RĀMĀYAṆA. Along with the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyaṇa is the most influential epic of India. Attributed to the sage Vālmīki, it is a poem of about fifty thousand lines narrating in Sanskrit the tale of Rāma and his wife, Sītā. The core of the epic is the story surrounding Rama's birth, his marriage to Sītā, his exile, Sītā's abduction by the demon king Rāvaṇa, the battle leading to the killing of the demon, and the recovery of Sītā.

The origins of the epic are obscure and beyond definitive recovery. The epic is available in three recensions—the Northeastern, the Northwestern, and the Southern. The recensions vary considerably; approximately a third of the text of each is not...