Editing Ramayana (section)

==Textual characteristics==
[[File:Valmiki Ramayana.jpg|thumb|An artist's impression of sage [[Valmiki]] composing the ''Ramayana'']]

===Genre===
The ''Ramayana'' belongs to the genre of ''[[Itihasa]]'', narratives of past events ({{IAST|purāvṛtta}}), which includes the epics ''Mahabharata'' and ''Ramayana'', and the ''[[Purana]]s''. The genre also includes teachings on [[Puruṣārtha|the goals of human life]]. It depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal son, servant, brother, husband, wife, and king.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rosen |first=Steven |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gbXOEAAAQBAJ&dq=essential+hinduism&pg=PA20 |title=Essential Hinduism |date=2006-10-30 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=978-0-313-07155-3 |pages=103 |language=en}}</ref> Like the ''Mahabharata'', ''Ramayana'' presents the teachings of ancient Hindu sages in the narrative [[allegory]], interspersing philosophical and ethical elements.{{efn-la|In ''The Oxford History of India'' (1919) by [[Vincent Arthur Smith|Vincent A. Smith]] ''''',''' The Ramayana'' is presented as '<nowiki/>''neither historical nor allegorical, but a poetic creation based on mythology''<nowiki/>'<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Vincent Arthur |title=The Oxford History of India: From the Earliest Times to the End of 1911}}</ref> [[Hermann Jacobi]], the German [[Indologist]], who was the first European to write a whole book on the Ramayana-''The Ramayana: History, Contents with a Concordance of the Printed Recensions'' (1893, English translation by S.N. Ghoshal, 1960). The book presents ''the Ramayana'' as a work based on mythology.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jacobi |first=Hermann |title=Das Ramayana, Geschichte und Inhalt nebst Concordanz nach den gedruckten Rezensionen |year=1893 |language=de |trans-title=The Ramayana: History, Contents with a Concordance of the Printed Recensions}}</ref> In December
1975, the [[Sahitya Akademi]] organized a five day international seminar on the Ramayana, The consensus on the nature of the material of the epic was that it was mythological.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Noorani |first=A.G. |title=The Babri Masjid Question, 1528-2003 'A Matter of National Honour'}}</ref>}}

===Structure===
In its extant form, Valmiki's ''Ramayana'' is an epic poem containing over 24,000 couplet verses, divided into seven {{IAST|kāṇḍa}}s ([[Balakanda|Bālakāṇḍa]], Ayodhyakāṇḍa, Araṇyakāṇḍa, Kiṣkindakāṇḍa, [[Sundara Kanda|Sundarākāṇḍa]], Yuddhakāṇḍa, Uttarakāṇḍa), and about 500 sargas (chapters).<ref name="valmikiramayan.net"/><ref>{{cite web |first=Arshia |last=Sattar |date=29 October 2016 |url=https://scroll.in/article/820198/why-the-uttara-kanda-changes-the-way-the-ramayana-should-be-read |title=Why the Uttara Kanda changes the way the Ramayana should be read |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416204833/https://scroll.in/article/820198/why-the-uttara-kanda-changes-the-way-the-ramayana-should-be-read |archive-date=16 April 2021 |website=Scroll.in}}</ref> It is regarded as one of the longest epic poems ever written.<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Linda |last1=Egenes |title=The Ramayana: A New Retelling of Valmiki's Ancient Epic—Complete and Comprehensive |first2=Kumuda |last2=Reddy |year=2016 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-14-311180-1 |pages=2 |language=en}}</ref>

===Recensions===
The ''Ramayana'' text has several regional renderings, recensions, and sub-recensions. Textual scholar [[Robert P. Goldman]] differentiates two major regional revisions: the northern (n) and the southern (s). Scholar [[Romesh Chunder Dutt]] writes that "the ''Ramayana'', like the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', is a growth of centuries, but the main story is more distinctly the creation of one mind."

There has been discussion as to whether the first and the last volumes of Valmiki's ''Ramayana'' (Bala Kanda and Uttara Kanda) were composed by the original author. Though Bala Kanda is sometimes considered in the main epic, according to many Uttara Kanda is certainly a later interpolation, not attributable to Valmiki.<ref name="valmikiramayan.net">{{Cite web|url=https://valmikiramayan.net/|title=Valmiki Ramayana|website=valmikiramayan.net|access-date=19 May 2020|archive-date=13 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200913082833/https://www.valmikiramayan.net/|url-status=live}}</ref> Both of these two kāndas are absent in the oldest manuscript.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Mukherjee Pandey |first1=Jhimli |date=18 Dec 2015 <!-- 09.08AM IST --> |title=6th-century Ramayana found in Kolkata, stuns scholars |newspaper=timesofindia.indiatimes.com |agency=TNN |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/6th-century-Ramayana-found-in-Kolkata-stuns-scholars/articleshow/50227724.cms |url-status=live |access-date=20 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151219230556/http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/6th-century-Ramayana-found-in-Kolkata-stuns-scholars/articleshow/50227724.cms |archive-date=19 December 2015}}</ref>

Some think that the Uttara Kanda contradicts how Rama and Dharma are portrayed in the rest of the epic. M. R. Parameswaran says that the way the positions of women and [[Shudras]] are depicted shows that the Uttara Kanda is a later insertion.
{{blockquote|Since Rama was revered as a dharmatma, his ideas seen in the Ramayana proper cannot be replaced by new ideas as to what dharma is, except by claiming that he himself adopted those new ideas. That is what the U-K [Uttara Kanda] does. It embodies the new ideas in two stories that are usually referred to as Sita-parityaga, the abandonment of Sita (after Rama and Sita return to Ayodhya and Rama was consecrated as king) and Sambuka-vadha, the killing of the ascetic Sambuka. The U-K attributes both actions to Rama, whom people acknowledged to be righteous and as a model to follow. By masquerading as an additional kanda of the Ramayana composed by Valmiki himself, the U-K succeeded, to a considerable extent, in sabotaging the values presented in Valmiki's Ramayana.{{sfn|Parameswaran|2014|p=[https://archive.org/details/valmiki_-_ramayana_-_critical_-_essays_-_m_-_r_-_parameswaran/page/156 156]}}
}}