Srisitaramakelikaumudi

श्रीसीतारामकेलिकौमुदी

Cover page of Śrīsītārāmakelikaumudī, first edition
Author	Jagadguru Rambhadracharya
Original title	Śrīsītārāmakelikaumudī
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Genre	Rītikāvya (Procedural Poetry)
Publisher	Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University
Publication date	August 16, 2008
Media type	Print (paperback)
Pages	224 pp (first edition)

Śrīsītārāmakelikaumudī (Hindi: श्रीसीतारामकेलिकौमुदी) (2008), literally The moonlight (elucidation) for the [childhood] pastimes of Sītā and Rāma, is a minor poem in the Braja dialect of Hindi (with some verses in Maithili) belonging to the Rītikāvya genre. It was composed by Jagadguru Rambhadracharya (1950–) in the years 2007 and 2008. The work is set in the backdrop of the Bālakāṇḍa of Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa and Tulasīdāsa's Rāmacaritamānasa, and is an assortment of verses describing the activities, pastimes and major events during the childhood of Sītā and Rāma. Śrīsītārāmakelikaumudī consists of 324 verses divided in three parts of 108 verses each. The verses are composed in seven Prakrit metres, namely Amātrika, Kavitta, Gīta, Ghanākṣarī, Caupaiyā, Drumila, and Mattagajendra.

A copy of the epic with a Hindi commentary has been published by the Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University, Chitrakuta, Uttar Pradesh. The book was released on October 30, 2008.

Jagadguru Rambhadracharya mentions in the prologue of the work that he was traveling to Madhya Pradesh from Chitrakuta on November 25, 2007. He was listening to the poetry of Raskhan, being read out by his disciples. After reading some verses, two of his disciples asked him in why he could not compose such lyrical poetry describing the child forms of Sītā and Rāma, as Raskhan composed describing Kṛṣṇa. The poet accepted their "ingenuous yet challenging" request and composed the first verse almost a month later, on December 23, 2007, in the Kandivali (East) suburb of Mumbai. Till April 2008, he had time to compose just 67 verses of the first part, owing to a busy schedule. Then he happened to travel to Bihar for an 18-day-long Kathā programme in April–May. The poet completed the remaining 260 verses between April 19 and May 1, 2008 on the banks of the Kamala River in the Mithila region of Bihar.