Shambuka
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The oldest mention of Shambuka occurs in the Ramayana of Valmiki, in the last book of the epic Uttara-kanda. After Rama returns to Ayodhya and is crowned the king of Ayodhya, the death of a child occurs in the kingdom. He is told that calamities such as this occur when Dharma is not followed in a kingdom. Rama tries to find out the reason and comes to know that a person of the Shudra caste, called Shambuka is performing penance which he is not supposed to do according to the Varna system of rules prevailing in that period. He is executed personally by Rama.
This incident is quoted often as an example of caste/varna-based cruelty and to condemn Rama as a heartless, blind follower of varna-based rules. However, the implication of this incident is far from clear. To begin with, it occurs in the Uttara-Kanda, believed by many to be an interpolation and not the work of Valmiki. Even if this issue is not pertinent to understanding the tale, it is quite bizarre.
After revealing to Rama the reason for the death of the Brahmana’s son, it is added that this is the result of the Shudra violating the rules of the [[TRETA]] age. This is the age in which the tale is set and the present degenerate Kali age comes only after an intermediate Dwapara one. The book says that the austerities are forbidden to the Shudra's in Treta and Dwapara. Considering the fact that all of 'historical' time is set in Kali, the incident could hardly be a template for Shudra-behaviour of any time after about 3000 B.C.! To complicate the mater further, when Rama sees Shambuka, he is hanging upside down and trying to gather enough merit to enter heaven in his won physical body! This looks like a mirror-image of the tale in Bala-Kanda of Ramayana,‘The Book of Childhood’, about Trishanku. By no stretch of imagination is he an ordinary Moksha seeking mendicant.
All this becomes more puzzling when we meet a non-Brahmana/Kshatriya ascetic in 'The Book of Ayodhya' in the same epic. When Dasaratha recounts a terrible deed of his impetuous youth, he tells show he shot a young ascetic (not named by Valmiki) in the forest. The dying boy absolves the prince of the sin of 'Brahmincide' by telling him that his father is a Vaishya and the mother a Shudra. This old couple is praised in glowing terms in the passages that follow. Does this mean that there was no prohibition on austerities for Vaishyas and Shudras in Treta? Or was it a Brahmincide, quite permissible in the ancient times, desperately disguised by later pedants?
An even more unambiguous story that makes a mockery of the Shambuka incident can be found in 'The Book of the Forest'. In search of Sita, Rama and his brother arrive at the hermitage of a lady hermit called Shabari. Her name indicates that she is clearly a forest tribal, outside the pale of varnas. She is again glorified in many terms and these passages are not really cast in Bhakti terms to make it a very late addition. In addition she mentions that her teachers were the disciples of sage Matanga: the name is same as that of another tribal community.
Kalidasa (circa A.D 4) mentions the incident of Shambuka in Raghuvamsa without any comment, whereas Bhavabhuti (circa A.D 7) is clearly uncomfortable with the story in his UttaraRamaCharita.
| Hinduism | Hindu mythology | Itihasa |  |
|---|---|
| Female Deities: Gayatri | Saraswati | Lakshmi | Dakshayani | Parvati | Durga | Shakti | Kali | Sita | Devi | Radha | Mahavidya | more... | |
| Male Deities: Brahma | Vishnu | Shiva | Rama | Krishna | Ganesha | Kartikeya | Hanuman | Lakshmana | Indra | Surya | more... | |
| Texts: Vedas | Upanishads | Puranas | Ramayana | Mahabharata | |
