A Reflection on Love, Acceptance, and Divinity
Shabari’s simple act of love teaches Rama, and us, that true divinity awakens when judgment ceases and acceptance begins.
“Kaadiruvalu Shabari… Rama baruvanendu… tanna puje koluvanendu.”
Shabari waits — believing that one day Rama will come and accept her offering.
Before the Ramayana became the grand tale of kings and wars, before Rama became an icon, there was Shabari — an old woman in a quiet hermitage deep within the forest. Her life was a rhythm of waiting, sweeping, gathering, and preparing. Each dawn she would ready her small ashram, not out of ritual but out of love — for the day when Rama would arrive.
When we think of devotion, we imagine chants, lamps, and elaborate offerings. But Shabari’s devotion was different — intimate, tactile, and deeply human. She tasted every berry before offering it, ensuring that her guest would know only sweetness. It was not carelessness; it was her way of knowing, her way of giving. To taste was to test, to ensure, to love through discernment.
When Rama finally arrived — dusty from exile, still more prince than god — Shabari greeted him not with ceremony but with care. She offered the fruits she had chosen, one by one. The legends tell us that Rama smiled and accepted them, seeing in her act a purity that transcended notions of impurity or propriety.
But perhaps there is more to that moment. Perhaps it was not Shabari learning from Rama, but Rama learning from Shabari.
The Ramayana is the journey of Rama — from the mortal prince of Ayodhya to an icon, to divinity itself. Yet that transformation is not a coronation; it is an awakening. And divinity, in its truest sense, awakens when judgment ceases and acceptance begins.
In tasting her berries, Rama learned what all seekers must: that love is greater than custom, that intention is more sacred than ritual, that wisdom often wears the face of humility. Shabari’s offering was not a simple gesture of devotion — it was the quiet instruction of a guru. Through her act, she revealed that nurturing itself is a form of knowledge, that care can be as illuminating as scripture.
In that forest hermitage, divinity met nurture — and bowed.
Yet Shabari’s name drifts softly at the margins of the great story. The bards celebrate Rama’s magnanimity more than her discernment. The moralists praise his acceptance but forget her courage to offer. The epic moves on to grander battles and celestial victories, leaving behind the tender moment when the divine was tutored by love.
Perhaps that is why she has been forgotten — because her wisdom was quiet, domestic, feminine. Because care is rarely remembered as philosophy.
And yet, her lesson endures, whispering through time: that devotion is not submission, but relationship; that the divine is not distant, but present in every act of sincere giving.
Today, when judgment comes easier than empathy, and devotion is performed more than felt, Shabari’s story calls to us — to taste before we offer, to know before we give, to love without measure or pride. Maybe the divine still waits, not in temples or rituals, but in the humble gesture of one who chooses sweetness for another.
And perhaps within each of us, there is still a Shabari — waiting quietly, preparing a space in the heart, gathering the sweetest of our thoughts and intentions. She waits not for a god to arrive from afar, but for that moment when we, too, stop judging and begin to accept. In that stillness of tenderness and hope, divinity awakens again.
This post has been written for the Blogchatter Half Marathon.
Author’s Note:
I’ve always been drawn to the quiet corners of epics — to the voices that wait rather than conquer, that nurture rather than command. Shabari’s story, to me, is not about ritual or reward, but about tenderness as knowledge. In her patient act of offering, I find a mirror for how we, too, might live — with care, discernment, and the courage to love without judgment.
Parwatisingari's Weblog 
Leave a comment