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Does anyone know of a good, complete translation of the Valmiki Ramayana, with each word explained?

I have found two such translations online, but both are incomplete.

Valmikiramayan.net stops with Yuddha Kanda, while this has only the first five kandas, ending with Sundara Kanda. I desperately need a translation, preferably a modern one, in prose.

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  • Just to mention, many experts believe that Uttar Kand was not part of the original Ramayan written by Valmiki (it ends with Yudh Kand). This was added to Ramayan much later (even after Mahabharat was written). That is the very probable reason why you won't find it with Valmiki Ramayan often.
    – Rahul Gupta
    Apr 12, 2020 at 21:08

2 Answers 2

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The site valmikiramayan.net you mentioned covers the Bala Kanda through the Yuddha Kanda, so presumably all you really want is a word-for-word translation of the Uttara Kanda. Well, unfortunately it's hard enough to find any translation at all of the Uttara Kanda, let alone a word-for-word one. There are only two complete online translations of the Uttara Kanda that I know of:

  1. This one by Manmatha Nath Dutt from the 1800's, and
  2. This one by Robert Biggs from 2005.

There is also this translation by Ananta Rama Rao from 2003, but it only covers the first half of Uttara Kanda.

None of these translations give the meaning of each word. I'm not sure anyone has written a word-for-word explanation of the Uttara Kanda.

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  • Indian Scriptures do have Uttara Kanda and again not word to word
    – The Destroyer ♦
    Mar 9, 2016 at 10:55
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Manmatha Nath Dutt's translation of Uttara Kanda is also available on archive.org here.

Look for:

  1. Ramayana-VOL-4-Uttara-Kanda.pdf (scanned copy)
  2. Ramayana-VOL-4-Uttara-Kanda_text.pdf (OCR-converted to text, so you can search the contents)

EDIT:

If you are looking to buy a book, try the 2-book English tr. from Gorakhpur Gita Press. But right now it's not listed on their website (out of stock maybe) so if you are physically located in India try buying it from one of their stores. Athough it lists the original Sanskrit verses, it is not a word-for-word translation. But it's a complete translation of all 24,000 verses including the Uttara-kāṇḍa.

This is how it looks:

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Shrimad Valmiki-Ramayana, Sanskrit Text, English Translation, Volume-1 (Book Code: 452)

Shrimad Valmiki-Ramayana, Sanskrit Text, English Translation, Volume-2 (Book Code: 453)

Here's a sample.

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  • You can add Indian Scriptures.
    – The Destroyer ♦
    Mar 21, 2016 at 3:37
  • I'm not sure we can do that. Is it legal to post PDFs as single file from indianscriptures.com to Hindusim SE?
    – The Destroyer ♦
    Mar 21, 2016 at 5:38
  • I searched for Puranas with Sanskrit verses on DLI or WBDspace but i couldn't find them. Yeah, their layout is bad. I change URL which is bit easier to go to next chapter and IDM downloads PDFs to PC. I couldn't even message them regarding this issue.
    – The Destroyer ♦
    Mar 21, 2016 at 14:30
  • Question is looking for word to word translation but your answer doesn't cover it.
    – Pandya ♦
    Jun 5, 2019 at 5:51
  • @Pandya agree, you can delete and convert it to a comment if you want. If you delete this answer you should also delete the other one too because it simply repeats what OP already mentioned about Valmikiramayan.net and adds few other non-word-for-word translations.
    – Say No To Censorship
    Jun 5, 2019 at 18:59

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