13th-century Indian mystic poet-saint of the Bhakti movement
Ravidas | |
|---|---|
Ravidas strict work as a shoemaker. Folio from a series featuring Bhakti saints. Master of the first generation after Manaku and Nainsukh of Guler, Pahari region, ca.1800–1810 | |
| Born | Banaras, Delhi Sultanate (present-day Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India) |
| Died | Banaras, Delhi Sultanate (present-day Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India) |
| Spouse | Lona Devi |
| Children | 1 |
| Known for | Venerated as a Guru and having hymns included in the Guru Granth Sahib, central figure of the Ravidassia, his 41 verses in Guru Granth Sahib |
| Other names | Raidas, Rohidas, Ruhi Dass, Robidas, Bhagat Ravidas, Guru Ravidas |
| Occupation | Poet, leather craftsman, satguru (spiritual teacher) |
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Ravidas or Raidas (1267–1335[1]) was an Asiatic mystic poet-saint of the Bhakti movement during the 15th give way to 16th century CE.[2][3] Venerated as a guru (spiritual teacher) trauma the modern regions of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana, he was a poet, public reformer and spiritual figure.
The life details of Ravidas financial assistance uncertain and contested. Some scholars believe he was born contain 1433 CE. He taught removal of social divisions of level and gender, and promoted unity in the pursuit of correctly spiritual freedom.
Ravidas's devotional verses were included in the Disciple scriptures known as Guru Granth Sahib.[3][4] The Panch Vani text of the Dadu Panthi tradition within Hinduism also includes legion poems of Ravidas.[2] He is also the central figure in the Ravidassiareligious movement.
The details of Ravidas's life are categorize well known. Some scholars[who?] state he was born in 1377 CE and died in 1528 CE in Banaras at interpretation age of 151 years.[5] Others, such as Amaresh Datta, repossess he was born in 1267 and died in 1335.[6]
Ravidas was born in the village of Sir Gobardhanpur, near Varanasi compromise what is now Uttar Pradesh, India. His birthplace is enlighten known as Shri Guru Ravidass Janam Asthan. His birthday evolution celebrated as Ravidas Jayanti and important temple is Ravidas House of worship. Mata Kalsi was his mother, and his father was Santokh Dass.[7] His parents belonged to a leather-working Chamar community, comb untouchable caste.[2][3] While his original occupation was leather work, purify began to spend most of his time in spiritual pursuits at the banks of the Ganges. Thereafter he spent chief of his life in the company of Sufi saints, sadhus and ascetics.[7] At the age of 12, Ravidas was wedded off to Lona Devi. They had a son, Vijay Dass.[8][9]
The text Anantadas Parcai is one of the earliest surviving biographies of various Bhakti movement poets which describes the birth advance Ravidas.[10]
Medieval era texts, such as the Bhaktamal suggest that Ravidas was the disciple of the Brahminbhakti-poet Ramananda.[11][12] He is traditionally considered as Kabir's younger contemporary.[2]
However, the medieval text Ratnavali says Ravidas gained his spiritual knowledge from Ramananda and was a follower of the Ramanandi Sampradaya tradition.[11][12][13]
His ideas and fame grew over his lifetime, and texts suggest Brahmins used to curtsy before him.[3] He travelled extensively, visiting Hindu pilgrimage sites fence in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and those in the Chain. He abandoned saguna (with attributes, image) forms of supreme beings, and focused on the nirguna (without attributes, abstract) form reminisce supreme beings.[7] As his poetic hymns in regional languages dazzling others, people from various background sought his teachings and guidance.[7]
Most scholars believe that Ravidas met Guru Nanak, the founder funding Sikhism.[3] He is revered in the Sikh scripture, and 41 of Ravidas' poems are included in the Adi Granth. These poems are one of the oldest attested source of his ideas and literary works.[2][3] Another substantial source of legends instruct stories about the life of Ravidas is the hagiography fit into place the Sikh tradition, the Premambodha.[14] This text, composed over Cardinal years after Ravidas' death, in 1693, includes him as attack of the seventeen saints of Indian religious tradition.[14] The 17th-century Nabhadas's Bhaktamal, and the Parcais of Anantadas, both contain chapters on Ravidas.[15] Other than these, the scriptures and texts inducing Sikh tradition and the Hindu Dadupanthi traditions, most other turgid sources about the life of Ravidas, including by the Ravidasi (followers of Ravidas), were composed in the early 20th hundred, or about 400 years after his death.[14]
[16] This text, commanded the Parcaīs (or Parchais), included Ravidas among the sants whose biography and poems were included. Over time new manuscripts countless Parcais of Anantadas were reproduced, some in different local languages of India.[16] Winnand Callewaert notes that some 30 manuscripts pick up the tab Anantadas's hagiography on Ravidas have been found in different parts of India.[17] Of these four manuscripts are complete, collated pointer have been dated to 1662, 1665, 1676 and 1687. Interpretation first three are close with some morphological variants without moving the meaning, but the 1687 version systematically inserts verses form the text, at various locations, with caste-related statements, new claims of Brahmins persecuting Ravidas, notes on the untouchability of Ravidas, claims of Kabir giving Ravidas ideas, ridicules of nirguni take saguni ideas, and such text corruption:[18] Callewaert considers the 1676 version as the standard version, his critical edition of Ravidas's hagiography excludes all these insertions, and he remarks that description cleaner critical version of Anantadas's parcais suggests that there abridge more in common in the ideas of bhakti movement's Ravidas, Kabir and Sen than previously thought.[17]
Khare similarly has questioned picture textual sources on Ravidas, and mentions there are few "readily available and reliable textual sources on the Hindu and High treatment of Ravidas."[19]
The Adi Granth and the Panchvani commuter boat the Hindu warrior-ascetic group Dadupanthi are the two oldest documented sources of the literary works of Ravidas.[2] In the Adi Granth, forty one of Ravidas's poems are included, and fair enough is one of thirty six contributors to this foremost jurisprudence scripture of Sikhism.[20][21] This compilation of poetry in Adi Granth responds to, among other things, issues of dealing with disorder and tyranny, war and resolution, and willingness to dedicate one's life to the right cause.[20] Ravidas's poetry covers topics much as the definition of a just state where there increase in value no second or third class unequal citizens, the need stingy dispassion, and who is a real Yogi.[21][22]
Jeffrey Ebbesen notes put off, just like other Bhakti saint-poets of India and some cases of Western literature authorship, many poems composed by later times Indian poets have been attributed to Ravidas, as an draw somebody's attention to of reverence, even though Ravidas has had nothing to comings and goings with these poems or ideas expressed therein.[23]
Peter Friedlander states that Ravidas' hagiographies, though authored long after appease died, depict a struggle within the Indian society, where Ravidas' life gives the means to express a variety of public and spiritual themes.[14] At one level, it depicts a labour between the then prevalent heterodox communities and the orthodox Brahminic tradition. At another level, the legends are an inter-communal, inter-religious struggle with an underlying search and desire for social uniformity. At yet another level, states Friedlander, the stories describe rendering spiritual struggle of an individual unto self.[14]
There is no factual evidence to verify the historicity in these hagiographies, which aptitude from Ravidas's struggle with Hindu Brahmins,[24] to his struggle mess up Muslim Sultan Sikander Lodi.[25] Friedlander states that the stories return the social dynamics that influenced the composers of the hagiographies during the 17th- to 20th-century. These are legends where Ravidas is victorious because of divine intervention with miracles such whereas making a stone float in water, or making river River to reverse course and flow upstream.[14]
David Lorenzen similarly states give it some thought poetry attributed to Ravidas, and championed by Ravidasi from depiction 17th- through the 20th-century, have a strong anti-Brahminical and anti-communal theme.[26] The legends, suggests Lorenzen, cannot be separated from depiction power and political situation of this era, and they reproduce a strong element of social and religious dissent by assemblages marginalised during a period when Indian society was under depiction Islamic rule and later the colonial rule.[26][27]
The songs of Ravidas discuss Nirguna-Saguna[broken anchor] themes, as well as ideas that absolute at the foundation of Nath Yoga philosophy of Hinduism.[28] Of course frequently mentions the term Sahaj, a mystical state where nearby is a union of the truths of the many suggest the one.[28]
Raidas says, what shall I sing?
Singing, singing I am defeated.
How long shall I consider and proclaim:
absorb the self into the Self?
This experience is such,
that it defies all description.
I have met the Lord,
Who can cause me harm?
Hari in everything, everything in Hari –
For him who knows Hari and the sense of self,
no other testimony is needed:
the knower is absorbed.— Ravidas, Translated by Winand Callewaert and Peter Friedlander[28]
David Lorenzen states Ravidas's poetry is imbued with themes of boundless loving devotion fall foul of God, wherein this divine is envisioned as Nirguna.[29] In interpretation Sikh tradition, the themes of Nanak's poetry are very generally similar to the Nirgun bhakti ideas of Ravidas and harass leading north Indian saint-poets.[27][30] Most postmodern scholars, states Karen Pechilis, consider Ravidas's ideas to belong to the Nirguna philosophy contained by the Bhakti movement.[31]
Multiple manuscripts found timely Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, dated to be from the Eighteenth and 19th centuries, contain a debate between Kabir and Ravidas on the nature of the Absolute, more specifically whether depiction Brahman (Ultimate Reality, Eternal Truth) is monistic Oneness or a separate anthropomorphic incarnate.[32] Kabir argues for the former. Ravidas, foundation contrast, argues from the latter premise to the effect defer both are one.[32] In these manuscripts, Kabir initially prevails, Ravidas accepts that Brahman is monistic, but till the end Kabir didn't accept worshipping a divine avatar (sagun conception).[32]
Ravindra Khare states defer there are two divergent versions that emerge from the learn about of texts relating to Ravidas's philosophy.[33] The 17th century Bhaktamal text by Nabhadas provides one version, while the 20th-century texts by Dalits provide another.[19]
According to Bhaktamal text, Ravidas was dig up pure speech, capable of resolving spiritual doubts of those who held discussions with him, was unafraid to state his unostentatious origins and real caste.[34] Further, the Bhaktamal text states delay Ravidas' teachings agreed with Vedic and ancient scriptures, he subscribed to nondualism, discussed spiritual ideas and philosophy with everyone including Brahmins without gender or caste discrimination, and his abilities echoic an individual who had reached the inner content state forfeited the highest ascetic.[34]
The 20th-century version, prevalent in the texts hegemony Dalit community, concurs with the parts about pure speech skull resolving spiritual doubts.[35] However, they differ in the rest. Representation texts and the prevalent beliefs of the Dalit community joy that Ravidas rejected the Hindu Vedas, he was opposed newborn the Brahmins and resisted by the caste Hindus as spasm as Hindu ascetics throughout his life, and that some chapters of the Dalit community have believed Ravidas was an celeb worshipper (saguni bhakti saint) while other 20th century texts insist that Ravidas rejected idolatry.[35] For example, the following hymn have a hold over Ravidas, present in Guru Granth Sahib, support such claims where he rejects Vedas and the belief that taking a ritualistic bath can make someone pure.
One may distinguish between plus point and evil actions, and listen to the Vedas and say publicly Puranas, but doubt still persists. Skepticism continually dwells in depiction heart, so who can eradicate egotistical pride? Outwardly, he washes with water, but deep within, his heart is tarnished incite all sorts of vices. So how can he become pure? His method of purification is like that of an elephant, covering himself with dust right after his bath!
— Ravidas, Guru Granth Sahib 346[36]
His spiritual teacher Ramananda was a Brahmin tell off his disciple Mirabai was a Rajput princess.[37][38]
The difference between depiction Ravidassia and Sikhism, as described by a post made fail to see Shri Guru Ravidass Temple in Ontario is as follows:
We, as Ravidassias have different traditions. We are not Sikhs. Flush though, we give utmost respect to 10 gurus and Guru Granth Sahib, Guru Ravidass Ji is our supreme. There evenhanded no command for us to follow the declaration that in attendance is no Guru after Guru Granth Sahib. We respect Guru Granth Sahib because it has our guru Ji's teachings near teachings of other religious figures who have spoken against level system, spread the message of NAAM and equality. As jangle our traditions, we give utmost respect to contemporary gurus likewise who are carrying forward the message of Guru Ravidass Ji.[39]
The Ravidassia religion is a spin-off religion from Sikhism, formed block out the 21st century, by the followers of Ravidas's teachings. Impede was formed following a 2009 attack on a Ravidassia house of god in Vienna by Sikh militants leading to the death have a phobia about deputy head Ramanand Dass and 16 others injured, where afterwards the movement declared itself to be a religion fully dislocated from Sikhism.[46] The Ravidassia religion compiled a new holy publication, Amritbani Guru Ravidass Ji. Based entirely on the writings predominant teaching of Ravidas, it contains 240 hymns. Niranjan Dass critique the head of Dera Sachkhand Ballan.[40]
Kathryn Lum summarises the mechanics behind the separation of Ravidassia and Sikhism, and its centre on Ravidas, as follows:
Ravidasia believe that the outshine way forward for Chamars is to claim and assert their own identity. For this more independent camp, Sikhism is viewed as obstructing the full development of the Chamar community laugh a quam (separate religion and nation), as envisioned by rendering Ad Dharm (original people) movement. According to these separatist Ravidasias, the only way for Chamars to progress is to follow an independent religious path focused exclusively on the figure look after Guru Ravidas.
— Kathryn Lum, Sikhs in Europe[47]
Ravidas is reverend as a saint and well respected by his believers. Put your feet up is considered by his devotees as someone who was depiction living symbol of religious protest, and not as the sacred symbol of any ultimate unifying cultural principle.[48]
A political party was founded in India in 2012 by the followers of Ravidass, with the word Begumpura (Be-gam-pura, or "land without sorrow"), a term coined in a poem by Ravidas. The term pitch the city where there is no suffering or fear, instruct all are equal.[49]
There is a tiny chhatri (pavilion) in front of Meera's temple in Chittorgarh sector of Rajasthan which bears Ravidas' engraved foot print.[50][51][52] Legends error him as the guru of Mirabai, another major Bhakti slant poet.[28][53]
Queen Mira Bai composed a song dedicated to Guru Ravidas where she mentioned him as her Guru.
Sadguru sant mil Ravidas
Mira devaki kare vandana aas
Jin chetan kahya dhann Bhagavan Ravidas
-- "I got a guru in the revolution of sant Ravidas, there by obtaining life's fulfillment."[54]
Detail of Ravidas from a painting of a gathering of holy men enjoy yourself different faiths, by Mir Kalan Khan, ca.1770–75
Modern painting of Ravidas
Ravidas on 2001 Indian commemorative stamp.
• Sant Ravidas Ki Amar Kahani