Guru Ghasidas
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Guru Ghasidas (1756-1836) is said by many Satnamis to be the founder of the Satnami sect in Chhatisgarh.
Guru Ghasidas according to delivers of the Satnami panthi was born on 18th December 1756 and died at the age of eighty in 1836. He was born in village Girodhpuri in Raipur district in a Harijan family. Ghasidas was born in a socio-political milieu of misrule, loot and plunder. The Marath the local had started behaving as Kings. Ghasidas underwent the exploitative experiences specific to Harijan communities, which helped him the hierarchical and exploitative nature of social dynamics in a caste-ridden society. From an early age, he started rejecting social inequity and to understand the problems faced by his community and to find solutions, he traveled extensively in Chhattisgarh. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20583/20583.txt
Ghasi Das, founder of the Satnami sect.
Ghasi Das was a poor farmservant in Girod, a village formerly in Bilaspur and now in Raipur, near the Sonakan forests. On one occasion he and his brother started on a pilgrimage to the temple at Puri, but only got as far as Sarangarh, whence they returned ejaculating '_Satnam, Satnam_.' From this time Ghasi Das began to adopt the life of an ascetic, retiring all day to the forest to meditate. On a rocky hillock about a mile from Girod is a large _[tendu]_ tree (_Diospyros tomentosa_) under which it is said that he was accustomed to sit. This is a favourite place of pilgrimage of the [Chamar]s, and two Satnami temples have been built near it, which contain no idols. Once these temples were annually visited by the successors of Ghasi Das. But at present the head of the sect only proceeds to them, like the Greeks to Delphi, in circumstances of special difficulty. In the course of time Ghasi Das became venerated as a saintly character, and on some miracles, such as the curing of [[snake[[-bite, being attributed to him, his fame rapidly spread. The Chamars began to travel from long distances to venerate him, and those who entertained desires, such as for the birth of a child, believed that he could fulfil them. The pilgrims were accustomed to carry away with them the water in which he had washed his feet, in hollow bamboos, and their relatives at home drank this, considering it was nectar. Finally, Ghasi Das retired to the forests for a period, and emerged with what he called a new Gospel for the Chamars; but this really consisted of a repetition of the tenets of Jagjiwan Das, the founder of the Satnami sect of Upper India, with a few additions. Mr. Chisholm [382] gave a graphic account of the retirement of Ghasi Das to the Sonakan [forest]s for a period of six months, and of his reappearance and proclamation of his revelation on a fixed date before a great multitude of Chamars, who had gathered from all parts to hear him. An inquiry conducted locally by Mr. Hira Lal in 1903 indicates that this story is of doubtful authenticity, though it must be remembered that Mr. Chisholm wrote only forty years after the event, and forty more had elapsed at the time of Mr. Hira Lal's investigation. [383] Of the Chamar Reformer himself Mr. Chisholm writes: [384] "Ghasi Das, like the rest of his [community], was unlettered. He was a man of unusually fair complexion and rather imposing appearance, sensitive, silent, given to seeing visions, and deeply resenting the harsh treatment of his brotherhood by the Hindus. He was well known to the whole community, having travelled much among them; had the reputation of being exceptionally sagacious and was universally respected."
The message of Ghasi Das.
The seven precepts of Ghasi Das included abstinence from liquor, meat and certain red vegetables, such as lentils chillies and tomatoes, because they have the colour of blood, the abolition of idol worship, the prohibition of the employment of cows for cultivation, and of ploughing after midday or taking food to the fields, and the worship of the name of one solitary and supreme God. The use of _taroi_ [385] is said to have been forbidden on account of its fancied resemblance to the horn of the buffalo, and of the [brinjal] [386] from its likeness to the scrotum of the same animal. The prohibition against ploughing after the midday meal was probably promulgated out of compassion for animals and was already in force among the [Gond]s of [Bastar]. This precept is still observed by many Satnamis, and in case of necessity they will continue ploughing from early morning until the late afternoon without taking food, in order not to violate it. The injunction against the use of the cow for ploughing was probably a sop to the Brahmans, the name of [Gondwana] having been historically associated with this practice to its disgrace among Hindus. [387] The Satnamis were bidden to cast all idols from their homes, but they were permitted to reverence the [sun], as representing the deity, every morning and evening, with the ejaculation 'Lord, protect me.' [Caste] was abolished and all men were to be socially equal except the family of Ghasi Das, in which the [priest]hood of the cult was to remain hereditary.
The creed enunciated by their prophet was of a creditable simplicity and purity, of too elevated a nature for the Chamars of [Chhattisgarh]. The crude myths which are now associated with the story of Ghasi Das and the obscenity which distinguishes the [ritual] of the sect furnish a good instance of the way in which a religion, originally of a high order of morality, will be rapidly degraded to their own level when adopted by a people who are incapable of living up to it. It is related that one day his son brought Ghasi Das a [fish] to eat. He was about to consume it when the fish spoke and forbade him to do so. Ghasi Das then refrained, but his wife and two sons insisted on eating the fish and shortly afterwards they died. [388] Overcome with grief Ghasi Das tried to commit suicide by throwing himself down from a tree in the forest, but the boughs of the tree bent with him and he could not fall. Finally the deity appeared, bringing his two sons, and commended Ghasi Das for his piety, at the same time bidding him go and proclaim the Satnami [doctrine] to the world. Ghasi Das thereupon went and dug up the body of his wife, who arose saying '_Satnam._' Ghasi Das lived till he was eighty years old and died in 1850, the number of his disciples being then more than a quarter of a million. He was succeeded in the office of high priest by his eldest son Balak Das. This man soon outraged the feelings of the Hindus by assuming the sacred thread and parading it ostentatiously on public occasions. So bitter was the hostility aroused by him, that he was finally assassinated at night by a party of [Rajput]s at the rest-house of Amabandha as he was travelling to [Raipur]. The murder was committed in 1860 and its perpetrators were never discovered. Balak Das had fallen in love with the daughter of a Chitari (painter) and married her, proclaiming a revelation to the effect that the next Chamar Guru should be the offspring of a Chitari girl. Accordingly his son by her, Sahib Das, succeeded to the office, but the real power remained in the hands of Agar Das, brother of Balak Das, who married his Chitari widow. By her Agar Das had a son Ajab Das; but he also had another son Agarman Das by a legitimate wife, and both claimed the succession. They became joint high priests, and the property has been partitioned between them. The chief _guru_ formerly obtained a large income by the contributions of the Chamars on his tours, as he received a rupee from each household in the villages which he visited on tour. He had a deputy, known as Bhandar, in many [villages], who brought the commission of social offences to his notice, when fines were imposed. He built a house in the village of Bhandar of the Raipur District, having golden pinnacles, and also owned the village. But he has been extravagant and become involved in debt, and both house and village have been foreclosed by his creditor, though it is believed that a wealthy disciple has repurchased the house for him. The golden pinnacles were recently stolen. The contributions have also greatly fallen off.
Formerly an annual fair was held at Bhandar to which all the Satnamis went and drank the water in which the _[guru]_ had dipped his big toe. Each man gave him not less than a rupee and sometimes as much as fifty rupees. But the fair is no longer held and now the Satnamis only give the _guru_ a [coconut] when he goes on tour. The Satnamis also have a fair in [Ratanpur], a sacred place of the Hindus, where they assemble and bathe in a tank of their own, as they are not allowed to bathe in the Hindu tanks.
Formerly, when a Satnami Chamar was married, a ceremony called Satlok took place within three years of the wedding, or after the birth of the first son, which Mr. Durga Prasad Pande describes as follows: it was considered to be the initiatory rite of a Satnami, so that prior to its performance he and his wife were not proper members of the sect. When the occasion was considered ripe, a committee of men in the village would propose the holding of the ceremony to the bridegroom; the elderly members of his [family] would also exert their influence upon him, because it was believed that if they died prior to its performance their disembodied spirits would continue a comfortless existence about the scene of their mortal habitation, but if afterwards that they would go straight to heaven. When the rite was to be held a feast was given, the villagers sitting round a lighted lamp placed on a water-pot in the centre of the sacred _chauk_ or square made with lines of wheat-flour; and from evening until midnight they would sing and dance. In the meantime the newly married wife would be lying alone in a room in the house. At midnight her husband went in to her and asked her whom he should revere as his _[guru]_ or preceptor. She named a man and the husband went out and bowed to him and he then went in to the woman and lay with her. The process would be repeated, the woman naming different men until she was exhausted. Sometimes, if the head priest of the sect was present, he would nominate the favoured men, who were known as _gurus_. Next morning the married couple were seated together in the courtyard, and the head priest or his representative tied a _kanthi_ or necklace of wooden beads round their necks, repeating an initiatory text. [389] This silly doggerel, as shown in the footnote, is a good criterion of the intellectual capacity of the Satnamis. It is also said that during his annual progresses it was the custom for the chief priest to be allowed access to any of the wives of the Satnamis whom he might select, and that this was considered rather an honour than otherwise by the husband. But the Satnamis have now become ashamed of such practices, and, except in a few isolated localities, they have been abandoned.
Ghasi Das or his disciples seem to have felt the want of a more ancient and dignified origin for the [sect] than one dating only from living memory. They therefore say that it is a branch of that founded by Rohi Das, a Chamar disciple of the great liberal and [Vaishnav]ite reformer Ramanand, who flourished at the end of the fourteenth century. The Satnamis commonly call themselves Rohidasi as a synonym for their name, but there is no evidence that Rohi Das ever came to Chhattisgarh, and there is practically no doubt, as already pointed out, that Ghasi Das simply appropriated the doctrine of the Satnami sect of northern India. One of the precepts of Ghasi Das was the prohibition of the use of [tobacco], and this has led to a split in the sect, as many of his disciples found the rule too hard for them. They returned to their _chongis_ or leaf-pipes, and are hence called Chungias; they say that in his later years Ghasi Das withdrew the prohibition. The Chungias have also taken to idolatry, and their villages contain stones covered with [vermilion], the representations of the village deities, which the true Satnamis eschew. They are considered lower than the Satnamis, and intermarriage between the two sections is largely, though not entirely, prohibited. A Chungia can always become a Satnami if he ceases to smoke by breaking a cocoanut in the presence of his _guru_ or preceptor or giving him a present. Among the Satnamis there is also a particularly select class who follow the straitest sect of the creed and are called _Jaharia_ from _jahar_, an essence. These never sleep on a bed but always on the ground, and are said to wear coarse uncoloured clothes and to eat no food but pulse or rice.
The social customs of the Satnamis resemble generally those of other Chamars. They will admit into the community all except members of "the impure castes, as Dhobis (washermen), Ghasias (grass-cutters) and Mehtars (sweepers), whom they regard as inferior to themselves. Their weddings must be celebrated only during the months of Magh (January), Phagun (February), the light half of Chait (March) and Baisakh (April). No betrothal ceremony can take place during the months of Shrawan (August) and Pus (January). They always bury the dead, laying the body with the face downwards, and spread clothes in the grave above and below it, so that it may be warm and comfortable during the last long sleep. They observe mourning for three days and have their heads shaved on the third day with the exception of the upper lip, which is never touched by the razor. The Satnamis as well as the Kabir-panthis in Chhattisgarh abstain from spirituous liquor, and ordinary Hindus who do not do so are known as Saktaha or [Sakta] (a follower of Devi) in contradistinction to them. A Satnami is put out of caste if he is beaten by a man of another caste, however high, and if he is touched by a sweeper, Ghasia or Mahar. Their women wear nose-rings, simply to show their contempt for the Hindu social order, as this ornament was formerly forbidden to the lower castes. It was also a rule of the sect not to accept cooked food from the hands of any other caste, whether Hindu or Muhammadan, but this has fallen into abeyance since the famines. Another method by which the Satnamis show their contempt for the Hindu religion is by throwing milk and curds at each other in sport and trampling it under foot. This is a parody of the Hindu celebration of the [Janam-Ashtami] or Krishna's birthday, when vessels of milk and [curd]s are broken over the heads of the worshippers and caught and eaten by all castes indiscriminately in token of amity. They will get into [railway] carriages and push up purposely against the Hindus, saying that they have paid for their tickets and have an equal right to a place. Then the Hindus are defiled and have to bathe in order to become clean.
Several points in the above description point to the conclusion that the Satnami movement is in essence a social revolt on the part of the despised Chamars or tanners. The fundamental tenet of the gospel of Ghasi Das, as in the case of so many other dissenting sects, appears to have been the abolition of caste, and with it of the authority of the Brahmans; and this it was which provoked the bitter hostility of the priestly order. It has been seen that Ghasi Das himself had been deeply impressed by the misery and debasement of the Chamar community; how his successor Balak Das was murdered for the assumption of the sacred thread; and how in other ways the Satnamis try to show their contempt for the social order which brands them as helot outcastes. A large proportion of the Satnami Chamars are owners or tenants of land, and this fact may be surmised to have intensified their feeling of revolt against the degraded position to which they were relegated by the Hindus. Though slovenly cultivators and with little energy or forethought, the Chamars have the utmost fondness for land and an ardent ambition to obtain a holding, however small. The possession of land is a hall-mark of respectability in India, as elsewhere, and the low castes were formerly incapable of holding it; and it may be surmised that the Chamar feels himself to be raised by his tenant-right above the hereditary condition of village drudge and menial. But for the restraining influence of the British power, the Satnami movement might have developed in Chhattisgarh into a social war. Over most of India the term Hindu is contrasted with [Muhammadan], but in Chhattisgarh to call a man a Hindu conveys primarily that he is not a Chamar, or Chamara according to the contemptuous abbreviation in common use. A bitter and permanent antagonism existed between the two classes, and this the Chamar cultivators carry into their relations with their Hindu landlords by refusing to pay rent. The records of the criminal courts contain many cases arising from collisions between Chamars and Hindus, several of which have resulted in riot and murder. Faults no doubt exist on both sides, and Mr. Hemingway, Settlement Officer, quotes an instance of a Hindu proprietor who made his Chamar tenants cart timber and bricks to Rajim, many miles from his village, to build a house for him during the season of cultivation, their fields consequently remaining untilled. But if a proprietor once arouses the hostility of his Chamar tenants he may as well abandon his village for all the profit he is likely to obtain from it. Generally the Chamars are to blame, as pointed out by Mr. Blenkinsop who knows them well, and many of them are dangerous criminals, restrained only by their cowardice from the worst outrages against person and property. It may be noted in conclusion that the spread of Christianity among the Chamars is in one respect a replica of the Satnami movement, because by becoming a Christian the Chamar hopes also to throw off the social bondage of Hinduism. One of the converted Chamars, on being directed to perform some menialduty of the village, replied: 'No, I have become a Christian and am one of the Sahibs; I shall do no more _bigar_ (forced labour).'[1]
Ghasidas was unlettered like his fellow Harijan. He deeply resented the harsh treatment to his brotherhood', and continued searching for solutions but was unable to find the right answer. In search of the right path he decided to go to Jaganath Puri and on his way at Sarangarh attained true knowledge. It is said that he announced satnam and returned to Giordh. On his return, he stopped working as a farm worker and became engrossed in Tapasya. After spending six months in Sonakhan forests doing tapasya Ghasidas returned and formulated path-breaking principles of a new egalitarian social order.
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[edit] Folk Stories
Several myths have been built around the legend of Guru Ghasidas in Chhattisgarh. These myths and beliefs attribute supernatural powers to him and stories like his ability to revive the dead, as he did with his wife and son after their death, are widely heard and accepted. He is believed by many to have had divine yogic powers.[1]
However the key point is that Guru Ghasidas has been accepted as a visionary social reformer and the high number of Satnam followers is a testimony to this fact. According to the 1901 census there were around 4,00,000 people adhering to the principles of Satnam Panth. The first martyr from Chhattisgarh in the [Indian war of Independence of 1857], Veer Narayan Singh, was also deeply influenced by the teachings of Guru Ghasidas.
[edit] Satnam Panth
[edit] Introduction
The Satnam Panth is a mixture of Vedanta, Sufi mysticism and bhakti. Many believe that the Satnam Panth was founded by Jivandas, a mendicant. For example, P.D. Barthwel calims that Jivandas was a disciple of Dadu Dayal (1544-1603), Ahmad Shah believs that Jivandas was a disciple of Kabir and both of the writers believe that Jivandas founded the panth. [2] There was another Jagjivandas (1669-1760) an upper-caste who fought for the right of the 'lower-castes' and had disciples from both positions.[3] George W, Briggs sees the influence of Kabir on the roots of the Satnam Panth.[4]
Mendicants of the Satnam Panth call themselves "Bairagi"[5] which is a term for Vaishnavite mendicants. Besides being influenced by Guru Ghasidas, the Satnamis were in one period in an alliance with the Kabir Panthis, hence the name "Bairagis."[6]
[edit] Role of Guru Ghasidas
Although the real foundation of the Satnam Panth remains a mystery, Guru Ghasidas remains a major hero in the tradition. The Satnam Panth is said by many Satnamis to be based on these principles formulated by Ghasidas.
Guru Ghasidas through Satnami principles initiated a socio-religious order, which rejected the premier position of castes and completely demolished the exploitative and hierarchical caste system. This new order was a challenge to the caste system and it treated all human beings as socially equal. According to Satnam Panth, truth is God and there is only one God, which is Nirgun (formless) and Anant (infinite). Ghasidas believed idol worship was not a good way to worship God and therefore Satnam rejects any form of idol worship. Interestingly, Ghasidas had a holistic vision and felt that systemic reforms to remove social injustice and inequality would remain inadequate and incomplete without reforming the individuals. This underlying principle led to prohibition of liquor and non-vegetarian food for the followers of Satnam Panth.
While the idol worship was against the panth, Satnamis performed nirguna bhakti on Rama and Hanuman. [7] Many still workship Rama, Krishna, and Hanuman.[8].
Guru Ghasidas also formulated some principles, which clearly reflect his love for animals and his desire to put an end to cruelty towards animals. It is against the principles of Satnam to use cows for agriculture and to plough the fields after midday. Significantly this also reflects Guru Ghasidas's search for common spaces with mainstream Hindus. Cow is sacred for the Hindu Dharma and the principles of Satnam reinforce this belief. This can be clearly viewed as a pointer of openness of Satnam, which is rejecting the hierarchical and exploitative caste system but is willing to accept the useful principles of that exploitative order.
The Satnami tradition also lives on in the form of a vast collection of panthi songs, commonly sung by groups during street procession. Many panthi songs vividly described Guru Ghasidas' life.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ P. 52, Rapt in the Name the Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in Central India By Ramdas Lamb
- ^ P. 51, Rapt in the Name the Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in Central India By Ramdas Lamb
- ^ P. 229, The œtribes and castes of the north-western provinces and Oudh (Volume 4) By William Crooke
- ^ P. 51, Rapt in the Name the Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in Central India By Ramdas Lamb
- ^ P. 93, Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, By R. V. Russell, R.B.H. Lai
- ^ Choudhary, Kameshwar, "HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN INDIA AND WATER MANAGEMENT"
- ^ P. 52, Rapt in the Name the Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in Central India By Ramdas Lamb
- ^ P. 221 The Religious Life of India - The Chamars By Geo W Briggs
