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Hindi Ramanand and Sanskrit Ramanand

This is perhaps the right place to step back from controversies surrounding the Sanskrit Ramanand and describe the Ramanand we meet in Hindi texts – those that could well have been composed in the 15^th century. Relatively firm dates can be assigned to five padas attributed to Ramanand in the Sarvangis of Rajjab and Gopaldas and the Adi-Granth. I will treat these in a moment. Before doing so, however, let me mention two works whose date of composition is more difficult to assess. These are the Gyan Lila, a work consisting of thirteen couplets, and the Gyan Tilak, a dialogue between Ramanand and Kabir.

Apart from the Gyan Lila and Gyan Tilak, we have six padas attributed to Ramanand in Hindi. Only one of these padas – glorifying Lord Hanuman – can be put under the category of ‘Saguna’ Bhakti. Notably, it is not found in any of the manuscripts used by Barthwal to prepare his Ramanand ki Hindi Rachnayen. In other words, it is found neither in any of the two Sarvangis nor in the Adi-Granth. Grierson sent it to Shyam Sundar Das who published the same in his article – “Ramawat Sampraday.”[53] In all probability Grierson was given it by one of his friends amongst the Ramanandis, perhaps Rupkala. It was this pada of dubious provenance that was used by Ramchandra Shukla and others to imagine the existence of two Ramanands, since the ‘Vaishnava Bhakta’ author of, if we may call it so, ‘Grierson’s pada‘ could not have composed the padas rejecting idol-worship and celebrating the ‘Nirguna’ worldview. The ‘Gyan Lila’ was found in the library of Jodhpur Durbar and ‘Gyan Tiilak’ in the collection of Nagari Pracharini Sabha itself.

If we exclude ‘Grierson’s pada‘, we are left with five padas in all. One of these (kahan jayeie ghar hi lago rang: ‘Where to go? I have found his hue in my very own home”) is found in a Sarvangi manuscript of 1660 VS (1603 CE) preserved in the collection of the NPS, in the Adi-Granth, and also “in another manuscript of 1771 VS (1714 CE),” according to Barthwal.[54] The same is also found in the Sarvangi of Rajjab, quite appropriately given the very first place amongst the padas collected in the chapter dealing with Tirath Tiraskar, ‘the rejection of pilgrim places.’[55] This pada also appears in Gopaldas’s Sarvangi, composed in 1627 CE.[56] It was the author of this very pada that Vaudeville wanted ‘to be considered a true follower of the Sant mat.’ The second of Barthwal’s padas (sahaj suni main chit vasant, “The mind enjoys the eternal spring of Sahaj and Shunya”) is also recorded by Gopaldas, with only minor variations in the text.[57] The pada, taten na kichchu re samsara (“What I have to do with this world?”) presents a similar case.[58] The remaining two padas recorded by Gopaldas, sahjen sahjen sab gun jaila (“By and by you get rid of all attributes”) and Hari bin janam britha khoyo re (“You’ve wasted your life without God”) are also found with slight alterations in the Sarvangi of Rajjab.[59]

What kind of persona emerges form these padas? To put it quite simply, they are so similar to the poems attributed to Kabir that one could easily replace the chhap or bhanita (i.e., signature) ‘Ramanand’ with the signature ‘Kabir’. Here are complete prose translations of the five padas that appear in these early Dadupanthi collections:

Those who ignore the name of Rama and refuse the company of noble souls waste the preciousness of human life. The chanting of His name is the only anchor of the life. It enlightens darkened lives and souls; I am here to tell you this by the order of the Lord Himself. Don’t waste your life in the false pride that comes with of wealth and status.

So far as I am concerned, what I have to do with this world? My only anchor is the name of Rama. I know the illusionary nature of worldly pleasures. To go after them is to meet the fate of the ant that gets stuck in molasses. In fact, it is like believing a dream to be true reality. The ego destroys the knowledge of true self. I tell you, meditate on this, for my Guru has taught me the secrets of life and death.

It is only through ‘Sahaj’ that all attributes of the Self eventually disappear. It is only by the sweet nectar of chanting the true name that you achieve liberation. Ramanand enjoys the eternal company of Rama and partakes in the nectar of His grace.

Where to go? I have found His true hues in my very own home. I am not inclined to go on any pilgrimage. Pilgrimage places have only water and stones, while Hari permeates every place in the world. O my Guru, Ramanand is indebted eternally to you, for your Word has freed me of the bondage of Samsara.

My mind enjoys the eternal spring of Sahaj and Shunya, and is not inclined to wander any more. I have reached a ‘place’ where there is no desire, no OM, no Brahma, no Vishnu and none of his twenty-four avatars. There is no Maya in the place where Ramanand’s Swami dwells undisturbed.

Academic scholars are aware of this Hindi Ramanand, of course, but in their world he is expected to prove his credentials on the benchmark provided by Sanskrit Ramanand. They are too enamored of the Sanskrit Ramanand constructed by Bhagwadacharya and his followers to admit the historical and theoretical primacy of the Hindi Ramanand. In this regard Bhagwadacharya’s perseverance has borne much fruit.

Bhagwadacharya’s strategy was clear. He did not always want to denounce the Hindi compositions of Ramanand but only to subordinate them to the Sanskrit ones – many of which were his own creations. He found – in fact, created – occasions to underline the primacy of Sanskrit Ramanand. The purpose always was to disprove the link with Ramanuja. In his Shri Parampara Paritrana, mentioned already in the course of present argument, he found such an occasion. His interrogator is supposed to have presented the Siddhant Patal, a Hindi composition attributed to Ramanand and a text highly regarded by the Tapsi branch of Ramanandi sadhus, as a proof of Ramanand’s appreciation of and gratitude to Ramanuja, and Bhagwadacharya goes into the fits of anger:

I am shocked! What kind of scoundrels I have to put up with! The Ananda Bhashya composed by Shri Ramanand Swami is in press, and the rogues are already going to town saying it is not his work: “Bhagwaddas is making it himself.” On the other hand the same people claim Ramanandji’s authorship of trash like Siddhant Patal – what is the matter with you guys? Why in the world do you despise our Sampraday and our Ramanandji? You doubt the authenticity of all his great works and force the authorship of all kinds of trash on him. Do you intend to project him as illiterate [in Sanskrit], capable only of composing some poems in broken Hindi? But listen my dear; we are here to set you rascals right. As long as I am alive, nobody will succeed in proving Ramanand Swami illiterate [in Sanskrit]. You think cleverly that if someone were to reject this Patal, his head will be broken by the ascetic [tapsi] sadhus, and if that someone were accept it, the stinking view held by the idiots will be accepted by everyone. Don’t you act smart. I will explain the matter to ascetic sadhus – who can kill and get killed for the Dharma. It will take time to convince them, but convinced they will be.”[60]

Bhagwadacharya’s anger is indicative of his anxiety. Ramanand had to be credited with several Sanskrit works in order to prove his ‘literacy’ (of Sanskrit). For the same reason, he had to be distanced from Hindi works, particularly if any of these (e.g. ‘Siddhant Patal‘) indicated any relationship with Ramanuja. One has to have an idea of his times and the culture of his Sampraday in order to grasp the import of his anxiety. He knew better than any body else that no Sanskrit work could be traced back to the historical Ramanand, yet it was imperative for Ramanand to have penned a Bhashya in order to be recognized as Acharya in Sanskrit academic tradition. Only an Acharya recognized as such, yet still upholding the Ramanandis’ practices could help the ‘radical’ Ramanandis in their ‘war of independence’ from the Ramanujis. Hence the need for the Ananda Bhashya to which Bhagwadacharya (or Bhagwaddas, in this phase) is referring here. The reference itself speaks of the presence of doubts regarding its authenticity. In fact, as we will see, Bhagwadacharya himself later exposed the said Bhashya for what it was – a forgery.

The task of Bhagwadacharya was great indeed. In order to construct a Sanskrit Ramanand, independent of Ramanuja, he had to ‘find’ rare manuscripts of Sanskrit works “by” Ramanand and fight for their acceptance. He also had to reject similar manuscripts ‘found’ by others if they did not agree with his own positions on the most crucial issue of all – the issue of guru-parampara. For him the test of the authenticity of any manuscript – Hindi or Sanskrit – was whether it helped to sever the ties between Ramanuja and the Ramanujis or failed to do so.

Let us see, at this point, how the Sanskrit Ramanand compares with the Hindi one on all-important issue of caste.

The oral tradition attributes a one-liner to Ramanand: Hari ko bhaje so Hari ka hoi, jat paant poochhe nahin koi (“One who relates to God belongs to Him. The question of caste does not arise”). Important as it is in popular memory, this verse is not to be found in any early collections of Ramanand’s Hindi works. Richard Burghart goes on to claim “The saying is in Hindi and hence would not be found in the two Sanskrit texts, Vaishnavamatabjabhaskar (Bhaskar for short) and Ramarchanpaddhati, which have also been attributed to Ramanand.”[61] Normally, it is true, one should not expect to find a Hindi saying in a Sanskrit work, but in this case we must look a second time. Consider the following slokas from the Bhaskar, which I quote from the edition published by Balbhadra Das in 1985 VS (1928 CE):

God in his grace does not care for the caste, purity or the power of anyone seeking refuge in Him.” (Sloka 100, pp.180-181.)

How would this sloka translate in Hindi? Tolerably close to the famous verse from the oral tradition. And it does not stand alone. Other slokas could also be cited where the text discusses relationships between caste Vaishnavas and others:

The sages and the scriptures enjoin those born in the higher castes to serve Vaishnavas, even those belonging to the lower castes (Sloka 107, pp. 184-185.)

Those belonging to the twice-born castes must seek liberation in Hari, who does not care for either rituals or caste. (Sloka 125, pp. 197-198.)

Those who carry the five Vaishnava marks on their body, whether twice-born, Shudras, or women – are epitomes of piousness. In fact, they are manifestations of Vishnu himself. They are the essence of the holiness of holy places. They purify the place in which they dwell. All sins go away merely by looking at these noble souls. (Slokas 149-150, p. 213.)

Burghart did well in not even mentioning the Ananda Bhashya amongst the works ‘attributed to Ramanand’; its authenticity was contested right from day one and in due course of time even its most enthusiastic upholders discarded it. Similarly the authenticity of the Ramarchanpaddhati was always a matter of bitter polemics between the ‘traditionalist’ and the ‘radical’ Ramanandis – as it contained a guru-parampara, the real bone of contention between these two factions. Bhagwadacharya and his supporters tried to produce their own version of the Paddhati, but ultimately quite bluntly rejected the ‘present Ramarchanpaddhati’ as nothing but ‘forgery.’ The case with the Bhaskar, however, was different. Contesting factions produced their own versions of the ‘Bhaskar’ as well, but nobody ever questioned the authenticity of the work in its entirety. The ‘radical’ Ramanandis only eliminated any reference to Ramanuja from the manuscripts “found” by them. Apart from such contested Slokas the ‘Bhaskar’ was accepted as authentically representing the philosophical and liturgical views of Ramanand.

Let us recall that Balbhadra Das, the editor of the version used here was engaged in bitter polemics against Bhagwadacharya. Ramanand being in the lineage of Ramanuja was an article of faith for him. Naturally enough, he upheld the sanctity of the caste order and its ideology. But he allowed Ramanand his say in this matter in his edition of the Bhaskar, which he claims to have prepared on the basis of a manuscript ‘certified’ to be “364 years old” by the Mahant Ramkrishnanand of Jaipur. Whether the manuscript was really that old is of course open to question. Nobody seems to have examined this claim of antiquity, which, if true, will take the manuscript back to 1564 CE, making it actually belong to the times just a century after Ramanand.

It seems, however, highly improbable that Ramanand himself composed the Bhaskar, as it is a report of a ‘dialogue’ between Ramanand and his disciple Sursuranand, wherein the teacher explains the basic principles of his variety of Vaishanavism, which does not care for ‘the caste, purity or power of anyone seeking refuge in God.’ At the same time, the ‘Bhaskar‘ quite explicitly upholds the authority of Vaishnava scriptures and gives detailed instruction about worshiping Saguna Rama and other deities, also discoursing on the importance of various holy days of the Vaishnava calendar. Incidentally, in his Sanskrit elaboration of the slokas, Balbhadra Das quotes quite liberally from Puranas and other sources revered in the Vaishnava tradition, including the Agastya Samhita proper.

So, what do we conclude from the above?

Peter Van der Veer in his study of ‘religious experience and identity in Ayodhya’ makes a very interesting observation in the general context of “indological interpretation of Sanskrit texts”:

The reference to the textual tradition is extremely problematic. In the first place, the texts are generally taken from the Vedic and classical periods of Hindu civilization, i.e. texts dating from about 1000 B.C. to A.D.1200. Let us compare this with the study of modern Christianity. It is perfectly clear that the Bible and the interpretations of men like Augustine are of great importance in modern Christianity, but no one would even attempt to derive models from these texts to interpret the actual behavior of Calvinists in a Dutch village. Such a method is based upon the assumption that before the arrival of the Europeans, the traditional society was a kind of ‘frozen’ social reality, in which no change of any importance occurred.[62]

He also sounds a note of caution to scholars, “In India, one finds a mixture of oral and textual tradition, which might even be more variable than the oral history of African societies. ‘Ancient’ texts can be made by the day in India, as I have actually observed in Ayodhya, while traditions can be transformed in accordance with changing social configurations”.[63]

It is extremely important to approach the Bhaskar – or any text, for that matter – as an entity taking life not in a ‘frozen’ social reality, but in the dynamics of human subjects coming to terms with life through their everyday practice, ‘transforming traditions,” as Peter van der Veer has said, ‘in accordance with changing social configurations’. If we keep this in mind, the Bhaskar becomes more suggestive precisely due to its uncertain provenance. It may sound like a prescriptive text, but it deserves to be read as an attempt of rationalizing an existent everyday practice of the Sampraday. The “Vaishnava Bhakta” speaking out in the ‘Bhaskar‘ could indeed ‘not have composed’ the pada attributed to Ramanand in the Adi-Granth, as Ramchandra Shukla remarked, but Ramanand could also not have composed the kind of unabashed defense of the caste order found, for example, in Shukla’s favorite Tulsidas. Had he done so, he could not have been an Acharya of a community that was and is known for its internal diversity and criticized, even stigmatized for its hetropraxies in matters of caste and rituals.

The significance of the Bhaskar lies in its being the single consensually accepted statement of the views of Ramanandi Sampraday as a whole, including the traditionalists as well as the radicals. Whether it really came down from the 16^th century or was attributed to Ramanand much later, it presents us with the peculiarity of Ramanandi Sampraday, which wants to see its “founder” as an Acharya well-versed in Sanskrit, practicing and teaching the Saguna mode of worship, yet rejecting the caste hierarchy not only in matters of Bhakti but also, by extension, in everyday practice. It calls the Shudra and women Vaishnavas ‘epitomes’ of piousness, deserving the reverence normally paid to the ‘twice-born.’ It is extremely suggestive that to clinch this point, (whosoever he was and whenever he composed this text) the author of the Bhaskar took care to insert into his text a Sanskrit rendering of the Hindi saying that for ‘one who relates to God, one who belongs to him, the question of caste does not arise.’

The Sanskrit Ramanand of the Bhaskar represents continuity with the Hindi Ramanand insofar as the issue of caste is concerned, even though he diverges in conceptualizing the Supreme Being and representing modes of worship. The Sanskrit Ramanand affirms ‘non-caste Hinduism’. He had to. After all, those who were constructing Sanskrit Ramanand in modern times were seeking the seal of orthodox approval on their heteropraxy, which was an inevitable result of the ‘diversity’ of their sect. As Burghart puts it:

One feature of the Ramanandi sect which appears unique in comparison with other ascetic sects is its diversity. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both devotional and Tantrik disciplines were attributed to Ramanand; both twice-born Hindus as well as members of the servant and untouchable castes, women and perhaps even Muslims were recruited into the sect.[64]

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[53] P.D. Barthwal, ‘Ramanand ki Hindi Rachnayen’, Varanasi, 1955, Introduction, p.1.

[54] Ibid.p.1

[55] ‘The Saravngi of Rajjab’, edited by Dharampal Singhal with a Hindi introduction, Jalandhar, 1990, p.400.

[56] ‘The Saravngi of Gopaldas’, edited by Winand M. Callewaert, New Delhi,1993,p.166.

[57] Ibid, p.322.

[58] Ibid, p.424.

[59] Rajjab, op.cit. , P.269.

[60] Bhagwadacharya, ‘Shri Parampara Paritrana’ in ‘Swami Bhagwadacharya’-Vol. III, Ahemadabad, 1961, p.94-95.

[61] Burghart in Lorenzen (ed.), op.cit. Endnote 1, p 247.

[62] Peter Van der Veer, ‘Gods on Earth: Religious Experience and Identity in Ayodhya’, New Delhi, 1997, p. 56.

[63] Ibid. p.57.

[64] Burghart, op.cit.p231.

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