Ramayana is the story of Lord Ram, and I have come with a deep passion for reading the epic story of Lord Ram, and as far as I know it was written by Valmiki during Mother Sita's stay at the ashram, but I'm so very confused, because I find all these names with the Ramayana that makes it seem like Ramayana has types. So please help me clear this.
First of all I find things like Valmiki Ramayana(which I think should be the original and the only Ramayana, if others exist I think only translations should exist), but I found others names like Kamba Ramayana, and maybe others exist but I don't know.
And, I thought the Ramayana should be one big book, but, I've asked people around and they attach a kanda to the book, like the bal kanda, yuddha kanda, are these table of contents in the ramayana, and is this created by the valmiki himself, or is this later done by later scholars, and if it is done by later scholars,
- how much of the original work of valmiki is still there remaining because such literary modifications often detoriate the orginal work.
- Which version of
Ramayanabook should I try to read. - How much of the original of
valmikiwork is still remaining, and - what would be the way to study the true valmiki's work?
kandas, are these of the valmiki ramayana created by valmiki himself? – mathmaniage Sep 14 '19 at 10:31