ABSTRACT
There is a sad irony here. The religious tradition of the Valmikis, a people once classified by other castes as ‘untouchable’, now appears to depend for its validaJ tion on upper-caste - largely Sanskritic - Hinduism. Apart from the element of caste or folk memory, the primary strategy of resistance employed by the Valmikis today rests upon Sanskrit sources. Hence the Birmingham incident; hence too this monograph. Even a cursory examination of the evidence suggests that the figure of Valmiki has attracted a number of legendary elements over the centuries.1 The text-historical approach requires that we search for references to him, and stories about him, at the earliest level of ancient texts. But how relevant is the text-historical approach to this kind of dispute?2
