आदिकाव्य the first poem

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Walking by the Tamasā one morning, Vālmīki watched a hunter shoot one of a pair of krauñca birds as they circled in courtship. The surviving bird's cry went through him, and what broke out of his mouth was a curse — but a curse that fell, unbidden, into perfect metre.

Grief had become verse. Brahmā told him the metre was no accident: he was to tell the whole life of Rāma in it. Every śloka in the poem carries the shape of that first cry.

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Read Sarga 2 in the reader →

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अद्यश्लोक verse of the day

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