Reflections on the Jabali Episode in the Valmiki Ramayaá¹[double dagger]a (Ayodhyakaá¹[double dagger]á¸OEa)

Jabali, one of the priest-cum-counsellors of king Daaratha, has long been recognized as an odd character, preaching materialism in order to persuade Rama to go back to Ayodhya after the death of his father. The critical edition of the Valmiki Ramayaá¹[double dagger]a reveals several stanzas interpolated in the vulgate so as to denigrate Jabali and brand him as a rank opportunist. In spite of that, whatever remains of Jabali's speech addressed to Rama evinces one of the basic tenets of materialist ontology, i.e., denial of the existence of any other-world (paraloka), and hence the futility of performing rites for the ancestors (raddha). However, nothing is said about the epistemology, (specially concerning the instruments of cognition), ethics, and metaphysics of materialism as it existed at the time when the Ramayaá¹[double dagger]a was redacted. Considering all this it is better to call Jabali a proto-materialist who speaks of a philosophy akin to the teachings of Ajita Kesakambala, a senior contemporary of the Buddha, whose doctrine has been dubbed as that of annihilation (ucchedavada) in the Tipiá¹­aka. Both of them belong to the pre-Carvaka materialist tradition in India.