Age and Date of Ramayana
It is a general believed that Ramayana was originally composed by Rishi Valmiki in Sanskrit.
In this book the great deeds of Lord Rama of Ayodhya have been vividly described. The Ramayana in its present form contains about 24,000 verses (Slokas) and has seven cantos.
It is very difficult to say when this great Epic was written and what particular period of history is mentioned in it. The Indians believe that this book was composed about 3000 B.C. but most of the European critics do not agree with this view. According to Winternitz this voluminous work is not the result of one age and was most probably written between 400 B.C. to 200 A.D. But one thing is quite certain that though this book may have been composed much later (i.e. 400 B.C. to 200 A.D.) the subject matter mentioned in it refers to much earlier times. The story mentioned in the Ramayana became so popular that it was translated into many foreign as well as Indian languages. Perhaps the most important of all such works is ‘Ramcharitmanas of Goswami Tulsidas, the immortal poet of the Hindi literature.
