By any measure the “Ramayana” of Valmiki is one of the great epic poems of world literature. Composed in northern India probably sometime around the time of Jesus, give or take two centuries, its author, Valmiki, is honored as the adikavi, the “first poet” in the pantheon of Sanskrit writers. Its stately and leisurely narrative flow, noble characters, imaginative travels, elegant poetic description and imagery, thoughtful reflections on love and duty, and deep emotional resonance have attracted audiences for two millennia.

The story of Rama has journeyed beyond the confines of India into Southeast Asia and into East Asia, not just in Valmiki’s Sanskrit version, but also in myriad retellings in other languages, dramatic performances, dances and songs, and more recently in cinematic and televised representations. In its longevity and continuing relevance, the “Ramayana” well warrants the prediction the poem makes for itself: “As long as the mountains and rivers shall endure upon the earth, so long will the story of the ‘Ramayana’ be told among men.”

That statement is made by the god Brahma, as he successfully persuades Valmiki to undertake composing the story of Rama at the start of the epic. With Brahma’s impetus Valmiki composes the entire narrative in his mind and then teaches it to Lava and Kusa, Rama’s two sons. Unfortunately, Brahma has not always been so lucky with his choice of English translators. There are three full translations of the Valmiki “Ramayana” into English (by R.T.H. Griffith in the 1870s, M.N. Dutt in the 1890s, and H.P. Shastri in the 1950s) — all of them nearly unreadable.

So it was a cause of celebration, at least among the small community of Indologists, when Robert Goldman, a professor of Sanskrit at Berkeley, formed a consortium of interested colleagues in 1976 and announced plans to complete a collective translation of the full Valmiki “Ramayana” based on the critical edition completed the year before in Baroda, India. The consortium would assign the seven books of the epic to different members of the team, who would all follow common translation guidelines to insure continuity among the books. The group would meet together regularly to consult on common problems.

It has not always gone smoothly for the Ramayana Translation Consortium. Several original members have moved on, other new members have been added, and Mr. Goldman and his wife, Sally Sutherland Goldman, have ended up taking on several additional books. The first volume appeared in 1984, and here we are in 2007, 31 years after the plan was first hatched, with five out of the seven volumes in print. The Goldmans are currently working on books six and seven. Princeton University Press has published the initial version of each volume in its Library of Asian Classics series, scholarly editions with erudite introductions and comprehensive endnotes. Now the New York University Press is republishing the translations, without notes and with minimal introductions, in more accessible and less expensive editions, as part of the Clay Sanskrit Library.

So far the translators have been eminently successful. Their early decision to render Valmiki’s chanted metrical verse in modern American prose may have set the bar lower than, say, recent translators of Homer’s epics have done, but it was the correct choice. It has enabled them to maintain stylistic continuity within a joint translation. The translators aim at accuracy and readability, with a minimum of untranslated Sanskrit terms, and they allow the narrative to unfold at its own often leisurely pace for an audience not familiar with the full story. At best, Mr. Goldman observed in the first volume, they hope to convey something of the “idealized world” that Valmiki envisioned and, at Brahma’s urging, composed for his Sanskrit audience that initially included King Rama of Ayodhya.

The fifth book offers a particularly charming depiction of that idealized world. Valmiki called it the “Sundara” or “beautiful book,” and Indian audiences have long favored it as an especially pleasing and even efficacious portion of the epic. With Rama momentarily offstage, though never forgotten, the book centers on two fascinating characters: Hanuman and Sita. In the “Sundara,” the great monkey Hanuman, minister of King Valin and devout admirer of Rama, leaps across the ocean from India to Lanka in his search for Rama’s abducted wife Sita. Lanka is the capital of the demonic Raksasas, ruled by Ravana, who has abducted Sita. Being the son of the god Wind, Hanuman displays some remarkable powers when the need arises. For his jump over the ocean he swells to immeasurable size, and then for his reconnaissance mission in Lanka he shrinks himself to the size of a cat and prowls the opulent city of the demons.

From Hanuman’s cat’s-eye perspective we see the fantastic sights of this capital of the demon empire. After a full tour of the city, the royal palace, and the harem, Hanuman finally arrives at a grove of trees where the grieving Sita has been imprisoned. He hides in a nearby tree and can only look on as Ravana attempts first to seduce Sita, and then, when she rejects him, to threaten her into submission. As Hanuman watches helplessly, Sita staunchly refuses all Ravana’s advances, then lapses, once the demon is gone, into suicidal despair and grave doubts about her husband’s resolve.

The translators view the “Sundara” as the narrative center of the great epic. It mirrors one of Valmiki’s great themes throughout the “Ramayana”: the extraordinary resolve and effort required to maintain dharma, or as we would put it, civilized behavior, in the face of difficult circumstances and our own imperfect natures, whether human or otherwise. Just as the Sanskritspeaking diplomat Hanuman is nevertheless also a leaping, frolicking monkey, likewise that exemplar of excruciatingly proper wifely behavior throughout the epic, Sita, also remains underneath it all a feeling human female capable of anger and disappointment at her godly husband. And when Hanuman and Sita finally meet, it truly marks a turning point. What has gone so tragically wrong for the protagonists begins a great sweeping turn when Hanuman jumps down from his tree and shows Sita the ring. From here on the momentum of events begins to swing in favor of Rama, Sita, and their monkey allies.

The heroes, and the translators, still have many tasks to accomplish in the two remaining books. There is still an intense and violent war to be told, and a triumphant victory of Rama and the monkeys over Ravana and the demons. Rama must return to Ayodhya to assume the kingship of which he was earlier deprived. There is also a reunion of the lovers, marred and finally undone by unwarranted doubts about Sita’s conduct while in Ravana’s clutches. Sita leaves Ayodhya for good and finds asylum in the hermitage of Valmiki, where she gives birth to two sons of Rama.

Finally, we need to hear how the two boys, Lava and Kusa, grow up to learn the poem from Valmiki, return to Ayodhya for a royal festival, and give the first public performance of the “Ramayana,” in front of Rama himself. For the present, though, readers can savor the five volumes of the great epic that the Goldmans and their collaborators have completed so far, and wish them Brahma’s continuing favor as they bring us, for the first time in readable English, Valmiki’s telling of the story of Rama.

Mr. Davis is a professor of religion at Bard College.