ABSTRACT
Although it is little known to the average, educated Westerner, the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa is arguably one of the three or four most important and most widely influential texts ever written. For the impact this poem and the countless other works it has inspired upon the religions, the arts, and the social and political thought of much of Asia has been and continues to be both profound and widespread. Indeed, the influence of the Rāmāyaṇa is in many ways comparable to that only of such monumental texts as the Bible and the Qur’ān.
