Vālmīki’s Birth in the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa
The Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa gives its own account of how Vālmīki, the Ādikavi (first poet), came to be born. It is in Chapter 14 of the Rājya Khaṇḍa. In it, Vālmīki’s earlier life was as a brahmin named Śaṅkha, who had fallen away from his dharma. He met a turning point, did hard tapas (austerity) until an anthill grew around him, and was reborn as Vālmīki, “the one who came out of the anthill”.
The earlier life as Śaṅkha
Vālmīki’s earlier birth was as a brahmin called Śaṅkha. Śaṅkha had fallen away from the way a brahmin should live. He had left the path of dharma that his birth set for him. The text tells how this happened.
A narrative about a figure named Stambha, who is linked to Śaṅkha, is part of this account. The stambha (pillar or post), and whoever or whatever is joined with it, becomes the means of Śaṅkha’s change. This narrative is the turning point of his change.
The hunter and the change
The best-known account of Vālmīki’s origin is in the Skanda Purāṇa and other Purāṇas. In it, the future Vālmīki is a hunter named Ratnākara who feeds his family by robbery. He meets the Saptarshis (the seven ṛshis), and they tell him to chant “Rāma”, and this changes him.
The Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa tells it with the brahmin Śaṅkha. He has an important meeting, either as the hunter himself or with a hunter, and this wakes him spiritually.
The meeting made him see the adharma in his life. Then he did deep tapas. It was so deep and went on so long that an anthill (valmīka) grew around him. The former Śaṅkha was changed and was reborn with the name Vālmīki, which means the one who came out of the anthill.
Vālmīki’s inner change
The Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa teaches that Vālmīki’s writing of the Rāmāyaṇa was more than a work of poetry. It was a bhakti-kārya, a work of devotion, the fruit of his full surrender to the story of Rāma and his deep absorption in it.
Brahmā appeared to Vālmīki and gave him leave and power to compose the Rāmāyaṇa. This grace is told in related passages of the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa. The account in Chapter 14 of Vālmīki’s earlier life shows the setting for that grace. Vālmīki could receive and pass on the śatakoti Rāmāyaṇa (the Rāmāyaṇa of a hundred crore verses) because of many lives of purification. The change from Śaṅkha to Vālmīki was the end of those lives.
Jaya and Vijaya, and Bṛhaspati’s fifty names
Chapter 14 also holds two other long discourses.
The three births of Jaya and Vijaya. Brahmā explains how Jaya and Vijaya, the gatekeepers of Bhagavān Vishṇu, were cursed by the Sanatkumāras. They took three births in turn as asuras:
- Hiraṇyāksha and Hiraṇyakaśipu in the Kṛtayuga.
- Rāvaṇa and Kumbhakarṇa in the Tretāyuga.
- Śiśupāla and Dantavaktra in the Dvāpara Yuga.
After that they returned to Vaikuṇṭha.
Bṛhaspati’s fifty names. Bṛhaspati, the teacher of the devas, gives a list of fifty names of Bhagavān Vishṇu as Rāma, with their meanings. This list is one of several nāma-stotras (hymns of names) inside the Rājya Khaṇḍa.
Sources
- Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Rājya Khaṇḍa, Chapter 14