Śabarī

Śabarī was a devoted woman disciple of the great Mataṅga Muni. She spent her whole life waiting, with patience and joy, for the darśana (sight) of Bhagavān Rāma. She came from a community outside the āśrama life of the ṛshis. She found her guru in Mataṅga Muni’s āśrama and served the ṛshis there for many years.

Before Mataṅga Muni left his body, he told her that Bhagavān Rāma would one day come to her āśrama. She waited. She kept herself pure, kept the āśrama in order and gathered fruit. When the day came, she offered Bhagavān Rāma fruit that she had tasted first, and he accepted it with grace. This is one of the best-loved scenes of pure bhakti (devotion) in the Rāmāyaṇa. She told Bhagavān Rāma to seek Sugrīva at Pampā. Then she rose in the blaze of the fire of her tapas (austerity).

Background and discipleship

Śabarī came from a community that was not usually part of the āśrama life of the ṛshis. She was accepted as a disciple and stayed with the ṛshis of Mataṅga’s āśrama at the foot of the Mataṅga hill. She served them with full devotion. She gathered fuel and forest produce and kept the āśrama in order. She did every task with joy. The ṛshis of the āśrama were moved by her purity and devotion. (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa, Chapter 73)

Mataṅga Muni’s promise

Mataṅga Muni was about to leave his body. He spoke to Śabarī with special care. He told her that Bhagavān Rāma, the son of Daśaratha, who was then in forest exile, would one day come to this very āśrama. On that day she would see him, welcome him as a guest and attain moksha (liberation). He asked her to stay and wait.

Śabarī’s devotion was complete, and she stayed. She stayed long after all the other ṛshis had gone away and the āśrama had grown quiet. Each day she gathered fruit and tasted each piece first, so that only the sweetest would reach Bhagavān Rāma. She kept the āśrama ready for a guest whom she had not yet met but already loved fully. (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa, Chapter 73)

Bhagavān Rāma’s arrival and the offering

Kabandha, after his release, had sent Bhagavān Rāma and Lakshmaṇa to Śabarī’s āśrama at the foot of the Mataṅga hill. When Bhagavān Rāma arrived, Śabarī was filled with joy. The moment around which her whole life had been arranged had come at last. She received him with full honour and devotion. She brought the fruit that she had gathered and tasted, so that she could offer only the best and sweetest. She offered it to Bhagavān Rāma with simple love.

Bhagavān Rāma accepted the fruit and ate it with clear pleasure. He honoured Śabarī’s offering as the truest hospitality. (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa, Chapters 73–74)

Her advice to Bhagavān Rāma

Śabarī also gave Bhagavān Rāma practical guidance. She told him that Rāvaṇa had carried Sītā to the south. She advised him to go to the Pampā lake and the Ṛshyamūka mountain. There Sugrīva waited with his large monkey army. Vālin, his elder brother, had driven him out of his kingdom. Śabarī said that an alliance with Sugrīva was the way to find Sītā. She described the road to Pampā, and the lake and its surroundings, like one who had lived in those forests for many years. (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa, Chapters 74–75)

Her ascent

Śabarī had seen Bhagavān Rāma and had offered him fruit and advice, so her task on earth was done. She asked for his leave and received it. In front of him she did a short rite of consecration. She purified herself with water and put on the white clothes of a sādhu (a holy person). Then she entered the fire of her own tapas. In a blaze of gathered spiritual power she rose as a being of light and went up from the forest āśrama, freed. (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa, Chapter 75)

In the Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa

The Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa tells the Śabarī episode with several more details.

The wait of ten thousand years. In the Tulasī account, Śabarī waited for Bhagavān Rāma for ten thousand years. In all that time she had one aim. She gathered fruit, tasted it for sweetness, and kept the āśrama ready for the guest whose face she had never seen but whose coming she knew was sure.

The full prophecy of Mataṅga. In the Tulasī account, Śabarī herself told Bhagavān Rāma the whole of Mataṅga Muni’s prophecy. Mataṅga had told her not only that Bhagavān Rāma would come. He had also told her what would follow: the Sītā-apahāra (the abduction of Sītā), the vadha (killing) of Rāvaṇa, and at last the Rāma-pattābhisheka (the crowning of Bhagavān Rāma at Ayodhyā). By telling this to Bhagavān Rāma, Śabarī assured him, in his darkest moment of loss, that the ṛshis already knew the whole divine plan and that the end was sure.

The teaching on navadhā bhakti. In the Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa, the meeting at Śabarī’s āśrama is the time when Bhagavān Rāma gives her his teaching on navadhā bhakti, the nine forms of devotion. They are śravaṇa (hearing), kīrtana (singing), smaraṇa (remembering), pāda-sevana (serving the feet), arcana (worship with offerings), vandana (bowing), dāsya (service as a servant), sakhya (friendship) and ātma-samarpaṇa (giving one’s whole self). Bhagavān Rāma had also given this teaching to Lakshmaṇa at Pañcavaṭī. Here he gives it to Śabarī, and it completes her life, since her whole life had shown these nine ways. In this account her moksha (liberation) comes as the direct result of her navadhā bhakti lived in full.

Self-immolation and liberation. After she sent Bhagavān Rāma to Pampā and to Sugrīva, Śabarī gave herself to the fire (ātma-jñāna-agni) and rose to the divine realms, freed.

Sources

• Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa, Chapters 72–75
• Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa