Guru Ravidass, one of the most famous so-called untouchable sages of the 15th-16th century, also known as a leading star of the Bhakti movement, especially the nirguna sampradaya or sant parampara of the later medieval centuries in Northern India, articulated an alternative genre of bhakti in parallel to, and silent reproach of, the ritual-based puja𓂃 (worship) ceremonies of mainstream religions performed by Varna-based designated priests at altars dedicated to various different Hindu deities. This innovative and radical form of bhakti with its adoration of a non-anthropocentric God, sharply distinguished it from the traditional form of Hindu prayers which involve recitation, lightning lamps (ceremonial flames), striking gongs, and blowing conch shells, but which did not assign any space to the vast multitude of historically segregated and socially excluded sections of society. His innovative bhakti genre did not include any rituals, ceremonies or sacred spectacle, and neither did it exclude anyone whomsoever from its envisaged utopian city of Begumpura (also spelled as Begampura) – an empowering and uplifting construct wherein the inhabitants would be free to live and move around without fear of the rulers, taxes, social hierarchies, discriminations, indignities, economic hardships, administrative restrictions and spatial confinements irrespective of caste, class, creed, and gender. It was a place where caste-based systems of ‘graded inequality’, and the social malice of untouchability would be unknown. Despite its utopian nature, Begumpura was not a mere figment of Bhakti radical Ravidass’s mind, a fantasy or an ecstasy; it was based on a critical understanding of the socio-economic and political realities prevailing during his lifetime.
II
Meticulously articulated by Guru Ravidass, bhakti as an all-inclusive form of worship of Nirguna (God without attributes), unlike that practiced in mainstream religious centres, needed no separate/exclusive sacred space to recite prayers or other rituals whatsoever in front of images of deities. The only sanctum sanctorum of his bhakti performance paraphernalia happened to be just a corner – leather-working-place – in his very home, which, in fact, could be considered as a three-in-one-unit comprising his dwellings, workplace and a prayer Sthal ♉(platform). His innovative form of bhakti did not require anyone to visit temples. On the contrary, it empowered subalterns to remember and align with a formless God irrespective of any designated times or locations, and indeed, even at their homes.
It is against such a context that one of Ravidass' sacred couplets reads: Maan Changa toe Kathouti me Ganga (If the mind is pure, free of malice, the water in a cobbler’s leather-soaking pot is as pure and sacred as that of Ganges River), which underlines the importance of purity of mind over the complexities of temple rituals. Another path-breaking aspect of this unique form of bhakti was his courage to dress himself like Brahmin priests while practicing his so-called low-caste hereditary shoe-mending vocation. Guru Ravidass thus assigned new meaning to bhakti by transforming it into a novel and daring method of social protest against the system of untouchability. Novel in the sense that it emphasized compassion for all, and daring because he chose to imitate traditional Brahmin dress by wearing dhoti (cloth wrapped around the waist), janeue (sacred thread) and tilak🔯 (sacred red mark on forehead) even as he repudiated traditional Brahminical thought and practice – something which was a highly objectionable form of social behaviour for an outcaste of his times and the more dangerous for it. Despite adopting the prohibited dress code, Guru Ravidass continued with his hereditary occupation of making and mending shoes. He did not discard/hide his caste at all. Rather, he became very vocal as well as proud of it and raised his voice against the oppression perpetrated in its name on lower castes. In presenting himself in such an innovative manner, Guru Ravidass probably tried to demonstrate how lower castes could achieve upward social mobility without sacrificing or compromising their distinct Dalit identity on the one hand, and resorting to violent agitations on the other.
III
൲The skillful deployment of Brahminical iconography by Guru Ravidass was an anathema for the Untouchables. Though he attired himself in a semblance of temple priests, he neither hid his low caste identity nor abandoned his shoe-mending occupation. This ingenious behaviour exercised a deeply corrosive effect on the centuries-old internalized inferiority system amongst the socially ostracised by instilling a sense of respect for manual labour and a growing pride in their low-caste identity – so much so, that large numbers of Guru Ravidass’ followers preferred to be identified as ‘Ravidassias’ against their traditional degraded caste titles.
In the absence of any hope from the social elite of his times, Guru Ravidass expressed absolute faith in bhakti of a Nirguna🐈 God. His God was graceful, who elevated and purified the so-called Untouchables relegated to periphery in the Hindu social order:
Aaisee lal tujh binu kaunu karai. Gareeb niwaaju guseea meraa maathai chhatar dharai...neecho uooch karai meraa govind kaahoo te na darai. 1. Rahau (Sri Guru Granth Sahib: 1106).
Who besides you act like this, my lord? Saviour of the poor, my Master. You unfold a royal umbrella over my head. 1. Refrain.
As he himself stated in his bani (spiritual poetry) preserved in Adi Granth (Sri Guru Granth Sahib), Guru Ravidass lived close to Varanasi – a pilgrimage centre of Hindus on the banks of Ganga river dotted with varied temples where Aarti was/is offered twice a day – both early morning and late evening. The lowest castes were debarred from entering such sacred places as per Varnavyavastha𓆉 (Varna-based social order), and it was against such dehumanising practices that Guru Ravidass articulated a counter narrative to Hindu form of prayer based on minutely laid ceremonies in one of his hymns:
Naam Tero Aarti Majan Murare, Hari Ke Naam Binu Jhuthey Sagal Pasaare. 1. Rahau (Sri Guru Granth Sahib: 694).
Your Name, O God, is my prayer and my ablutions. Except Hari’s Naam, all other things are false. 1. Refrain.
Guru Ravidass discarded formal prayer and ceremonies, and emphasized the remembrance of the formless God whom he addresses as Ananta, Bajigar, Garib Niwaz, Gusaeeaa, Gobind, Har(i), Jagat Swami, Maadho, Madhve, Mukand, Mukti Ka Data, Naaraain, Raghunath, Raja Ram Chand, Ram Gusaeeaa, Ramiee, and Sagal Bhawan Ke Naika, etc. For him, remembrance of God was Aarti, and it transcended any and all ceremonies – whether dipping in holy waters of Ganga, lightning lamps with oil and wick in them, flowers offered at the images of deities, sprinkling saffron mixed with water and offering sandalwood paste on the images of deities among others. This not only distinguished Guru Ravidass from mainstream Hindu image worship, but also laid the foundations of an alternative subaltern model of Nirguna ꦫbhakti, leading to a silent surge of socio-cultural and religious consciousness among those stifled by centuries of systemic social oppression.
While concretising an alternative Bhakti episteme, Guru Ravidass did not discard the religion he was born into, nor did abandon his so-called 'polluted' occupation of leather-work to move up the social hierarchy, as in the case of two widely accepted and cited models of upward social mobility – conversion and sanskritisation (cultural assimilation) – in India and elsewhere. Instead, he chose Bhakti of nirakar💙 (formless) God while earning livelihood through his hereditary leatherwork as a middle path to protest against the caste-based system of social exclusion and oppression. In his unique Bhakti episteme, he laid emphasis on devotion to a formless God, self-respect, fearlessness, dignity of labour, and compassion for all, which underlined the democratic and egalitarian traits of his social philosophy and deep faith in the just order of God independent of crippling boundaries of caste, class and creed.
(Ronki Ram is the Professor of Political Science at Panjab University, Chandigarh)
