Question
How many shlokas are there in Valmiki Ramayana?
Answer
The total number of ślokas in the Critical Edition of Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa is only 18,670. In the non-critical versions of the epic, the number is consistently around 24,000.
Yes, the Uttara-kāṇḍa is also included in these counts.
From The Valmiki Ramayana: Volume 1 by Bibek Debroy:
The table below shows the number of chapters and shlokas we have in the Critical Edition. The Critical text has 606 chapters, 106 more than the 500 sargas mentioned in the text itself. And there are 18,670 shlokas. If one considers chapters and shlokas from non-Critical versions, irrespective of which version it is, there are almost 650 chapters and just over 24,000 shlokas. Compared to such non-Critical versions, very few chapters have been excised from 'Bala', 'Ayodhya', 'Aranya', 'Kishkindha' or 'Sundara' kandas. The excision is primarily from 'Yuddha' and 'Uttara' kandas. The excision of shlokas is uniformly spread throughout the kandas, though most excision, relatively speaking, is from the 'Ayodhya', 'Yuddha' and 'Uttara' kandas.
+------------------+------------------------+-------------------------+ | Name of kanda | Number of chapters | Number of shlokas | +------------------+------------------------+-------------------------+ | Bala Kanda | 76 | 1941 | | | | | | Ayodhya Kanda | 111 | 3160 | | | | | | Aranya Kanda | 71 | 2060 | | | | | | Kishkindha Kanda | 66 | 1898 | | | | | | Sundara Kanda | 66 | 2487 | | | | | | Yuddha Kanda | 116 | 4435 | | | | | | Uttara Kanda | 100 | 2689 | +------------------+------------------------+-------------------------+ | | | | | Total | 606 | 18,670 | | | | | +------------------+------------------------+-------------------------+
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