Author of the Indian epic the Ramayana, "the first poet"
Held by tradition to be the author of the ancient Indian epic the Ramayana, revered as "the first poet." This Sanskrit epic tells of Prince Rama’s exile, the abduction of his beloved Sita by the demon king, and Rama leading an army of monkeys across the sea to rescue her — named with the Mahabharata as one of India’s two great epics, and for over two thousand years a profound shaper of Indian religion, morality, and literature. Legend says that, seeing a hunter shoot down one of a pair of lovers, he burst out in grief into rhythmic verse, and so founded Sanskrit meter.
Legend says that Valmiki saw a hunter shoot down a crane while its mate cried out in grief, and in a surge of sorrow blurted out a rhymed, metered line — held to be the first verse in the history of Sanskrit poetry. Poetry, then, was born of an act of compassion for life. He went on to write the Ramayana in that same meter, setting the fountainhead for all of Indian literature.
Whether Valmiki was the single author of the Ramayana, or a symbolic author to whom a long oral tradition was later attributed, is viewed differently by scholars; this site states the dispute.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.