Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.661
Purāṇic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Purāṇic Literature c9.661
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c9.661
ŚABARĪ. A woman of the tribe of forest-dwellers. Śrī Rāma, during his life in the forest, gave her salvation.
1) *Former life.* Śabarī, in her former life, was the only daughter Mālinī of the Gandharva king, Citrakavaca. An erudite scholar, Vitihotra, married her. As he was ever immersed in contemplation of Brahman his wife Mālinī, (later Śabarī) kept one hunter, Kalmāṣa, as her paramour, and her husband cursed her thus: "As you have become a lover of the hunter, you turn out to be a hunter-woman."