Vālmīki and the Krauñca Bird in the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa

The Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa begins its Yātrā Khaṇḍa with its own account of how Vālmīki came to compose the Rāmāyaṇa. The first śloka was born from his grief at the krauñca bird, and Brahmā told him to write the Rāmāyaṇa of one hundred crore ślokas. The main outline is like the account in the Bāla Kāṇḍa of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. But in the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa the full Rāmāyaṇa composed by Vālmīki has one hundred crore ślokas, far more than the text we have now. It is a work that holds everything, and Bhagavān Vishṇu later divided it and shared it out.

Vālmīki at the Tamasā

The great Maharshi Vālmīki was at his āśrama (hermitage) on the bank of the river Tamasā, with his disciple. He went to the river to bathe. There he saw a pair of krauñca birds, a male and a female, living together in joy.

A hunter (nishāda) who was looking for his living shot and killed the male krauñca. The female, left without her mate, cried out in pain, and her cry of grief pierced the air.

The sight and the sound filled Vālmīki’s mind with karuṇā (compassion). From this karuṇā, without any plan or effort to compose, a perfectly formed śloka came from his lips. It was a curse on the hunter, in faultless anushṭubh metre. The great ṛshi knew it as a śloka, verse in metre fit for singing, and he wondered at what had risen up from within him. (Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Yātrā Kāṇḍa, Chapter 1)

Brahmā comes and gives the command

Vālmīki sat thinking about the meaning of the śloka that had come on its own. Then Brahmā appeared at his āśrama. Brahmā said that the śloka had come by divine will. The power of karuṇā, turned into kāvya (poetry), was the means chosen for the great work that was to come.

Brahmā then told Vālmīki to compose the full and complete story of Rāma, the Rāmāyaṇa. He promised Vālmīki that through yoga-dṛshṭi (the sight of yoga) he would see for himself everything that had happened in Rāma’s life, both what was known and what was hidden from others. So he would be the right means to pass it on. Brahmā also said that the Rāmāyaṇa would last as long as the mountains and the oceans.

In the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, the work that Vālmīki was told to compose was the Śatakoṭi Rāmāyaṇa, the Rāmāyaṇa of one hundred crore ślokas. This was the whole and unlimited Rāma-kathā in its fullness, the record of the entire Rāma-avatāra in all its parts. (Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Yātrā Kāṇḍa, Chapter 1)

The hundred crore ślokas

By Brahmā’s grace and the power of his own tapas (austerity), Vālmīki composed the Rāmāyaṇa of one hundred crore ślokas, a work of vast size. This complete Rāmāyaṇa held the whole knowledge of Rāma’s avatāra.

The second sarga of the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa then tells what happened to this hundred-crore work and how the Rāmāyaṇa known to human beings came to be. Bhagavān Vishṇu divided the hundred-crore work into three equal parts for the three worlds. He divided it again for the different regions of the earth. Four ślokas, drawn out as the essence, were given to Brahmā. He gave them to Nārada, and Nārada gave them to Vyāsa, and from them the Bhāgavata Purāṇa came. So the Rāmāyaṇa as known to human beings is a part of a greater whole. The full account is given in the Distribution of the Rāmāyaṇa. (Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Yātrā Kāṇḍa, Chapters 1–2)

The Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa’s own account

The Bāla Kāṇḍa of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa tells the same event, the krauñca bird and Brahmā’s command, but without the hundred-crore figure. The Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa as we have it has 24,000 ślokas.

Sources

• Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Yātrā Kāṇḍa, Chapter 1 (Sarga 1)
• Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Yātrā Kāṇḍa, Chapter 2 (Sarga 2), for the division of the work
• Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Bāla Kāṇḍa, for the matching account