Sage Valmiki is the First Poet. According to the Puranas, Pracheta was his father and Charshani his mother. Varuna is also known by the name of Pracheta. That is why Sage Valmiki is also called Prachetas. He was possessed of immense knowledge. Once, while the Sage was in deep meditation, an ant-hill covered his whole body. When he appeared out of the ant-hill, people began to call him ‘Valmiki’. In Sanskrit language, ‘Valmiki’ means an ant-hill.
One fine morning, Sage Valmiki sitting on the bank of river Tamsa was lost in the glory of Nature. There, he saw two Krauncha birds. All of a sudden, the male bird fell down, hit by a hunter’s arrow. The female bird died of shock and grief. The Sage lost himself in anger and inflicted a curse in the form of a verse (shloka) upon the hunter. The meaning of the shloka runs as follows:
“O Vile Hunter! As you have killed one of these love-intoxicated Krauncha birds, you shall wander homeless all your long years.”
Thus Sage Valmiki composed the great epic Ramayana in that verse on the basis of Rama’s life-story which he had heard from Saint Narada.
