The poet and the two birds

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Namaste, and welcome. Come and sit for a while. Let the day settle. Take one slow breath with me, in, and out.

Over the next twenty sittings we are going to tell the Ramayana, the story of Rama, as the sage Valmiki gave it to us in Sanskrit. We will go kanda by kanda, the way the poem itself is arranged. We will tell it in our own words, simply, the way it has been told in Indian homes for a very long time. And where later tellings add something that is not in Valmiki, we will say so gently, because those tellings are dear to many of us too.

But the Ramayana does not begin with Rama. It begins with the poet. So tonight, before any prince or palace, we start in a hermitage, with a question.

**

The poem opens with the sage **Valmiki** at his ashram. He is a man given to tapas and study. One day the wandering sage **Narada** comes to visit him. Narada travels between the worlds and knows a great deal. So Valmiki asks him something that had been on his mind.

He asks: in this world, right now, who is a person of true goodness? Who is strong, and also knows what is right? Who is grateful, who keeps his word, who is firm in his promises? Who is kind to every living being, learned, able, and pleasant to look upon? Who is so steady that even the gods fear his anger, and yet he is never angry without reason?

In Sanskrit, the question begins like this.

**को न्वस्मिन् साम्प्रतं लोके गुणवान्** (ko nv asmin sāmprataṃ loke guṇavān)

"Who is there in the world today, who is truly good?"

**

It is a question many of us have asked, perhaps not in these words. Is there anyone who holds all of this together, strength with gentleness, power with patience?

Narada smiles, and says, such qualities are hard to find in one person. But I know one. He is born in the line of **Ikshvaku**, and people know him as **Rama**.

Then Narada tells Valmiki the whole story in brief. He tells of Rama's birth in Ayodhya, of his leaving for the forest to keep his father's word, of Sita, of Lakshmana, of the friendship with Hanuman and Sugriva, of the search, of the bridge across the sea, of the return and the long, good rule that followed. The Ramayana gives this summary right at the start, in its first chapter. So before the poem really begins, we already know the whole shape of it. That is an old Indian way of telling. We are not listening to find out what happens. We are listening to be with the people it happens to.

Narada blesses Valmiki and goes on his way.

**

Now comes the part I love most.

After Narada leaves, Valmiki goes down to the river **Tamasa**, not far from the Ganga, to bathe. With him is his disciple **Bharadvaja**. It is a clear day. Valmiki looks at the water and says to his student, see how clean this water is, like the mind of a good person. He takes his bark cloth from Bharadvaja and walks along the bank, looking at the forest.

In a tree nearby sits a pair of **krauncha** birds, a male and a female, calling to each other, completely taken up with each other. Valmiki watches them.

Then a hunter, a **nishada**, lets fly an arrow, and the male bird falls. The female bird circles and cries out for her companion.

Valmiki stands still. Something in him breaks open. It is pity, deep and sudden, the kind that comes when we see another creature's loss and feel it as our own. And out of that pity, words come from him, without his planning them. They come out in a measured line, with a rhythm, four quarters, eight syllables each.

**मा निषाद प्रतिष्ठां त्वमगमः शाश्वतीः समाः** (mā niṣāda pratiṣṭhāṃ tvam agamaḥ śāśvatīḥ samāḥ)

In plain words, he says to the hunter, you who parted this loving pair, may you find no peace for long years.

**

Then Valmiki is surprised at himself. He walks back thinking, what was that I just said? It came out of grief, and yet it had a pattern. It could be sung to the veena. The Ramayana plays on two words here. **Shoka**, sorrow, became **shloka**, a verse. That is why Indian tradition calls Valmiki the **adi kavi**, the first poet, and calls the Ramayana the **adi kavya**, the first poem.

I think there is something tender in that. The first poem did not come from wanting to be clever. It came from caring about a small bird.

**

Back at the ashram, Valmiki sits down, still turning the line over in his mind. And then **Brahma**, the creator, comes to see him. Valmiki welcomes him with respect, but even as he offers water and a seat, his thoughts keep going back to the birds.

Brahma tells him not to worry. He says, this verse came from me, through you. Now use it. Tell the story of Rama, the one Narada told you, in this same measure. Whatever you write, whether it was seen by others or not, will become clear to you. And Brahma gives a blessing that people still quote. As long as mountains stand and rivers flow on the earth, the story of Rama will be told among people.

Brahma leaves. Valmiki sits in meditation, and the Ramayana says the whole story rises before his inner eye, as clearly as a fruit held in the hand.

**

So he writes. The poem tells us its own size. Twenty-four thousand verses, in six kandas, and the Uttara after them.

And then Valmiki thinks, who will carry this? Who will sing it? Two boys come to him, living in his ashram. They are twins, bright, sweet-voiced, trained in music. Their names are **Lava** and **Kusha**. Valmiki teaches them the whole poem. They learn it by heart and sing it, first among the sages, who are moved to tears and give them small gifts, a pot of water, a piece of bark cloth, a deer skin, whatever a hermit has. Later, the poem says, the boys sing it in the city of Ayodhya itself, before King Rama.

Hold on to those two boys. We will meet them again, right at the very end of our series, and then you will understand why the poem begins with them.

**

Let us gather what we heard tonight.

Valmiki asked Narada a simple question, who in this world is truly good, and Narada answered with the life of Rama. At the Tamasa, Valmiki saw a grieving bird, and his pity came out as the first shloka. Brahma asked him to tell Rama's story in that measure, and Valmiki taught the finished poem to Lava and Kusha, who sang it for the world.

**One thing to take with you.** The first poem came from a moment of noticing. Valmiki stopped, and looked, and felt for a small creature that most people would have walked past. Tomorrow, try to notice one small thing that needs care, a plant that needs water, a person who looks tired, a bird at the window. Stop for a moment. That is where kindness starts.

In our next sitting, we go to Ayodhya, to a king who has everything except the one thing he prays for.

**

**Credits (read out):** Written by the DharmikStudio team from the Sanskrit text of the Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda. Narrated with an AI voice. If you hear a mistake, please use "Report a mistake" on this episode.

Keep going

• Listen: The poet and the two birds
• Next: A king's prayer and four sons
• हिन्दी में पढ़ें
• All episodes of Ramayana: Valmiki's story, told gently