Seeing It All

Vālmīki had heard the whole story from Nārada. Now he wanted to see every part of it for himself. He sipped water, and sat on blades of darbha grass laid with their tips to the east, his hands folded, and turned his mind inward by yoga to see the truth.

Then he saw it exactly as it was: everything that happened to Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa and Sītā, and to King Daśaratha with his wives and his kingdom. Every laugh and every word, every movement and every deed he saw as it had been. He saw all that Rāma, true to his vow, went through in the forest with Sītā. Sitting in that deep stillness, he saw all that had happened, as clearly as an āmalaka fruit held in the palm of the hand.

Then, while Rāma reigned in Ayodhyā, he made the poem: twenty-four thousand verses in five hundred sections, in six books and a further book, telling Rāma's story, and in that further book telling what was yet to come.