According to Vālmīki's Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa, Śambūka was practicing severe
acts of austerity to enter heaven. In engaging in these acts as a Śūdra,
Śambūka was in violation of class- and caste-based societal norms
prescribed exclusively by the ruling and religious elite. Rāma, the hero
of the Rāmāyaṇa epic, is dispatched to kill Śambūka, whose transgression
is said to be the cause of a young Brahmin's death. The gods rejoice
upon the Śūdra's execution and they restore the life of the Brahmin. The
developmental history of the Śambūka narrative begins with the
appearance of this story as a late addition to the core of Vālmīki's
Rāmāyaṇa in the first few centuries of the common era, a period of
immense revision to and consolidation of an idealistic political
Brahminism. The Śambūka story, with its hardline depiction of
varṇa-dharma, fit quite well within this project of widely asserting
Brahmanical dominance. Subsequent Rāmāyaṇa poets almost instantly
recognized the incident of Śambūka's execution as a blemish on Rāma's
character and they began problematizing this earliest version of the
story by adjusting the story to suit the expectations of their
audiences. Such adjustments included a more sympathetic view of Śambūka
that exhibited a concern for his afterlife in the form of Rāma granting
Śambūka salvation, albeit through their deadly contact. This particular
narrative took hold especially in medieval India when Rāma became the
object of fervent religious devotion. More pointed departures from
Vālmīki's Śambūka narrative developed within Jain Rāma texts and
involved a complete overhaul in its exposition whereby Śambūka's death
occurs accidentally and at the hands of Rāma's brother, Lakṣmaṇa. As a
figure who embodies Jain ideals, Rāma could not participate in any act
of violence, so Jain poets removed him from any involvement in Śambūka's
execution. In a display of intercommunal exchange, this motif of
Śambūka's accidental death is also found in some Hindu Rāmāyaṇas of the
medieval period.
In the modern era, author-activists find that the story of Śambūka as
known in Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa leaves out some critical details--that
Śambūka was a revolutionary leader who peacefully advocated for equal
access to education for India's oppressed populations and the
abolishment of the caste system. Creators of new works on Śambūka seek
to enter these details into the record of the Rāmāyaṇa tradition, thus
correcting what they see as centuries of misrepresentation.
