The classical poem attributed to Vālmīki as available to us today, in terms of maturity of style, grammar and lexicon, belongs to the early Christian era. A plethora of myths, local legends and religious discourses entered the text in due course, with an aim to take advantage of its appeal to the common folk. Geographically speaking, the main story suggests the spread of Puranic ideology to peninsular India. The geographical information in the text corresponds to the early historical period and the knowledge of the world at the time of writing, and not to the times when the actual events took
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