Sambodhi 2005 Vol 28

Author(s): Jitendra B Shah, K M Patel
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 25

Vol. XXVIII, 2005
Ś ABARĪ EPISODE OF THE RĀMAKATH) :....
19
which grew on the bank of lake Pampā, just nearby'.
With Rāma's permission then Śabari gave up her mortal body by immolating herself in fire and went straight to heaven, where her seers and gurus had been dwelling.
It can be seen from the account of the Vālmīki- Rāmāyana given here, that there is a lot of scope to fill in the details in the episode. In the Vālmīki-Rāmāyana, nothing more is told about Śabarī or the food which she served Rāma or how Rāma accepted the food.
Ofcourse, we can take a hint about Śabarī, from her name that she is a Śabara-bhil, a tribal woman. The name of the sage Matanga means a śūdra or a cāndāla, a pariah in the Hindu caste hierarchy. But Vālmīki is reticent, not dilating upon these details and just en passent, mentions them as a part of the story.
These details, we presume, would be filled according to the times in which the various versions of the Rāmastory took shape.
It is also not improbable over the millenia—at least two thousand years that along with the Rāmastory as enshrined in the Vālmīki Rāmāyana, a considerable oral transmission of the Rāmastory took place. That was bound to happen in the essentially oral tradition. So instead of accusing Vālmīki of suppressing non-Aryan elements in the story as Philip Lutgendorf has done?, an oral word also had a free play upon the telling of the Rāmastory. And if we closely observe the entire Rāmakathā as conducted by Vālmīki. Vālmīki, the first poet Ādikavi of the Sanskrit language, is not swayed by such considerations. He is interested in telling a story, artistically and forcefully. So that charge of willful suppression of non-Aryan elements just would not stick to Vālmīki. In fact, these are tantalising spaces, I would call them creative spaces which the VālmīkiRāmāyana has in ample measures and that is why it is a great work of art and a way of life. But that is altogether a different proposition altogether not relevant here.
But this simple episode in the Vālmīki-Rāmāyana assumes a different form in the Adhyātma-Rāmāyana, a Sanskrit work of the fifteenth century, which has exercised a considerable influence upon the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas of the sixteenth century. . In the Adhyatma-Rāmāyana, Sabari's devotion is more intense but at the same time more ritualistic. Śabarī's eyes are full of tears. She falls at Rāma's feet,