Together with the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is considered to be the finest example of Sanskrit epic ever created. In seven books and 24,000 couplets, the hermit Valmiki tells of Prince Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu. Considered to have been written first around 300 BC about events in 4500 BC, the Ramayana, like the Odyssey and the Iliad, is a text meant to entertain and inform. Dances and temple art describing the events of the Ramayana have spread with Hinduism, while the Ramayana itself has survived and thrived through reprints, translations, and dramatic interpretations.