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The glorious story of Ramayana, sung by the sage Valmiki, at the instance of Brahma also extends to a hundred crore of slokas. Brahma narrated the original Ramayana to Narada, the latter revealed it to Valmiki, who gave it to the world and which is a means of giving Dharma, Kama and Artha. And in which way the famous epic exists in the world, and contains 5,25,000 slokas. (Matsya Purana, Chapter 53, Verses 71-72)

But we all know that even Ramayana itself says it has only 24000 verses divided into seven cantos. Then why does Matsya Purana say Ramayana has 5,25,000 verses?

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  • Ramayana exists in many forms across the universe. Shatha Koti Pravistara - 100 crore, in Brahma's Satya Loka. In Bhuloka, it exists in 24,000. It's possible it existed in longer forms in previous manvatara's ?
    – mar
    Feb 9, 2019 at 4:20
  • @ram But the verse 72 explicitly tells in the world. The world here is definitely Bhuloka, as the verse also says Valmiki gave the Ramayana.
    – Spark Sunshine
    Feb 9, 2019 at 4:27

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This site has discussed about this particular verse in their purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 12.13.4-9:

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī has quoted from the Matsya Purāṇa as follows:

aṣṭādaśa purāṇāni kṛtvā satyavatī-sutaḥ bhāratākhyānam akhilaṁ cakre tad-upabṛṁhitam lakṣaṇaikena tat proktaṁ vedārtha-paribṛṁhitam vālmīkināpi yat proktaṁ rāmopakhyānam uttamam brahmaṇābhihitaṁ tac ca śata-koṭi-pravistarāt āhṛtya nāradenaiva vālmīkāya punaḥ punaḥ vālmīkinā ca lokeṣu dharma-kāmārtha-sādhanam evaṁ sa-pādāḥ pañcaite lakṣās teṣu prakīṛtitāḥ

“After compiling the eighteen Purāṇas, Vyāsadeva, the son of Satyavatī, composed the entire Mahābhārata, which contains the essence of all the Purāṇas. It consists of over one hundred thousand verses and is filled with all the ideas of the Vedas. There is also the account of the pastimes of Lord Rāmacandra, spoken by Vālmīki — an account originally related by Lord Brahmā in one billion verses. That Rāmāyaṇa was later summarized by Nārada and related to Vālmīki, who further presented it to mankind so that human beings could attain the goals of religiosity, sense gratification and economic development. The total number of verses in all the Purāṇas and itihāsas (histories) is thus known in human society to amount to 525,000.”

So 525,000 actually denotes the number of verses all the eighteen Puranas and the two Itihasas make up together rather than only the number of verses the Valmiki Ramayana makes up.

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