The Valmiki Jayanti Narrative

'The Ramayan' by Valmiki is considered one of the greatest and longest epics of the world. And revival of the contribution of Maharshi Vamliki through celebration of his birth anniversary is an effort worth appreciation. His is the personality of most appropriately blended of both vice and virtue, good and evil, right and wrong and moral and immoral. He was a robber-turned-poet who cultivated his learning and reached to the highest wisdom that no Brahmin could ever achieved let alone Ved Vyas and Tulsidas. Thus, his elevation from a Shudra to a poet is a great and significant event in the history of human civilization. An illiterate murderer by profession, Valmiki sets an extraordinary example for us that the birth, family, caste and community (social dividing mechanism) has no role to play with talent, brightness, learning and wisdom.

The creation of the unattainable ideal character and the composition of the most powerful and intense family and national narrative are products of one of the most prolific minds. Valmiki composed the epic after being hurt when he saw a male bird die. The first shloka was so intense that he identified himself with the pain of the female of the deceased male bird. He opens with the curse:


                                     Maa nishaad Pratishtam tvamgama, ... shashwati shama.




He puts a curse on the hunter. Thus, the inspiration of writing an epic grows obligatory since that was the best way to teach lesson to the contemporary people. Valmiki must have realized the supremacy and dominance of the four Vedas claimed to be the store house of all wisdom. The Ramayan is the revolutionary work that practically diminished  much iconic value of those Vedas. And thus, the social dominance of the Brahmins and the upper castes of that time.

Hence, the celebration of the birth anniversary of Adikavi Maharshi Valminki by the Valmiki Seva Samiti headed by Mr Satyanarayana at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad on 22 October 2010 should not be seen only as cultural programme, but it also as an incident of social and moral importance.