Skip to content
The ConsciousLibrary

Library Narada

Traditional attribution

Nārada’s abridged Rāmāyaṇa (Rāmāyaṇa I.1)

संक्षेपरामायण (रामायण बालकाण्ड १)

Nārada visita a Vālmīki
byNarada

Vālmīki asks Nārada whether there exists in the world a man endowed with every virtue; Nārada answers that there does and narrates in about a hundred stanzas the life of Rāma, from his birth to his reign. It is the kernel from which, according to the poem itself, the epic is born: after hearing it, Vālmīki composes the Rāmāyaṇa by Brahmā’s inspiration. Tradition recites it as the “abridged Rāmāyaṇa”.

Not available

No edition of this work is currently on sale in a store we have been able to verify.

Editions and translations · 1

English

Authorship note

First canto of Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa, which places in Nārada’s mouth a summary of the whole story of Rāma. An ascribed discourse within the epic; the Bālakāṇḍa is considered one of its later layers.

Editions and translations

Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.

English

  • The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, vol. I: Bālakāṇḍa

    Princeton University Press, 1984

    Translation: Robert P. Goldman

Other works by Narada

Sources

  • Goldman, Robert P. (trad.). The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: An Epic of Ancient India, vol. I: Bālakāṇḍa. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Sarga 1–2 (Nārada narra a Vālmīki la historia de Rāma).

Affiliate link: if you buy through it, the library may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. When an edition's real cover is not available, we show an illustrative library cover.