Rama
Other major texts

Other important historic Hindu texts on Rama include Bhusundi Ramanaya, Prasanna Raghava, and Ramavali by Tulsidas. The Sanskrit poem Bhaṭṭikāvya of Bhatti, who lived in Gujarat in the seventh century CE, is a retelling of the epic that simultaneously illustrates the grammatical examples for Pāṇini 's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as the major figures of speech and the Prakrit language. Another historically and chronologically important text is Raghuvamsa authored by Kalidasa. Its story confirms many details of the Ramayana, but has novel and different elements. It mentions that Ayodhya was not the capital in the time of Rama's son named Kusha, but that he later returned to it and made it the capital again. This text is notable because the poetry in the text is exquisite and called a Mahakavya in the Indian tradition, and has attracted many scholarly commentaries. It is also significant because Kalidasa has been dated to between the 4th and 5th century CE, suggesting that the Ramayana legend was well established by the time of Kalidasa.

The Mahabharata has a summary of the Ramayana. The Jainism tradition has extensive literature of Rama as well, but generally refers to him as Padma, such as in the Paumacariya by Vimalasuri. Rama and Sita legend is mentioned in the Jataka tales of Buddhism, as Dasaratha-Jataka (Tale no. 461), but with slightly different spellings such as Lakkhana for Lakshmana and Rama-pandita for Rama.

Rama appears in the Puranas namely the Vishnu Purana and Padma Purana (as an avatar of Vishnu), the Matsya Purana (as form of Bhagavan), the Linga Purana (as form of Vishnu), the Kurma Purana, Agni Purana, Garuda Purana (as Rama), the Skanda Purana and the Shiva Purana. Additionally, the Rama story is included in the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata, which has been a part of evidence that the Ramayana is likely more ancient, and it was summarised in the Mahabharata epic in ancient times.

Rama and Sita appears as the central character in Valmiki Samhita, which is attributed to their worship and describes them to be the ultimate reality. Apart from other versions of Ramayana, many 14th-century Vaishnava saints such as Nabha Dass, Tulsidas and Ramananda have their works written about Rama's life. While Ramananda's Sri Ramarchan Paddati explains the complete procedure to worship Sita-Rama, Tulsidas's Vinaya Patrika has devotional hymns dedicated to Rama including Shri Ramachandra Kripalu. Ramananda through his conversation with disciple Surasurananda in Vaishnava Matabja Bhaskara, explains about the worship of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana, and answers the 10 most prominent questions related to Vaishnavism. Vedanta Desika 's Hamsa-Sandesha, is a love poem which describes Rama sending message to Sita through a swan.
startend:quotation