Notes. You can read more about Valmiki at Wikipedia. The verses at the end of the story come from the Chandogya Upanishad. This legend is widely known, but some who are devoted to Valmiki reject the story; you can read more about that at OpIndia. Devi includes the story of Kali and Raktabija inside this story, but I have published that as a separate post.
Summary: A robber named Ratnakar undergoes a conversion before becoming Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana.
Read the story below:
RATNAKAR, THE ROBBER-CHIEF
A mighty robber-chief was Ratnākar (“The Mine of Treasures”), the Brahmin. He loved to live under the greenwood tree, whence he would often sally out with his devoted band to rifle and plunder.
Kāli, the Demon-killer, was the patron Goddess they invoked ere setting out on their nocturnal rounds, and her altar reeked with the blood of human victims. Of Kāli, the Deity of Destruction, they were, indeed, the most devout worshippers: in her name they practised their nefarious art, and the victims were held to be immolated in her honour.
On one occasion Ratnākar had made preparations for extensive raids; but the day began unfavourably for him: it rained in torrents, with flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder, the fireworks of the Gods. He wished, therefore, to sacrifice a human victim to his patron Goddess, as a sort of propitiatory offering, and he and his band went out in different directions to look out for one.
Ratnākar soon came upon a man and seized him, saying: “The Gods have thrown you in my way. I claim you as a sacrifice to Kāli, the Goddess of Destruction.”
“Alas!” cried out his victim. “What crimes are committed in the name of your Goddess! Can your wife and children, if such you have, approve of these evil deeds?”
“Of a surety they must,” answered the Robber-Chief, somewhat taken aback by the question.
“Then go and ask them if they do,” said the man. “I will await your return, on my word of honour.”
Ratnakar questions his family
Ratnākar did not trust the word of his victim, so he bound him to a tree before going straight to his wife.
“Tell me, my beloved wife, if you approve of what men call mine evil deeds,” he said.
“Approve of your evil deeds!” exclaimed the wife. “Why, a wife cannot answer to God for the sins of her husband.”
Needless to say, Ratnākar had not expected such a reply, and his conscience began to prick him.
“But,” he urged, “you live on what I earn by robbery and plunder.”
“True,” replied the wife, “but it is the duty of a husband to maintain his wife.”
Ratnākar then repeated the same questions to his children, one by one, and received from them much the same answers. Thus disheartened, he went back to his victim and set him free.
The robbers' victim
In the meantime his band had not been idle. A little girl had by accident strayed into the wood and lost her way. One of his band had found her, brought her to the temple of the Goddess and bound her to the stake for sacrifice. The woods were filled with her cries and lamentations. “Gods of the woodland,” cried the little victim, “have pity on a hapless girl.”
Ratnākar heard her cries. He hastened to the temple, murmuring to himself, “Why does the cry of a girl melt my stony heart to pity, and make tears veil my eyes?”
Astonishment smote him dumb at first when he entered the temple and found a little golden-haired girl bound to the sacrificial stake, and his followers dancing frenziedly before the Goddess with uplifted swords. As their leader walked in they were crying out in chorus: “Hail! Goddess, hail! And crown this night's adventure with success.”
“Stay your hands! Stay your hands!” shouted Ratnākar above the shouts of his followers and the prayers of their victim. “Release the girl at once.”
At first they showed signs of rebellion and refused to release the girl, but in the end they yielded, such was the awe in which they held their chief. Resentment, however, was not allayed. “Madness has seized our chief,” cried his followers. “He is no longer fit to lead us as of old.” So saying, they deserted him and dispersed.
“Back to the Mountains, thou Daughter of the Mountains,” said Ratnākar to the Goddess Kāli, when he was alone. “Never more shall thy altar reek with victims of mine, for my heart hankers after blood no more.”
Ratnakar becomes Valmiki
Then he went into the depths of the wood and began to practise austerities to redeem his sins. A hollow in an ant-hill formed his cell, while the tendrils of many a creeper crept in and out through his matted hair, and birds built their nests in his grizzled beard; into such a trance had he cast himself, this whilom robber, as to be conscious of naught else but Brahman, the God behind the Sun and Moon and Stars, yea, and the shows of the whole Universe.
One day, how long after none can say, Ratnākar awoke from his spiritual trance, enlightened, his face radiant with inward gladness. The Truth had at last flashed on him:
Boundless space and vault of azure,
Sky and Earth and Ocean broad,
Sun and Moon and Soul immortal,
All is Brahmā, all is God;
All this Universe is Brahmā,
All that live and move and die,
Born in Him, in Him subsisting,
Ending in that Being High.
Because Ratnākar had lived in a “Valmik,” or ant-hill, he came to be called Vālmiki, the name by which he is immortalized as the author of the Rāmāyana.
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