Valmiki ( / v ɑː l ˈ m iː k i / ; [1] Sanskrit : वाल्मीकि Vālmīki [ʋɑːlmiːki] ) [A] is celebrated as the harbinger - poet in Sanskrit literature . [4] The epic Ramayana , dated variously from the 5th century BCE [5] [6] to first century BCE, [7] is attributed to him, based on the attribution in the text itself. [8] He is revered as Ādi Kavi , the first poet, author of Ramayana , the first epic poem. The Ramayana , originally written by Valmiki, consists of 24,000 shlokas and seven cantos (kaṇḍas). [9] The Ramayana is composed of about 480,002 words, being a quarter of the length of the full text of the Mahabharata or about four times the length of the Iliad . The Ramayana tells the story of a prince, Rama of the city of Ayodhya in the Kingdom of Kosala , whose wife ...