Sambuka and the Ramaya¿a Tradition

According to Valmiki’s Sanskrit Ramayana, Sambuka was practicing severe acts of austerity to enter heaven. In engaging in these acts as a Sudra, Sambuka was in violation of class- and caste-based societal norms prescribed exclusively by the ruling and religious elite. Rama, the hero of the Ramayana epic, is dispatched to kill Sambuka, whose transgression is said to be the cause of a young Brahmin’s death. The gods rejoice upon the Sudra’s execution and they restore the life of the Brahmin. The developmental history of the Sambuka narrative begins with the appearance of this story as a late addition to the core of Valmiki’s Ramayana in the first few centuries of the common era, a period of immense revision to and consolidation of an idealistic political Brahminism. The Sambuka story, with its hardline depiction of varna-dharma, fit quite well within this project of widely asserting Brahmanical dominance. Subsequent Ramayana poets almost instantly recognized the incident of Sambuka’s execution as a blemish on Rama’s character and they began problematizing this earliest version of the story by adjusting the story to suit the expectations of their audiences. Such adjustments included a more sympathetic view of Sambuka that exhibited a concern for his afterlife in the form of Rama granting Sambuka salvation, albeit through their deadly contact. This particular narrative took hold especially in medieval India when Rama became the object of fervent religious devotion. More pointed departures from Valmiki’s Sambuka narrative developed within Jain Rama texts and involved a complete overhaul in its exposition whereby Sambuka’s death occurs accidentally and at the hands of Rama’s brother, Laksmana. As a figure who embodies Jain ideals, Rama could not participate in any act of violence, so Jain poets removed him from any involvement in Sambuka’s execution. In a display of intercommunal exchange, this motif of Sambuka’s accidental death is also found in some Hindu Ramayanas of the medieval period. In the modern era, author-activists find that the story of Sambuka as known in Valmiki’s Ramayana leaves out some critical details—that Sambuka was a revolutionary leader who peacefully advocated for equal access to education for India’s oppressed populations and the abolishment of the caste system. Creators of new works on Sambuka seek to enter these details into the record of the Ramayana tradition, thus correcting what they see as centuries of misrepresentation.