c. 500 BCE – 100 BCE, Sanskrit
Valmiki Ramayana
The first poem — Adi Kavya
Sage Valmiki's telling of Rama's life in seven kandas — from the prince's birth in Ayodhya, through fourteen years of forest exile, Sita's abduction and the building of the bridge to Lanka, to Ravana's defeat and Rama's return as king. Tradition holds it as the first true poem (adi kavya), its 24,000 verses the template every later Ramayana — Tamil, Bengali, Awadhi — answers to.
Key episodes
Bala Kanda
King Dasharatha's three queens bear four sons after a great yagna. Rama, the eldest, grows up in Ayodhya and wins Sita's hand at her swayamvara in Mithila by stringing Shiva's own bow, which no other suitor could even lift.
Ayodhya Kanda
On the eve of Rama's coronation, Queen Kaikeyi calls in two old boons from Dasharatha — her son Bharata crowned instead, and Rama sent to the forest for fourteen years. Rama accepts without protest and leaves with Sita and Lakshmana.
Aranya & Sundara Kanda
Ravana abducts Sita from the exiles' hermitage while a golden deer draws Rama away. Hanuman, scouting alone, leaps the ocean to Lanka, finds Sita held in the Ashoka grove, and carries the news back before the army moves.
Yuddha Kanda
Nala raises a causeway across the strait in five days; Rama's army crosses, Ravana falls in battle, and Rama returns to Ayodhya after fourteen years to be crowned at last.