As to the place of its origin, there is good reason for believing that the Ramayana arose in Kosala, the country ruled by the race of Ikshvaku in Ayodhya (Oudh). For we are told in the seventh book (canto 45) that the hermitage of Valmiki lay on the south bank of the Ganges; the poet must further have been connected with the royal house of Ayodhya, as the banished Sita took refuge in his hermitage, where her twin sons were born, brought up, and later learnt the epic from his lips; and lastly, the statement is made in the first book (canto 5) that the Ramayana arose in the family of the Ikshvakus. In Ayodhya, then, there must have been current among the court bards (suta) a number of epic tales narrating the fortunes of the Ikshvaku hero Rama. Such legends, we may assume, Valmiki worked up into a single homogeneous production, which, as the earliest epic of importance conforming to the rules of poetics, justly received the name of adi-kavya, or "first artificial poem," from its author's successors. This work was then learnt by professional rhapsodists (kuçilava) and recited by them in public as they wandered about the country. The original part of the Ramayana appears to have been completed at a time when the epic kernel of the Mahabharata had not as yet assumed definite shape. For while the heroes of the latter are not mentioned in the Ramayana, the story of Rama is often referred to in the longer epic. Again, in a passage of Book VII. of the Mahabharata, which cannot be regarded as a later addition, two lines are quoted as Valmiki's that occur unaltered in Book VI. of the Ramayana. The poem of Valmiki must, therefore, have been generally known as an old work before the Mahabharata assumed a coherent form. In Book III. (cantos 277-291) of the latter epic, moreover, there is a Ramopakhyana or "Episode of Rama," which seems to be based on the Ramayana as it contains several verses agreeing more or less with Valmiki's lines, and its author presupposes on the part of his audience a knowledge of the Ramayana as represented by the Bombay recension.