Sabari's encounter with Rama is an important episode in the Ramayana. But who was Sabari, a forest-dweller who became Rama's ardent devotee?
 
On the Banks of the Pampa, a novel by the award-winning writer Volga, tells the story of Sabari, a child of aranyavasis, once enslaved by a colonizing state; of her escape from captivity and reunion with her guru Matanga Muni; of the journey of her spiritual awakening and birth into a voice of dissent for the oppressed. Hers is a narrative entwined with the forest along the Pampa river-one she comes to dwell in, where the human and non-human worlds exist in harmony.
 
Poignant and piercing, this final book in Volga's trilogy of feminist retellings of the epics challenges conventional notions of dharma and rejects the human-centric view that justifies conquest and the exploitation of nature. Powerfully translated into English by Purnima Tammireddy, this is a story of resistance-a story for the times we live in, drawn from the classic tale we know so well.