Twilight of the Sultanate c18.s1: Rāmānanda
Twilight of the Sultanate c18.s1
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Rāmānanda
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Rāmānanda brought to northern India the religious revival which Rāmānuja had initiated in the south. This movement was "in part a reaction against the increasing formalism of the orthodox cult, in part an assertion of the demands of the heart as against the intellectualism of the Vedānta",⁵ and was kept alive by a number of famous saints in the direct line of descent from Rāmānuja to Rāmānanda.⁶ There is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to the date of Rāmānanda's birth and death, but Kabīr being his disciple and therefore contemporary, there is good reason to believe that he lived and worked during the first half of the fifteenth century. Rāmānand was born at Prayag in a Brahman family and received his education at Allahabad and Varanasi. His first teacher was a Shankaran Advaitist, but later on Rāmānand became a disciple of Rāghavānanda, who belonged to the Sri Sampradāya of Rāmānuja. Rāmānanda travelled widely and studied deeply. At Varanasi he joined in philosophical discussions with learned Muslims and Brahmans.⁷ It was there that he passed most of his years, teaching and preaching.
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⁵ Tagore, *Poems of Kabīr*, Introduction, v-vi.
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⁶ Rāmānuja, Dévāchārya, Haryānanda, Raghavānanda, Rāmānanda, Sitaram Bhagwan Prasad, *Bhakt Māla*, 264; Islamic Culture, VII, 1933, 650; Tara Chand, *op. cit.*, 143.
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⁷ Macauliffe, *The Sikhs*, VI, 102; Tagore, *Poems of Kabīr*, xii.
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There is very little literary work credited to Rāmānanda. But his ideas can be collected from the writings of his immediate followers who claim them to be his. Rāmānanda substituted the worship of Rāma, son of Dashrath, for that of Vishnū. Rāma was not *Nirguna*, but an incarnation of God, an ideally Perfect Being, *Maryādā Purushottama*. Him Rāmānanda worshipped and taught His
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Nama (Namdeva) worships the same (God) (But)
Neither (in) temple nor mosque.)
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Bhakti to all without distinction of caste or creed. Thus, although born and bred in the old conservative Brahman atmosphere, he broke the shackles of orthodoxy and admitted into his new sect of Bhakts all men without distinction. His disciples came from all castes, from both sexes and even from among the Muslims. Thus he gave absolute social equality to all, even the privilege of studying the scriptures. All previous thinkers, more or less, had accepted the institution of Caste. But Rāmānanda had nothing to do with it. Indeed he may be said to have begun what is known as the religious renaissance in Medieval India.
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Of the numerous disciples of Rāmānanda, a dozen illustrious ones have become famous. They are Kabīr, Bhavānanda, Ātmānanda, Sursura, Padmāvatī, Narharī, Raidās, Dhannā, Pīpā, Saīn, Sukha and the wife of Sursura. Amongst these socio-religious reformers the name of Kabīr stands above all the others.
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*Sant Kabīr*
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Kabīr’s chronology and circumstances of his birth are obscure.⁸ Although it may not be possible to assign a definite date to Kabīr, A. D. 1425 as the year of his birth and A. D. 1492 or 1518 as that of his death⁹ may be taken to be quite probable.
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⁸ According to Macauliffe and Bhandarkar he was born in A.D. 1398, and according to Westcott and Farquhar in 1440. After discussing the various dates of his birth, Dr. Tarachand thinks 1425 as “eminently reasonable”. Parasuram Chaturvedi, more or less, arrives at the same conclusion. Tara Chand, *op. cit.*, 147; Parasuram Chaturvedi, *Sant Kāvya*, 157.
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⁹ *Sant Vānī Sangrah*, I, has 1518 while Sitaram Saran Bhagwan Das (*Bhakta Māla*, 474), has 1492.
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Kabīr’s parents were a Muslim couple of the weaver class, Nīrū and his wife Nīmā. According to a legend of uncertain date, he was the natural child of a Brahman widow who, to hide her shame, left him near a tank, and the weaver couple adopted him.¹⁰ Such a story might be spicy but there is probably no truth in it. That he was brought up as a Muslim and grew in the Hindu environment of Varanasi are facts which are generally accepted.¹¹ Kabīr does not seem to have received any formal education, perhaps he even did not know to read and write, but he possessed an inquiring mind¹² and living at Varanasi as he did, he became conversant with the religious literature of the Hindus. He also knew quite a bit about Islam, the religion of his parents, and about Hinduism. As he grew up his thirst for religious knowledge increased. Rāmānanda accepted him as a disciple and initiated Kabīr into a deeper knowledge of Hindu philosophy and religion.
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¹⁰ *Kabīr Granthāvalī*, 22.
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¹¹ Macauliffe, VI, 122-41; *Dabistān-i-Mazāhib*, Troyer and Shea, II, 186-91; *Āīn*, Jarret, II, 171-72.
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¹² *Kabīr Granthāvalī*, 34, 35.
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Kabīr took to his father's profession of weaving. He wove his cloth and while he did so he sang his ideas in songs. Some songs he wove in perfect poetry as he did his cloth, but most of the others are broken in language and faulty in grammar. He never used paper or pen, but communicated his compositions orally. The headquarters of the Kabīr Panthīs at Kabīr Chaura in Varanasi possess a collection of twenty-one books of the master. The language of these works is simple. He was no finished philosopher but only a mystic poet. He preached his message in the form of Sakhīs, Shabdas, Ramāinīs, etc. Sakhīs mostly deal with social conduct; while Shabdas and Ramāinīs elaborate religious and philosophical principles, though there is no deliberate attempt at such separation.¹³
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¹³ *Kabīr Granthāvalī*, 48.
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Kabīr was a great social and religious reformer. His mission in life was to fight against all prevailing superstition—blind faith in the word of scriptures, pilgrimages, idol-worship, ritualism incarnations and the like. He fought against the caste-system and against all intolerance. But his approach to all these problems was of a positive character. He wanted to unite the Hindus and Muslims and wipe out all distinctions of caste and creed. He preached a religion of universal brotherhood. He was convinced that the essence of Hinduism and Islam was the same. He selected from both the religions their common elements and tried to demonstrate that the orthodox Pandits and 'Ulema were ignorant of the basic truth of the two creeds. While propounding his ideas he was partial to neither.
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According to Kabīr there is only one God, although He is called by different names—Rām, Rahīm, Allāh, Khudā, Harī, Govind and the like.¹⁴ He conceived of Him as attributeless (Nirguna), who has neither shape nor form. By this Kabīr escaped the excessive emotionalism which resulted from the worship of anthropomorphic personality, seen, for example, in the exuberance of Krishṇa worship. But then he also avoided the dry-as-dust conclusions of pure monism, and apprehended Him as the supreme object of love.¹⁵
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¹⁴ *Kabīr Granthāvalī*, 34.
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¹⁵ Tara Chand, 154.
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Kabīr thinks that God and soul are identical and there is thus no distinction between the Absolute and the devotee. He often compares the relationship between them as that of the sea and the waves¹⁶ or the ice and water.¹⁷ The destiny of the individual is the merging of the part (soul) with the whole (God) or the realisation of union with Him. The path of this spiritual endeavour is long and difficult, but not so difficult as to frighten the devotee. Thus while love directed towards the Nirguna takes a mystic form,¹⁸ it is also direct and warm, like the wife’s passionate love for her husband, the longing of the bride for the bridegroom and the devotion of a faithful servant for his master.¹⁹ In his characterisation of this love Kabīr combines the Vaishnava concept of Bhakti with the Sūfī devotion to Allāh.
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¹⁶ K. M. Sen, *Kabīr*, II, 74.
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¹⁷ > पाणीं ही तैं हिम भया । हिम ह्वै गया बिलाई ॥
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¹⁸ *Kabīr Sākhī Sār*, 40-42.
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¹⁹ Tagore, *Poems of Kabīr*, XXIX.
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God being Absolute, belief in idols and Avatārs is gross superstition. “The images are all lifeless, they cannot speak: I know for I have cried aloud to them.” So is also the case with temples and mosques, K’abā and Kashi. Like Nāmdēva, Kabīr declares: “The Hindu resorts to the temple and the Musalman to the mosque, but Kabīr goes to the place where both are known.²⁰ Kabīr fails to understand how there can be one God for Hindus and another for Muslims. “If you say that I am a Hindu then it is not true, nor am I a Musalman … Mecca has verily become Kashi, and Rām has become Rahīm.”²¹
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²⁰ Yugalānand, *Kabīr Saheb Ki Sākhī*, Madhya Ka Anga.
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²¹ *Ibid.*
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जो कुछ था सोई भया । अब कछु कहा न जाई ॥
(The water coagulates into snow,
And the snow melts into water;
It (only) changes into Itself,
Now nothing (what else) can be said.)
*Kabīr Granthāvalī*, 35.
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Union with God can be realised; but not just through inspiration and intense devotion (Bhakti). It is of the utmost importance to seek a spiritual preceptor (Gurū), for a devotee faces many temptations and doubts in his Sādhanā, and Māyā is ever intent on attracting man away from God.²² Great caution is needed in the selection of Gurū. A wrong choice would only lead both the Gurū and the disciple into the well of darkness.²³ A Gurū is that Sadhū who has already realised union with Him and can inspire faith in his disciple. But once the Gurū is selected, confidence in him should be unconditional. "Consider the Gurū as Govind (God)",²⁴ nay he is even superior to Him, for "If Harī becomes angry, Gurū is the refuge, but if Gurū is angry then there is no place to go to."²⁵ In the *panth* of Kabīr, Gurū holds the same position as Pīr in any Sūfi order.
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²² *Kabīr Sākhī Sār*, 25-32.
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²³ जाका गुर भी अंधला । चेला खरा निरंध ॥ अंधे अंधा ठेलिया । दून्यूं कूप पडंत ॥ (One whose Gurū is blind, (ignorant), While the disciple is completely blind (ignorant), The blind leads the blind and Both fall into the well.) *Kabīr Granthāvalī*, 2.
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²⁴ Yugalānand, *op. cit.*, Guru Deva Ka Anga.
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²⁵ हरि रूठ गुरू ठौर है । गुर रूठे नहिं ठौर ॥ (When Harī (God) gets annoyed There is refuge with the Gurū; But when the Gurū gets annoyed, There is no refuge.) *Kabīr Granthāvalī*, also Yugalānand, 6.
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Under the guidance of the Gurū, by yogic exercises and Sādhanā, the disciple would gain complete control of his passion and desire. By abandoning anger and pride and by acquiring humility, poverty and patience he would experience that self-effacement in which he would realise his identity with Him. One who truly seeks His protection (*sharana*) is never disappointed, for He is merciful (Dayālū and Meharbān).
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For union with Him there was no need to completely retire from the world or to flee to the jungle. Kabīr, who felt that he had realised union with Him, himself never left the world. He lived the life of a house-holder, stuck to his profession and earned an income.
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He advocated the same simple recipe for others. One should live in the world, but should have no attachment to worldly things as they were Māyā.
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Thus Kabīr preached a universal religion, and showed a path which everybody could tread. But people, he found, were enveloped in gross superstition. There were distinctions of high and low and differences between Hindus and Muslims. Therefore he fervently appealed to them to give up their superstitious beliefs and dogmas, and take to the path of universal brotherhood. He asked the Hindus to give up all externalia of religion—worship of idols, ritualism, belief in distinctions of caste and creed, emphasis on scriptures and incarnations. He asked the Muslims to give up their arrogance and blind faith in "one Prophet and his book". Pilgrimages to Mecca, fasts and regulated prayers were meaningless. To both Hindus and Muslims he taught reverence for the living creatures, to abstain from violence and bloodshed, to give up all pride and live like brothers. Kabīr was perhaps the first socio-religious reformer who clearly and repeatedly declared that Hindus and Musalmans were the children of the one Supreme Being. They must live as one. Their differences were the product of their ignorance.
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In his attacks on the ignorant and superstitious, Kabīr was uncompromising. Day in and day out this weaver, sitting in front of his lowly cottage weaving his cloth (so the pictures depict him), would castigate the Hindus and the Muslims, sparing none. The unusual in Kabīr attracted the people towards him. The story of his birth was unusual, his education was unusual—he was an unlettered philosopher—his way of life was unusual—he was both an ascetic and a householder, a saint who earned his living by work—his approach to the problems of society was unusual, he criticised all. People listened to him because he spoke the truth, bare and stark. But some of them were naturally annoyed at his scathing criticism of everything they believed or did. The Muslims could hardly tolerate being told that their religion was not superior to others, and their fasts and pilgrimages had no intrinsic worth. The Hindus could not always bear to hear that their temples and gods, the *Vedas* and *Shāstras*, their caste and *Varna* were all false. In the view of the orthodox, whether Hindu or Muslim, Kabīr was plainly a heretic. Some of the Mullās and Pandits lodged a protest with Sikandar Lodī against the activities of Kabīr. This was about the year 1495 when Sikandar Lodī was completing his subjugation of the eastern region. The Sultan summoned Kabīr to his presence, but was averse to punishing this well-meaning old man of more than sixty years of age. Moreover, there appeared nothing blasphemous in the simple teachings of a poor weaver. Sikandar, therefore, only sent him into temporary exile, from Varanasi to Maghār.
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In spite of the malicious opposition from the orthodox people, Kabīr's movement became a living force in the fifteenth century and after. For the lower caste Hindus, he was like Christ. He saved them from degradation and resuscitated Hindu society by reclaiming them to it. Kabīr not only succeeded fairly well in his mission, but he also inspired many contemporary and later thinkers who kept his movement alive and led society forward on the path shown by him.