This is an abridged English rendering of the portion of the commentary appearing immediately after its maṅgalācaraṇa.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead Nārāyaṇa is the husband of the goddess of fortune. All of His desires are automatically fulfilled.¹ He is filled with all auspicious qualities. He is The Lord of all in the spiritual world known as Śrī Vaikuṇṭha. [There,] He shines with His queens Śrī, Bhū and Nīlā, seated on a siṁhāsana in a hall bedecked with sacred great gems. This has been described in the following scriptural statement:

vaikuṇṭhe tu pare loke śriyā sārddhaṃ jagat-patiḥ
āste viṣṇur acintyātmā bhaktair bhāgavataiḥ saha

“But Lord Viṣṇu the Lord of the universe and the inconceivable Supreme Soul resides in the transcendental world Vaikuṇṭha with Śrī, the goddess of fortune, along with his devotees, the Bhāgavatās.”

The Supreme Lord notices that His lotus feet are unceasingly served by two types of liberated souls, the eternally liberated souls and the liberated souls who were bound before. But He contemplates about the circumstances of the conditioned souls who also deserve to serve His lotus feet just like the liberated souls, but who are devoid of such service; those conditioned souls are absorbed in material nature at the time of dissolution like gold particles immersed in beewax and their consciousness is diminished. So His mind is filled with compassion. This is described in scriptural statements
[such as]:

evaṁ saṁsṛti-cakrasthe bhrāmyamāṇe sva-karmabhiḥ
jīve duḥkhākule viṣṇoḥ kṛpā kāpy upajāyate

“Thus Lord Viṣṇu’s inconceivable mercy arises upon the conditioned soul in the cycle of transmigratory existence wandering through various species of life according to his karmic reactions while being overwhelmed by distress.”²

Considering that the conditioned souls require material senses and bodies with which they can surrender unto Him, He creates the mahat-tattva and other elements. This is described in the scriptural text:

vicitrā deha-sampattir īśvarāya niveditum
pūrvam eva kṛtā brahman hasta-pādādi-saṁyutā

“Oh brāhmaṇa! The variegated abundance of material bodies was created in the past in order to dedicate them to the Supreme Lord.”

But then the Supreme Lord notices that those conditioned souls become inclined to surrender unto those other than Him with those very same bodies. He then thinks of a manner of regulating them in order to bring them to Him. These distracted conditioned souls are comparable to persons drowning in a river and when given boats to step on to and come ashore, they get on to the boats, but instead of reaching the shore, they allow the boats to be forcefully carried away by the current of the river and thus reach the ocean and drown. Similarly, conditioned souls are given gross bodies in order to surrender unto the Supreme Lord and get out of material existence in order to serve Him like the liberated souls in the spiritual world, but the conditioned souls become allured by the urges of their bodies, drown into an ocean of sinful activities and consequently suffer the reactions.

In order to regulate such conditioned souls so that they can discriminate between that which is beneficial and that which is harmful, between the good and the bad, the Supreme Lord propagates His instructions or rulings in the form of the Veda (śāsanāc chāstram).

But the Supreme Lord notices that even though the conditioned souls do accept Vedic authority and try to regulate their lives on the basis of Vedic teachings, they still cannot grasp the intended meaning of those teachings correctly. Some lack proper understanding of those teachings, some develop misunderstandings and some develop counter-understandings, understanding exactly the opposite of what has been intended in the Vedic scriptures by the Supreme Lord.

Under these circumstances, the Supreme Lord concludes that He has Himself to make the conditioned souls properly understand the teachings and purport of His own rulings through His own behavior. He is just like a king who desires to discipline and train his unlawful citizens on how to do things properly.

In the meanwhile, Rāvaṇa was tormenting the universe, and so Lord Brahmā, Śiva and other demigods humbly requested Him to descend to save the situation. Lord Viṣṇu’s devotee Daśaratha had also been worshiping Him in order to have some children. The Supreme Personality of Godhead then desired to become the four sons of Daśaratha: Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa, Bharata, Śatrughna.

Through each of these forms, the Supreme Lord personally demonstrated a specific aspect of Vedic dharma. In the form of Lord Rāma, He killed Rāvaṇa and executed common religious duties such as carrying out the orders of one’s father.³ In the form of Lakṣmaṇa, He destroyed the son of Rāvaṇa and demonstrated the specific religious duty of serving the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the form of Bharata, He banished the gandharvas and demonstrated the specific religious duty of always depending on the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the form of Śatrughna, He destroyed Lavaṇāsura and demonstrated the specific religious duty of serving the Vaiṣṇavas. He thus demonstrated the cardinal teachings of Vedic dharma.

Lord Brahmā, the grandfather, well-wisher and spiritual master of all the worlds in the universe, considered that the Supreme Lord’s instructions and the lessons that can be derived from His activities might be forgotten after He disappears from this world. And so, in order to preserve the pure history of Lord Rāma and His associates, Brahmā personally composed a Rāmāyaṇa that extended to one billion verses and taught it to Nārada Muni and others. He also became very desirous of propagating it in an abbreviated version in the earthly planetary system and so selected Vālmīki for this task. Indeed, Vālmīki had constantly engaged in the chanting and hearing of the holy name of Lord Rāma for several thousands of years and so his heart had become purified and enlivened by such meditation. This has been stated in the Matsya Purāna:

vālmīkinā ca yat-proktaṁ rāmopākhyānam uttamam
brahmaṇā coditaṁ tac ca śata-koṭi-pravistaram
āhṛtya nāradenaiva vālmīkāya niveditam

“The history of Lord Rāma spoken by Vālmīki was actually given to him by Nārada after Nārada learnt the history of Rāma spoken by Brahmā that had extended to one billion verses.”

Therefore, Lord Brahmā sent Nārada Muni to Vālmīki in order to instruct him to compose a summary of Lord Rāma’s activities for the welfare of the earthly planetary system. Vālmīki noticed that Nārada Muni had arrived in his aśrama by his own sweet will. He had been desirous of ascertaining the Supreme Truth known from the Upaniṣads and he took this opportunity to inquire from Nārada: “Who is the Supreme Being? Is He one of the subordinate demigods or is He the Supreme Lord Nārayaṇa?”

To this end, he posed a series of questions delineating all the symptoms of the Supreme Absolute Truth as described in the Upaniṣads and Nārada Muni answered these questions, pleased by Vālmīki’s attitude, conviction and understanding. Lord Brahmā then blessed Vālmīki to directly perceive all the details of Lord Rāma’s pastimes through samādhi and with the potency to compose a spotless literature about Lord Rāma.

The Rāmāyaṇa is meant to amplify the teachings of the Vedas. It has two aspects to it: an historical aspect and a poetic aspect. As a history, it communicates like a well-wisher, and as a poem it communicates like a beloved wife.

But what about the scriptural rule prohibiting discussion of poetry (kāvyālāpāṁś ca varjayet)? This refers to materialistic poetry, not spiritual poetry. Therefore, in order to attract intelligent spiritualists to deeply study the Rāmāyaṇa, Śrī Vālmīki reveals the basic events described in His book right at the outset, in four chapters. Within those four chapters, he reveals the subject and the purpose of his writing in the first chapter.

The Bhagavad-gītā (4.34) teaches that one should learn the confidential teachings of the Vedāntic scriptures through submissive enquiry—tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā: “Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him.” Besides, there is a scriptural prohibition—nāpṛṣṭaḥ kasyacid brūyāt: “One should not teach scripture to one who has not (submissively) inquired.”

[Therefore,] in the first five verses, the sage Vālmīki points out that he himself had presented such a submissive inquiry to his spiritual master Nārada Muni by asking a series of pointed questions regarding certain auspicious qualities, all of which are actually symptoms of the Supreme Absolute Truth, as set forth in Vedic scriptures.

And in the first verse, Śrī Vālmīki offers his respects to his spiritual master and to his worshipable deity in order to invoke auspiciousness so that there are no obstacles to the completion of his writing and so that the Rāmāyaṇa is well propagated as per the wishes of Lord Brahmā.

NOTE. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī Prabhupāda has noted in his Laghu Bhāgavatāmṛta (1.3.78-80):

kauśalyāyāṁ daśarathān nava-dūrvā-dala-dyutiḥ
tretāyām āvirabhavat catur-viṁśe catur-yuge
bharatena sumitrāyā nandanābhyāṁ ca saṁyutaḥ

asya śāstre trayo vyūhā lakṣmaṇādyā amī smṛtāḥ
bharato ’tra ghana-śyāmaḥ saumitrī kanaka-prabhau

pādme bharata-śatrughnau śaṅkha-cakratayoditau
śrī-lakṣmaṇas tu tatraiva śeṣa ity abhiśabditaḥ

“In the Tretā-yuga of the twenty-fourth yuga cycle, Lord Rāmacandra appeared through Daśaratha from the womb of Kauśalyā, His complexion like lustrous new blades of dūrvā grass. He was joined by Bharata and the two sons of Sumitrā. According to scripture, Lakṣmaṇa and Rāmacandra’s other brothers are His vyūha expansions. Bharata has a complexion like a dark blue cloud, and the sons of Sumitrā have golden complexions. In the Padma Purāṇa, Bharata and Śatrughna are said to be Lord Viṣṇu’s conch and disc, and Śrī Lakṣmaṇa is identified as Ananta Śeṣa.”

In this regard, Śrīla Baladeva Vidyābhūṣana has noted that in some days of Brahmā, Lord Rāma’s brothers are His vyūha expansions and in some other days of Brahmā, His Śeṣa, conch and disc.

It should be understood that Lord Rāma’s abode exists in the spiritual world of Vaikuṇṭha where He is eternally served by His family members. That the incarnations of the Lord are present in those very forms in the spiritual world of Vaikuṇṭha is clear from the following verse of Padma Purāṇa quoted in Laghu Bhāgavatāmṛta (1.4.70):

vaikuṇṭha-bhuvane nitye nivasanti mahojjvalāḥ
avatārāḥ sadā tatra matsya-kūrmādayo ’khilāḥ

“All the Lord’s brilliantly effulgent avatāras—Matsya, Kūrma and the others—dwell always in the eternal world of Vaikuṇṭha.”

That Vaikuṇṭha has several abodes of the Supreme Lord is also noted in Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī’s Bhagavat-sandarbha (76):

tac ca yathā śrī-bhagavān eva kvacit pūrṇatvena kvacid aṁśatvena ca vartate, tathaiveti. bahavas tasyāpi bhedāḥ pādmottara-khaṇḍādau draṣṭavyāḥ. yeṣu śrī-matsya-devādīnām api padāni vakṣyante. tad eva sūcayati—

evaṁ hiraṇyākṣam asahya-vikramaṁ
sa sādayitvā harir ādi-sūkaraḥ

jagāma lokaṁ svam akhaṇḍitotsavaṁ
samīḍitaḥ puṣkara-viṣṭarādibhiḥ

sādayitvā hatvā. pavitrāropa-prasaṅge caivam āha bodhāyanaḥ—

evaṁ yaḥ kurute vidvān varṣe varṣe na saṁśayaḥ
sa yāti paramaṁ sthānaṁ yatra devo nṛkeśarī

iti.

“Just as Bhagavān manifests Himself fully and partially, similarly His abode Vaikuṇṭha also manifests itself fully and partially. There are several varieties of Vaikuṇṭha worlds that can be seen described in the Uttara-khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa and so on. The abodes of Matsyadeva and other incarnations of the Lord are also found in those Vaikuṇṭha worlds. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.19.31 indicates this fact:

‘After thus killing the most formidable demon Hiraṇyākṣa, the Supreme Lord Hari, the origin of the boar species, returned to His own abode, where there is always an uninterrupted festival. The Lord was praised by all the demigods, headed by Brahmā.’

Bodhāyana states the following in relation to the ceremony of putting Pavitra threads on the Deity:

“That learned person who places the Pavitra threads [on the Deity] every year undoubtedly goes to the supreme abode where Lord Nṛsiṁha resides.”