According to Hindu mythology, the sage Valmiki wrote the Ramayana at the request of Lord Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. The story goes that Valmiki was once a notorious robber named Ratnakara, but after meeting the sage Narada, he renounced his criminal ways and became a sage himself.

Valmiki Ramayana

One day, while Valmiki was meditating by the bank of the Tamasa River, he saw a pair of lovebirds getting killed by a hunter. Grieved by the sight, he cursed the hunter and expressed his sorrow in a verse. As he spoke, the verse became a shloka and it is said that Lord Brahma appeared before him and asked him to compose the story of Lord Rama, which is one of the most virtuous and ideal person, in the same meter of the shloka, which came out of Valmiki’s grief. Thus, Valmiki wrote the Ramayana, one of the two great epic poems of Hindu mythology, which tells the story of Lord Rama, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, and his quest to rescue his wife Sita from the demon king, Ravana.