And he did it as per his resolution. Kīrtimān, “celebrated,” reveals that the chief goal of a poem as described by rhetoricians is fame: kāvyaṁ yaśase. The sage reveals that his poem will become famous even before composing it. Udāra means “great” in this context. Hence, udāra-dhīḥ means “of great intelligence,” describing Śrī Vālmīki’s expertise, the seed quality of a poet [21]. Muniḥ, “sage,” means “thoughtful,” indicating that he had the two features of a poet: (1) living in seclusion, and (2) being a connoisseur [22].¹ Vālmīki composed a śloka after receiving Lord Brahmā’s boon, indicating that he possessed the potency to compose poetry, the cause of one’s becoming a poet.

Lord Rāma was already famous. Yet, Śrī Vālmīki’s poem made Him more famous, for as Daṇḍī observes, the fame of the kings of ancient times have been reflected on the [poetic] literature describing them; even in their absence, their descriptions do not perish [23]. Indeed, the fame that arises due to being the hero of a poem is incomparable to other kinds of fame.

Kāvyam, “poem,” is the product of a kavi, that is, a poet expert in describing an extraordinary personage in a manner that is excellent in terms of speech and concept, with ornamentation in speech and concept and free from defects of speech and concept [24]. Here, it refers to what is technically a mahā-kāvya as defined in Daṇḍī’s Kāvyādarśa (1.14-19):

sarga-bandho mahā-kāvyam ucyate tasya lakṣaṇam
āśīr-namaskriyā-vastu-nirdeśo vāpi tan-mukham

itihāsa-kathodbhūtam itara-dvāra-saṁśrayam
catur-varga-phalāyattaṁ caturodātta-nāyakam

nagarārṇava-śaila-rtu-candrārkodaya-varṇanaiḥ
udyāna-salila-krīḍā-madhu-pāna-ratotsavaiḥ

vipralambhair vivāhaiś ca kumārodayavarṇanaiḥ
mantra-dūta-prayāṇāji-nāyakābhyudayair api

alaṅkṛtam asaṅkṣiptaṁ rasabhāvanirantaram
sargair anativistīrṇaiḥ śrāvya-vṛttaiḥ susandhibhiḥ

sarvatra bhinna-sargāntair upetaṁ loka-rañjanam
kāvyaṁ kalpāntarasthāyi jāyate sad-alaṅkṛti

“A mahā-kāvya is a long poem, constructed in chapters. Its opening offers benedictions or obeisances or defines an objective. It springs from an historical incident or is otherwise based upon some fact; it turns upon the fruition of the four goals of human existence (dharma, artha, kāma and mokṣa), and its hero is clever and noble. By descriptions of cities, oceans, mountains, seasons and risings of the moon or the sun, through sportings in garden or water, and festivities of drinking and love, through sentiments of love-in-separation and through marriages, by descriptions of the birth and rise of princes, and likewise through state-counsel, embassy, advance, battle, and the hero’s triumph, embellished, not too condensed, and pervaded all through with the moods of rasa, with chapters none too lengthy and having agreeable meters and well-formed joints, and in each case with an ending in a different meter, furnished. Such a poem possessing good figures of speech wins the people’s heart and lives longer than even a kalpa.”²

Śloka-śataiḥ, “in hundreds of verses,” indicates that the poem was composed entirely in verses, with no admixture of prose, and that it was not a small śataka poem of a hundred verses alone. He will himself describe that this poem was composed in 24,000 verses. And how are these verses? Udāra-vṛttārtha-padaiḥ, “with great meters, stylistic devices and words.” The great meters used herein reflect the rasas (“aesthetic tastes”) expressed in the verses with such meters. The great stylistic devices reveal rasas both internally and externally. These verses are also charming (mano-ramaiḥ)—the style of writing employed herein are devoid of harsh constructions of words, words difficult to pronounce and compound words that are too long. The verses also contain the same number of syllables in each line.