I have not the slightest worry about failing to attain moksha and having to take birth again and again in this world. For if, upon taking birth, I may place the dust of the lotus feet of the saints upon my head, I shall count that happiness greater even than mukti itself. With these words, Nabhaji opens one of the longest and most remarkable entries in the entire Bhaktamal: the story of two men named Valmiki, separated by ages yet bound by the same thread of divine grace.
The first Valmiki was born a Brahmana named Ratnakar, but fate carried him far from his lineage. Raised among Bhil tribals and married to a Bhil woman, he knew no life other than robbery and violence. He would waylay travelers passing through the forest, strip them of their possessions, and think nothing of bloodshed. Evil company had reshaped him entirely. As Tulsidas writes: "Ko na kusangati pai nasai." Who has not been ruined by wicked association? Yet the same power of association, turned toward the holy, would redeem him beyond all reckoning.
One day, by the will of Shri Sitaram, the Saptarishis (the seven great sages: Kashyap, Atri, Bharadwaj, Vasishtha, Gautama, Vishwamitra, and Jamadagni) passed through his territory. When Ratnakar rushed out to rob and kill them, the sages did not flee. Instead, they posed a single question: You commit these sins to feed your family. Go and ask them whether they are willing to share in the punishment that awaits you. Ratnakar bound the sages to a tree so they could not escape and hurried home. He put the question to his wife, his parents, his children. Every one of them refused. They were happy to enjoy the fruits of his crimes, but not a single soul would accept even a portion of the karmic debt. That refusal shattered him.
Humbled and desperate, Ratnakar returned to the sages and fell at their feet, crying "Pahi pahi!" (Save me, save me!) He begged for the path of deliverance. The compassionate sages, seeing the sincerity of his anguish, gave him an instruction suited to his condition. They did not ask him to chant the sacred name of Rama directly, for his tongue was too steeped in violence to form that holy syllable. Instead they told him: repeat "mara, mara." And so Ratnakar sat down on that very spot and began to chant. Mara, mara, mara, mara. Spoken without pause, the syllables rearranged themselves into the eternal name: Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama. The repetition continued for ages upon ages. Anthills rose over his motionless body. Termites sealed him in a living tomb of earth. And still the name flowed from within.
When the Saptarishis returned after a thousand yugas, they dug through the anthill (valmika) and drew out a transformed being. The robber Ratnakar was gone. In his place stood a radiant sage, purified by the ceaseless current of the divine name. They named him Valmiki, "the one who emerged from the anthill." Through the grace of Shri Ram's name and the satsang of seven holy men, a highway bandit had become a Maharshi. As the tilak declares: the wicked are reformed by holy company, just as base metal is transformed by the touch of the philosopher's stone.
Thereafter, Shri Narada Bhagavan and the creator Brahma himself graced Maharshi Valmiki with deeper knowledge of Shri Ram's divine qualities and sacred deeds. Standing one day on the bank of the river Tamasa, Valmiki witnessed a hunter strike down a male krauncha bird from a mating pair. Grief and compassion surged through the sage, and from his lips burst forth the first shloka ever uttered in metrical verse, a curse against the hunter that was also the birth of poetry itself. Brahma then appeared and ordained Valmiki to compose the life of Shri Rama in this very metre. Thus was born the Shatakoти Ramayana, the epic told in a hundred crore verses in its fullest form, of which each single syllable destroys the gravest sins of mankind. Later, when Shri Sitaji was exiled from Ayodhya, it was Valmiki's own ashram that sheltered her. It was there that Luv and Kush were born and raised, and it was Valmiki who taught them to sing the Ramayana before the court of Shri Rama himself. Such was the glory of this first Valmiki: robber turned poet, murderer turned refuge of the Mother of the Universe.
Now Nabhaji turns to the second Valmiki, whose story is no less astonishing. This Valmiki was born in the Supach caste, among the very lowest of social groups, people so despised that others would not share a meal with them, let alone a seat at a sacred fire. Yet hidden within this outcast was a bhakta of the highest order, a secret lover of Bhagavan whose devotion burned with a steady and unwavering flame.
His moment of revelation came during Yudhishthira's great yajna at Indraprastha. The eldest Pandava had assembled every sage, rishi, and luminary of the age. Rishis filled the sacrificial ground from end to end. Yet the sign of the yajna's completion, a conch shell that was to sound of its own accord, remained stubbornly silent. Yudhishthira, troubled, turned to Shri Krishna and asked what was lacking. Krishna's answer cut through every pretension in the hall: not a single true bhakti-rasika, not one genuine Bhagavata, had taken food at the feast. The assembled sages, for all their learning and austerity, were full of the pride of caste, lineage, conduct, and knowledge. A true devotee of the Lord washes away all such pride in the river of bhakti, becomes the servant of the servants, and lives entirely free of ego.
At Krishna's direction, Arjuna and Bhimasena went in search of this hidden saint. They found the dwelling of the Supach Valmiki aglow with the signs of pure devotion: the name of the Lord inscribed on the walls, the conch and chakra emblems displayed, and the sacred Tulasi plant flourishing at the threshold. Valmiki, humble to his core, tried to refuse the invitation. He said he was unfit by the world's measure to sit among such exalted guests. But Arjuna insisted with deep reverence, and the bhakta at last consented.
Valmiki was seated in the very kitchen of the Pandava household, and food was placed before him. The moment he lifted the first morsel to his mouth, the conch stirred and began to sound, though not fully. Shri Krishna struck the conch and demanded to know why its voice was incomplete. The conch replied: ask Draupadi. When questioned, Draupadi confessed that a flicker of caste-distinction had risen in her heart, because Valmiki had mixed all the different dishes together on his plate instead of eating them separately.
Krishna turned to Valmiki and asked why he had mixed the food. The bhakta's answer silenced every voice in the assembly: All these dishes were first partaken by You, O Lord. Therefore they are all Your prasad, one and the same in essence. If I were to eat them separately, savoring each for its individual taste, the spirit of prasad would be lost. I see no difference between one offering and another, for they all carry the touch of Your lips. At those words, the last trace of doubt dissolved from Draupadi's heart. Her devotion toward Valmiki deepened beyond measure. The conch resounded in full voice. The devas rained flowers from the heavens. And from every corner of the sacrificial ground rose a single cry: Victory to Shri Bhakti Maharani!
This is the teaching that Nabhaji places before us through these two lives. True bhakti dissolves every hierarchy of birth. It is not caste, not learning, not ritual mastery that completes the yajna of life. It is the pure, egoless love of a devotee who sees all things as the Lord's prasad. A robber chanting "mara mara" in a forest became the Adi Kavi, the first poet of the world. A Supach sitting in the kitchen of kings silenced a hall full of rishis with one sentence about the nature of divine offering. In both cases, the power that lifted them was the same: the grace of satsang, the glory of the Lord's name, and a heart emptied of every last grain of pride.
No Past Is Too Dark for the Name to Reach
Ratnakar had lived entirely by robbery and bloodshed. He knew no life other than ambushing travelers, stripping them of their possessions, and thinking nothing of violence. Evil association had reshaped him completely. When the Saptarishis passed through his territory, he rushed out to rob and kill them. They did not flee. They simply asked one question: do your family members agree to share in the punishment that awaits you for these sins? Ratnakar bound them to a tree so they could not escape and went home to ask. Every one refused. They enjoyed the fruits of his crimes but would not accept even a portion of the debt. That refusal shattered him. He returned to the sages, fell at their feet, and begged for a path. They gave him the chanting of a simple syllable, and he sat down and did not rise for a thousand yugas. When he emerged, a robber had become a Maharshi. The teaching is absolute: no past is too stained for the Lord's name to purify, when the anguish for liberation is sincere.
Bhaktamal entry 52; Srimad Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda
Holy Company Is the Philosopher's Stone of the Soul
Ratnakar was not transformed by his own effort alone. He was transformed by the grace of the Saptarishis, seven great sages who had no reason to stop for a highway robber with a weapon in his hand. They stopped anyway. They asked a question instead of fleeing. They gave an instruction suited to where he was, not to where they wished he were. They did not ask him to chant a name his tongue could not yet form. They gave him a word he could manage: mara. And when spoken without pause, that word rearranged itself into the eternal name. Nabhaji draws from this the teaching that Tulsidas states plainly: the wicked are reformed by holy company just as base metal is transformed by the touch of the philosopher's stone. It is not that the base metal does the transforming. It is touched, and it changes. Satsang carries that power. To be in the presence of the genuinely holy, even briefly, can set in motion a transformation that outlasts many lifetimes.
Bhaktamal entry 52; Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas
Grief Turned Outward Becomes Poetry; Love Turned Inward Becomes God
After his penance was complete and he had become Maharshi Valmiki, the sage stood one day on the bank of the river Tamasa and witnessed a hunter strike down a male krauncha bird from a mating pair. Grief and compassion surged through him, and from his lips burst forth the first shloka ever uttered in metrical verse: a curse against the hunter, born of sorrow. Brahma appeared and told him this sorrow was not an accident. It was the instrument through which the composition of Shri Rama's life would be given to the world. The very same heart that had been hardened by years of violence was now soft enough for grief to flow through it as song. The teaching here is that bhakti does not bypass the full range of human feeling. It opens us wide enough to feel everything, and that same openness becomes the channel through which something holy can move. What had been blocked by ego and violence becomes, once purified, the seat of the divine word.
Bhaktamal entry 52; Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda, Chapters 1-2
True Bhakti Has No Caste and Humbles Every Hierarchy
The second Valmiki was born into the Supach caste, among the most despised social groups of his time. When Yudhishthira's great yajna was complete, the conch that was meant to sound of its own accord remained silent. Krishna told the assembly what was lacking: not a single true bhakti-rasika had eaten at the feast. Every sage and luminary present was full of the pride of caste, lineage, conduct, and learning. Arjuna and Bhimasena went in search of a genuine devotee and found this Supach Valmiki, whose home bore all the signs of pure devotion: the Lord's name inscribed on the walls, the tulasi flourishing at the threshold. The moment this outcast lifted the first morsel of food to his lips, the conch began to stir. A hall full of rishis had not moved it. One Supach bhakta lifted it with a single bite. Bhakti is not improved by birth or learning. It is completed by the absence of ego, which can be present in a palace or a hut.
Bhaktamal entry 52
Prasad Has No Distinctions: The Devotee Who Sees Oneness Completes the Yajna
When Shri Krishna asked the Supach Valmiki why he had mixed all the different dishes together on his plate, rather than eating them separately, the bhakta's answer silenced every voice in the assembly. He said: all these dishes were first partaken by You, O Lord. Therefore they are all Your prasad, one and the same in essence. If I were to eat them separately, savoring each for its individual taste, the spirit of prasad would be lost. I see no difference between one offering and another, for they all carry the touch of Your lips. That answer dissolved the last flicker of caste-distinction from Draupadi's heart. The conch resounded in full voice. The devas rained flowers from above. A hall of scholars had been gathered for the yajna. What completed it was not learning or ritual mastery. It was one sentence from a person who had no pride left, who saw everything as the Lord's own offering, who tasted unity where others tasted hierarchy.
Bhaktamal entry 52
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.