Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.223

c9.223

Immediately Brahmā appeared on the scene and advised Vālmīki to write the story of Rāma in the same pattern as that verse. Brahmā taught him about the past and the future of the history of Rāma. As Sītā, Kuśa, and Lava were living in his āśrama Vālmīki was well in the know about the present. In the above background Vālmīki completed writing the Rāmāyaṇa story in 24,000 verses. The epic is divided into seven kāṇḍas (sections) of five hundred chapters. The seven sections are the Bālakāṇḍa, the Ayodhyākāṇḍa, the Araṇya kāṇḍa, the Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa, the Sundara Kāṇḍa, the Yuddha Kāṇḍa and the Uttarakāṇḍa. Vālmīki taught the poem to Lava and Kuśa and when they went with Vālmīki to Ayodhyā during the aśvamedhayajña of Śrī Rāma, they sang the poem in the open assembly there.