श्रीमद्वाल्मीकिरामायणम्

This portal presents the Śrīmad Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, the ādikāvya, in Sanskrit, verse by verse, with the recitation of Sriram Harisitaramamurti Ghanapāṭhī.

The poem opens with Vālmīki asking Nārada whether there was anyone in the world then who was virtuous, valiant, grateful and true to his word. Nārada answers with the story of Rāma (1.1). Soon after, on the bank of the Tamasā, Vālmīki sees a hunter shoot one of a pair of krauñca birds, and his grief comes out as a verse:

मा निषाद प्रतिष्ठां त्वमगमः शाश्वतीः समाः ।
यत् क्रौञ्चमिथुनादेकमवधीः काममोहितम् ॥ Bāla Kāṇḍa 2.15

Brahmā tells him to sing the whole of Rāma’s story in that metre. The poem counts itself at twenty-four thousand verses in five hundred sargas, six kāṇḍas and the Uttara (1.4.2), and Vālmīki teaches it to Kuśa and Lava, who sing it before Rāma himself. This edition gives the six kāṇḍas: ५३४ सर्गाः, २०१०९ श्लोकाः.

Every verse has two addresses: a readable one, kāṇḍa, sarga and verse, and a permanent one made from the words of the verse, which keeps working when a later edition numbers the verses differently.