The Name Turned Backward

Vālmīki was born a brahmin, one of the twice-born, but he was a brahmin in name only. He grew up in the forest among the Kirātas, the hill people, and his conduct was never a brahmin's. He had many sons by a woman of low birth, and his mind was without restraint, and he fell in with robbers and became a robber himself. Always armed with bow and arrows, he was like death itself to every living creature.

One day in a great forest he saw seven sages, shining like fire and like the sun, and he ran after them, greedy to take everything they had. Stop, stop! he cried. The sages asked him, Why have you come here, lowest of the twice-born? I want to take something from you, he said. I have many hungry mouths to feed, my wife and my children, and to feed them I roam the mountains and the forests.

The sages were at peace, and they said to him, Go home and ask your family, each one of them separately: Will you share the heap of sin I gather day by day, or not? We will wait here for you until you come back; that is certain. He went home and asked his sons and his wife, and they all gave him the same answer. The sin is yours alone. We only take the things you bring.

When he heard that, a deep weariness with the life he was living came over him. He went back, thinking it over, to where the sages waited for him in their compassion, and the mere sight of them made him pure. He threw away his bow and his weapons and fell full length on the ground before them. Save me, best of sages, he said. I am sinking into the sea of hell.

Rise, rise, they said. Blessings on you. Meeting with the good bears fruit. We will give you a teaching, and by that alone you will be freed. Then they spoke among themselves. This man is wicked, they said, the lowest of the twice-born, and good people might well pass him by; but he has come to us for refuge, and he must be saved with a teaching on the path of freedom. And they took the name of Rāma, turned its syllables around, and told him to say it, mara, over and over with a single mind. We will come back, they said. Until then, keep saying what we have told you. And the sages went their way.

He did exactly as they had taught him. He repeated the name with his whole mind until he forgot the world outside. A very long time passed, and he sat there without moving, free of every attachment, and an anthill rose up over his body. At last the sages came back and called out to him, Come out! When he heard their voices he rose quickly and came out of the anthill like the sun coming out of the mist. The sages said to him, You are Vālmīki, chief of sages. You are Vālmīki, because you have had a second birth from an anthill, a valmīka. Then they went away to heaven.