About VÄÂlmÄ«ki:
Valmiki is celebrated as the harbinger-poet in Sanskrit literature. He lived in the first millennium BCE. He is the author of the epic R?m?ya?a, based on the attribution in the text of the epic itself. He is revered as the ?di Kavi, which translates to First Poet, for he invented ?loka (i.e. first verse or epic metre), which set the base and defined the form to Sanskrit poetry.