Writings: HinduismThe Nepal Ramayana of Samvat 10769 of 10

Writings: Hinduism

The Nepal Ramayana of Samvat 1076

This palm-leaf Ramayana, the epic of Rama that tradition credits to the sage Valmiki, was copied by two scribes. A note at the end of its fourth book names a scribe from Nepal and gives the year 1076, not the era, so scholars read it as about 1020 or 1154 CE. A 1984 list places it in Kathmandu's National Archives.

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Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    ISKCON Educational Services, a Vaishnava source, credits the poet-sage Valmiki and says some Hindus place Rama in the Treta Yuga, the second of four ages of the world, while others place him far more recently; it gives no year for either. It adds that unnamed Indian scholars date Valmiki to the third millennium BCE (3000 to 2001 BCE), a report of scholars' dating, not a year the tradition itself gives. Velcheru Narayana Rao, reporting the Hindu scholarly tradition, gives no year.

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    about 750 to 200 BCE (two scholars' dates that do not overlap: 750 to 500 BCE, Velcheru Narayana Rao, for the epic in its current form; about 400 to 200 BCE, Alf Hiltebeitel; ISKCON's page adds that scholars say the epic took its present shape perhaps as late as the 2nd century CE)

  3. This copy made

    about 1020 or 1154 CE; the colophon year, Samvat 1076, names no era, and scholars read it as the Vikrama era (1019 or 1020 CE) or the Saka era (1154 CE)

  4. This copy found

    1898 to 1899 (recorded by Cecil Bendall and Haraprasad Shastri in the Durbar Library of Nepal; Bendall printed its colophon in 1903)

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

The Ramayana is a Sanskrit epic of about fifty thousand lines. It tells of Rama, his wife Sita, her abduction by the demon king Ravana, and her recovery, and tradition attributes it to the sage Valmiki.1 ISKCON Educational Services, a Vaishnava source (Vaishnavas worship Vishnu and his incarnations, especially Krishna and Rama), writes that Hindus consider Rama a historical figure and an incarnation of Vishnu.23

This manuscript is a palm-leaf copy in the old Newari script, a script of Nepal. The Baroda critical edition's editors report that it holds all seven books of the epic but is damaged: of the first book only 46 leaves survive. Two scribes wrote it, the first four books in one hand and the rest in another.4

How the copy was dated

The copy is dated by its colophon, the scribe's note on who copied it, when, and for whom. As Cecil Bendall reads it, the scribe was Gopati, son of Srikura (Srikara to the Baroda editors), a pandit (a learned scholar) from Nepal living in Tirhut, the region north of the Ganges. He copied it on the fourth day of the dark half of Ashadha in the year Samvat 1076, in the reign of King Gangeyadeva.54

The colophon does not say which era counts the year 1076, and scholars have read it two ways. The Vikrama era gives about 1019 or 1020 CE, and the Saka era gives 1154 CE. Bendall took it as the Vikrama era because the handwriting is an archaic script of Nepal, and identified the king as the Kalachuri Gangeyadeva.5 G. H. Bhatt, a Baroda editor, gives about 1020 CE, citing the opinion of Baburam Acharya, a former librarian of the Bir Library, given in person in 1953.4

Petech reports that V. V. Mirashi reviewed the question in 1942, accepted the Vikrama date, and suggested a Rashtrakuta dynasty in Tirhut then. Of Mirashi's objections to the Saka reading, Petech calls the strongest that the colophon's king is of the lunar race, while an inscription of 1649 calls Nanyadeva and Gangadeva solar.6

Petech reports that Sylvain Levi argued Bendall's interpretation was impossible, that R. C. Majumdar proposed the Saka era in 1931, which gives 1 June 1154 CE and a king who was the son of Nanyadeva, and that R. K. Choudhary supports Majumdar in some of his articles.6

Petech answers that Mirashi's objections are not decisive: no record of the Karnata dynasty says anything on the point, and the inscription of 1649 is too late to be authoritative. On the whole, he accepts that Gangeyadeva lived in Saka 1076, that is 1154 CE.6 This site did not open the articles Petech cites. His book of 1984 is the newest work used here, and the sources include no reply to it from the Vikrama side. They report no radiocarbon test. For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The date strip marks the Ramayana as a whole.

The tradition's account (a Vaishnava source, and a scholar's report)

ISKCON Educational Services writes that the poet-sage Valmiki compiled the Ramayana. It adds that some Hindus date Rama to the Treta Yuga, the second of four ages, while others consider him far more recent, and that unnamed Indian scholars date Valmiki to the third millennium BCE.27 Velcheru Narayana Rao reports that in the Hindu scholarly tradition the epic is believed to be the first poem, the work of one poet, Valmiki, and so older than the Mahabharata.1 Neither gives a year of the tradition's own, and the sources used here include no statement on the epic's date or authorship from a Shaiva or Shakta tradition.

Scholars of the epic

Alf Hiltebeitel (1987) dates the Ramayana to about 400 to 200 BCE.8

Narayana Rao (1987) writes that the origins of the epic are obscure and beyond definitive recovery, and that its date is nearly impossible to fix with certainty. He adds that scholarly work narrows the date of the epic in its current form to between 750 and 500 BCE, and that Western scholarly opinion is fairly unanimous that substantial parts of the first and seventh books are later additions to a core of five. The Baroda editors (1960) write that it is generally admitted that those two books were added later.14 The sources used here do not say how those additions fit the range.

How it was found

Bendall and Haraprasad Shastri examined the Maharaja's manuscript collection, the Durbar Library of Nepal, in 1898 to 1899. Bendall's essay of 1903 prints this manuscript's colophon, no. 1079, from his own notes.5

The Baroda editors list it as no. 934 of the Bir Library, Kathmandu.4 Petech lists it in 1984 as no. 1079 in the National Archives in Kathmandu, citing Bendall.69 This page treats the two numbers as one manuscript because the scribe, his father's name, and the date match, a reading made here; the sources used here do not explain the numbers.

What it shows, and what it does not

It shows that a copy of the Ramayana was written by two hands. A note at the end of its fourth book, as Bendall reads it, says a scribe from Nepal copied it in Tirhut.5 On Bhatt's reading of about 1020 CE, it is the oldest dated of the 86 manuscripts of the first book that the editors collated, and probably, he writes, the oldest Ramayana manuscript in the world. The sources used here do not say whether that holds on the Saka reading.4

It does not show which era the year belongs to. On the two scholars' dating of the epic, it comes about 1,200 to 1,900 years after the composition, and about 3,000 to 4,200 years after Valmiki on the report of Indian scholars that ISKCON's page gives, the third millennium BCE (both computed here). It is damaged, and it does not show what the epic said before it.4

See also

Sources

  1. Velcheru Narayana Rao. Ramayana. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  2. ISKCON Educational Services. Heart of Hinduism: Smriti: The Ramayana. ISKCON Educational Services. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  3. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Dancing with Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism, sixth edition: Sloka 9, What Is the Devotional Vaishnava Sect?. Himalayan Academy (web edition), 2003, Sloka 9, What Is the Devotional Vaishnava Sect?. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  4. G. H. Bhatt. The Valmiki-Ramayana, Critical Edition, vol. 1, Balakanda (Introduction). Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1960, Introduction, pp. xiii and xv (the manuscript N1), p. xxix (the oldest dated manuscript), and p. xxxi (the original five books). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  5. Cecil Bendall. The History of Nepal and Surrounding Kingdoms (1000-1600 A.D.) compiled chiefly from MSS. lately discovered. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 72, part 1, no. 1, 1903, pp. 18 to 19 (section III, Tirhut). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. Luciano Petech. Mediaeval History of Nepal (c. 750-1482), second, thoroughly revised edition (Serie Orientale Roma 54). Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, Rome, 1984, p. 142 (documents 30 and 31), p. 153 (the Mahabharata undertaking of Jayasimha Rama), and pp. 208 to 209 (the Ramayana colophon of Samvat 1076 and the dispute over its era). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  7. ISKCON Educational Services. Heart of Hinduism: The Tradition's Own Version. ISKCON Educational Services. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  8. Alf Hiltebeitel. Hinduism. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  9. University of Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut (Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project). History of the NGMPP. University of Hamburg. Accessed 2026-11-06.