Valmiki

Valmiki is traditionally regarded as the first poet—the Adi Kavi—of Sanskrit literature, though almost nothing about his historical existence can be verified. According to legend, he was a highway robber named Ratnakar who was transformed by a chance encounter with the sage Narada, who taught him to meditate on the name of Rama. After years of ascetic devotion so deep that an anthill grew around his motionless body—hence the name Valmiki, meaning 'one born of the anthill'—he emerged as a purified sage. The tradition holds that he composed the Ramayana after witnessing a hunter kill one of a pair of mating cranes, and the grief that overwhelmed him spontaneously emerged as the first verse of poetry in the Sanskrit language. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by Ramayana.