WRITER

Valmiki

80 BC - 2 BC

Photo of Valmiki

Icon of person Valmiki

Valmiki (; Sanskrit: वाल्मीकि, romanized: Vālmīki, [ʋɑːlmiːki]) was a legendary poet who is celebrated as the traditional author of the epic Ramayana, based on the attribution in the text itself. 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). Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Valmiki has received more than 3,744,491 page views. His biography is available in 59 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 55 in 2019). Valmiki is the 249th most popular writer (up from 269th in 2019), the 24th most popular biography from India (up from 29th in 2019) and the 4th most popular Indian Writer.

Valmiki is most famous for writing the Ramayana, an epic poem about the life of Rama.

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.7M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 71.24

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 59

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 8.15

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.57

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Ramayana
Literary Collections
1927
Ramayana a Journey a Major Tv Series (A Channel Four Book)
Epic literature, Indic
This gorgeously illustrated retelling by Ranchor Prime of the story of Rama, the king of Ayodha, is an extraordinary addition to both Vaishnava literature and Indian art. First told by the poet Valmiki in 24,000 Sanskrit verses more than 2,000 years ago and then memorised and retold by Valmiki's disciples and passed from generation to generation, the Ramayana has been central to Indian life for millennia.
1997
El Ramayana
1984
Rama the Steadfast
Fiction
One of India?s great epics in a powerful new translation The Ramayana (along with the Mahabharata) is to India what the epics of Homer and the stories of the Bible are to Western culture: works that cast a spell over an entire civilization. It is also one of the most entertaining of the great works of world literature. Populated with a cast of superhuman characters and imbued with a profound sense of moral purpose, the magical tale of the young prince Rama?s adventures as he seeks to find his abducted wife, Sita, has been central to Indian cultural life for centuries?told to children as bedtime stories and studied by philosophers and theologians. This version returns to the core story in its earliest written form, revealing a taut, vibrant, skillfully constructed heroic romance.
2007
Adhyatma Ramayana
1987
Le Ramayana
1999

Page views of Valmikis by language

Over the past year Valmiki has had the most page views in the with 722,056 views, followed by Hindi (214,007), and Kannada (64,980). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Bulgarian (208.61%), Simple English (201.74%), and Eastern Punjabi (117.86%)

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Valmiki ranks 249 out of 7,302. Before him are John Milton, Saadi Shirazi, Halldór Laxness, J. M. G. Le Clézio, Paula Hitler, and Germaine de Staël. After him are Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Peter Handke, Kālidāsa, Nelly Sachs, François Mauriac, and Anna Akhmatova.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 80 BC, Valmiki ranks 2. Before him is Vercingetorix. After him are Sosigenes of Alexandria, Aenesidemus, Gnaeus Pompeius, and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. Among people deceased in 2 BC, Valmiki ranks 1. After him are Phraates IV, and Iullus Antonius.

Others Born in 80 BC

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Others Deceased in 2 BC

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In India

Among people born in India, Valmiki ranks 24 out of 1,861. Before him are Indira Gandhi (1917), Rudyard Kipling (1865), Ānanda (-600), Chandragupta Maurya (-340), Swami Vivekananda (1863), and Subhas Chandra Bose (1897). After him are Kālidāsa (400), Aryabhata (476), Sariputta (-568), Salman Rushdie (1947), Jahangir (1569), and Adi Shankara (788).

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Among WRITERS In India

Among writers born in India, Valmiki ranks 4. Before him are George Orwell (1903), Rabindranath Tagore (1861), and Rudyard Kipling (1865). After him are Kālidāsa (400), Salman Rushdie (1947), Tulsidas (1532), Ghalib (1797), Savitribai Phule (1831), Meera (1498), Premchand (1880), and William Makepeace Thackeray (1811).

Indian born Writers

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