ABSTRACT
Who are the Valmikis? This apparently straightforward question has an apparJ ently straightforward answer. As explained in chapter 1, the term ‘Valmiki’ denotes a devotee of the poet-saint Valmlki, that is, one who worships Bhagwan Valmik as God. At this point, my definition is intentionally simplistic. As anyone familiar with the Valmiki community in Britain today will know, this statement conceals a broad spectrum of often overlapping attitudes: respect for the teachJ ings of Valmiki as for the teachings of a saint or guru; devotional worship of Bhagwan Valmik as the manifest form of God; and a monistic understanding that he represents the unmanifest source of all things.1 However, even this answer conceals a cluster of ideas, each of which needs to be explored further. This chapter attempts to clarify some of these ideas by asking a number of more focused questions.2
