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The Ramayana (; Sanskrit: रामायणम्, romanized: Rāmāyaṇam), also known as the Valmiki Ramayana, as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a Hindu smriti epic poem (also described as a Sanskrit epic) from ancient India. It is one of the two important epics of Hinduism known as the Itihasas, the other being the Mahabharata, narratives of past events (purāvṛtta), interspersed with teachings on the goals of human life. The epic narrates the life and journey of Rama, the seventh avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu, who was the prince of Ayodhya. It is one of the largest ancient epics in world literature and consists of nearly 24,000 shlokas (verses), divided into seven kāṇḍa (chapters), where each shloka is a couplet (two individual lines).

The Ramayana chronicles the life story of Rama, who was born to King Dasaratha and his first wife Kausalya in Ayodhya, the capital of Kosala kingdom. The epic follows his fourteen-year exile to the forest urged by his father, on the request of Rama's stepmother Kaikeyi; his travels across the forests in the Indian subcontinent with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana; the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana, the king of Lanka; meeting with Vānaras, where Hanuman becomes Rama's biggest devotee; winning the battle against Ravaṇa; and Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya along with Sita to be crowned king amidst jubilation and celebration.

Scholarly estimates for the primary (oral) stage of the text range from the 8th–5th to 5th–4th century BCE, "although the legends constituting it go back farther in time" and later stages extend up to the 3rd century CE. There are two major regional recensions, the northern (N) and the southern (S), which inherited a common oral source from the original composition by Valmiki but evolved profound verbal differences because oral transmission continued along two separate regional pathways for a long period before they were eventually fixed in writing. There are also many other versions of the Ramayana in Indian languages, including Buddhist and Jain adaptations.

The Ramayana was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and Hindu life and culture. Its main figures were fundamental to the cultural consciousness of a number of nations, both Hindu and Buddhist. Its most important moral influence was the importance of virtue, in the life of a citizen and in the aspirational ideals guiding the functioning of a state (from Sanskrit: रामराज्य, romanized: Rāmarājya, a utopian state where Rama is king) or a society.