Valmiki Jayanti

About Valmiki Jayanti

Significance

Valmiki Jayanti honours Maharishi Valmiki, revered in Hindu tradition as the Adi Kavi, the first poet, and as the author of the Ramayana. The Valmiki Ramayana opens with him: in the first sarga of the Bala Kanda the sage Narada tells him the story of Rama, and in the second, on the bank of the Tamasa, Valmiki sees a hunter shoot one of a pair of krauncha birds. His grief breaks out in a new, measured verse, and the epic presents this as the birth of the shloka metre in which the whole poem is then composed.

The poet also appears inside his own story. In the Uttara Kanda Sita lives in his hermitage after leaving Ayodhya, Lava and Kusha are born and raised there, and Valmiki teaches them the poem they later sing before Rama. Later tellings, among them the Adhyatma Ramayana (Ayodhya Kanda), describe his early life as a forest robber who was turned by the Saptarishis to repeating the name of Rama; popular retellings call him Ratnakara. That account is not part of the Valmiki Ramayana, and traditions differ on its details.

How and where it is observed

The day is kept across India, and with particular devotion by the Valmiki (Balmiki) community, for whom it is Pargat Divas, the day of the sage’s appearance. In Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Chandigarh, shobha yatras carry his image through the streets, and many visit Ram Tirath near Amritsar, which local tradition identifies with Valmiki’s ashram. Karnataka and several other states list the day as a holiday, and it appears among the restricted holidays of the Government of India.

Rituals

Temples of Valmiki hold abhisheka and aarti, and devotees read or recite the Ramayana, in some places through the preceding night. Processions with tableaux from the epic, community meals and talks on the sage’s life are common in North India.

How the date is fixed

Valmiki Jayanti is Ashvina (Ashwin) Purnima, the full moon that ends the bright fortnight of Ashvina; Shukla paksha carries the same month name in the Amanta and Purnimanta calendars. It is kept on the day on which Purnima prevails at sunrise (udaya tithi). When Purnima is present at two sunrises the first day is taken, and when it begins after one sunrise and ends before the next it is kept on the day that contains it. Sharad Purnima, on the same tithi, is fixed by midnight instead, so in some years the two are shown on consecutive dates.

Sources

• Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda, sargas 1–2 (Narada’s narration; the krauncha episode and the first shloka)
• Valmiki Ramayana, Uttara Kanda (Sita in Valmiki’s hermitage; Lava and Kusha)
• Adhyatma Ramayana, Ayodhya Kanda, sarga 6 (Valmiki’s account of his former life)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Who was Valmiki?

Customs differ between regions, communities and families; this description is background, not a prescription. The date above is calculated by the rule shown on this page.