( Book of Youth)
2.Ayodhya Kanda (Book of Ayodhya)
3.Aranya Kanda (Book of Forest )
4.Kishkindha Kanda (Book of Friendship)
5.Sundara Kanda ( Book of Beauty )
6.Yuddha Kanda ( Book of War )

Many Hindus prefer to pass a faithful rendering of what Valmiki, the Sage, passed on to them, in his course of words and events, without entering into the controversies of unwritten history. Here is an episode told
in some circles as to how Ramayana took its seed:

One day the Sage Valmiki saw a bird couple sitting on a branch of a tree engaged in their tete-a-tete. While he was blessingly admiring
the bird couple, a wicked arrow of a hunter pierced through the male bird,
which fell instantly to the ground, and the female bird chirped bemoaningly.
Equally hurt as with an arrow, the poet uttered:

"For endless years to come, O Hunter, never shall thy soul find peace"

BBC Dramatisation

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BBC Radio7 - 061106 The Ramayana of Valmiki (01of10) by Pete.mp3

BBC Radio7 - 061107 The Ramayana of Valmiki (02of10) by Pete.mp3

BBC Radio7 - 061108 The Ramayana of Valmiki (03of10) by Pete.mp3

Classic & Contemporary Drama

The Ramayana of Valmiki (BBC)

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