Today a large part of India is celebrating Raidas Jayanti or the birth anniversary of Sant Raidas, also known as Ravidas and Rohidas. These variant forms of the name might have come into use due to different regional pronunciations of an original name. Punjabi speakers preferred to call him Ravidas (as found in the Adi Granth or Guru Granth Sahib). In UP, MP and Rajasthan he is referred to as ‘Raidas’ (the form preferred by Hindi speakers). Some other forms of the name are also in use today such as ‘Rohidas’ in Gujarati and Marathi, and ‘Ruidas’ in Bengali.

Modern authors believe the precise day and year of his birth cannot be ascertained. A wide range of dates has been suggested by various authors for his birth and death. But the predominant belief among people is that he was born on the full moon of Magh and that his name ‘Ravi-das’ indicates that he was born on a Sunday. Thus it is argued that he must have been born in a year when the full moon of Magh fell on a Sunday.

In India, however, the full moon days are traditional for the celebration of saints’ births; as the birth celebrations of great many Indian saints, such as Kabir, Nanak and even Buddha are all celebrated on full moon days. But the historicity of the dates and years hardly matters as their legacy is immortalised in their thoughts and words.

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the lives of almost all the great saint poets of medieval India was that they chose to work for their living and they carried on with their occupational jobs all their life. Kabir remained a weaver, Sain a barber, Namdeo a calico printer and Dadu Dayal a cotton carder. But none of these occupations were considered as menial as that of Raidas, the leatherworker or cobbler, the hereditary occupation of so called ‘Chamār’ caste. His occupation is perhaps the single most important fact about him which is totally undisputed and highly liberatory.

We find many references to his caste in the Vāni of Raidas himself and also of his contemporaries and successors. In one of his Pad compiled in Adi Granth, he says,

aisī merī jāt bikhiāt chamāran, hiradai Rām Gobind gun sāran
(It is well known that Chamar is my caste, I contemplate the virtues of Rama Govinda in my heart.)

In another instance, he says,

hum aparādhī neech ghari janame kutumb log karai hānsī re
kahai raidās Rām japi rasana kātai jam kī phānsī re
(I am an offender, born in a lowly home; my kinsfolk laugh at me,
Raidas says: let my tongue chant Rama, it cuts the snare of death.)
 
One of his Pad says,
 
Jātī ochaa pātī ochhaa ochhā janamu humāra,
Rāja Raam kī sev na kīnī kahi Ravidās Chamāra
(My caste is low, my birth is low, my trade is low,
I have not served King Rama, says Ravidas the Chamar!)
 
Sant Raidas, however, may not at all be self-depreciatory about his occupation as such. He mentions his caste just to express his true humility before his revered God and he does so out of his devotion and submission to God.  It is also believed that many of these excessive references to his caste may be more hagiographical than autobiographical.

The famous Marathi language hagiographer Mahipati (1715 – 1790) writes about an interesting debate between Raidas and a Brahmin priest (many versions of similar episodes are found in the folklores across north, east and west India).

A Brahmin priest comes to see Raidas and asks him, ‘How is it that you have placed the Shaligram (a holy pebble worshipped as emblem of Vishnu) in a leather bag? How is it that you are worshipping God while sitting upon a leather seat?’

Hearing this Raidas replies, ‘What object have you ever seen which does not have leather connected with it? The musical instruments and drums that are used in the praise-service of God have leather in it. The black cow has a leather skin, yet her milk is holy. Animate things that are born, those hatched from eggs, and those produced from seed, all three are covered with skin, and Atmārām (God) is in them alike.’

‘The so called Shudras, Vaishyas, Kshatriyas and Brahmins are covered with skin. They make drums with skin, and play them with hands covered with skin. A pleasing sound comes from them that is heard by the ear which is of skin. The tongue is covered with skin and repeats the Vedas. With hands covered with skin one eats food and drinks water. And from leather shrine (the human body) Atmārām speaks with his gentle voice.’

The Brahmin now replies to Raidas, ‘You may be right philosophically, but while life is in the body, the body, and hence the skin is never defiled.’

Raidas says, ‘You consider the body of one who is conceiving or bearing a child as defiling. One just born and one dead you regard as defiling. The skin might be filthy and yet the God Atmārām may be in it, as the God is without spot, and is alike in everything.’

But now the Brahmin questions his right to worship Vishnu by saying, ‘Only Brahmins, who have authority to invest themselves with the sacred thread, can worship Vishnu.’
Raidas then rips open his stomach by his sharp tool and shows him the golden sacred thread within it. The Brahmin then exclaimed, ‘You are indeed a Bhakta of Vishnu, I was thoughtless and persecuted you. But just as experts bore a hole in a coin in order to test it, in persecuting you I have only increased your glory.’

One can easily infer that the story in its attempt to show the greatness of Raidas also legitimizes the pre-conditional practice of sacred thread and reinforces the authority of Brahmin priests to grant credentials to the ‘real’ bhakts or devotees of God. Other stories similar to this are also associated with Raidas, many with exaggerated details about his miraculous acts, to prove his supremacy over the Brahmin priests.

Some very popular among them is the story of ‘The coin and the bracelet’ when the tub water of Raidas produced the same effect as the Ganga water. It is from this famous story that the popular Hindi proverb, ‘Mann changā toh kathouīi mein Gangā’ (If one’s mind is at peace or heart is pure then the tub water at home makes one as holy as the Ganga water) came into use. Then there is a story about the test of real Shaligrams when to assert his right to worship, Raidas throws his Shaligrams into the Ganges and while the Shaligrams of Brahmins sank immediately, the one thrown by Raidas floated around like a duck on water.

The numerous stories about these contests only suggest that Brahmins of his time would have been opposed to a so-called untouchable saint, and the later hagiographers simply used this common motif to depict the greatness of Raidas. Some hagiographers in their desperation to appropriate the great saint even tried to present Raidas as a Brahmin reincarnated as ‘Chamar’.

Anantadas (circa 1588), a Hindi hagiographer writes: ‘Raidas was a Brahmin in his previous life who was reborn as a Chamar because he ate meat. After he was reborn into a Chamar family for four days he refused to drink his mother’s milk. On the fourth night a voice from the heavens spoke to Ramanand in the middle of the night and told him to go and grant initiation to the infant Raidas. Ramanand went and initiated him and his family as his disciples; then Raidas accepted his mother’s milk.’

But a Sākhī of a Brahmin saint poet Hariram Vyas of Orchha (circa 1560) suggests that Raidas was equally honoured by Brahmins,

vyāsa barāi chhādi kai, hari charana chit jori
ek bhakta raidās par, vāraun brahman kori
(Vyasa: renouncing pride lay your heart at Hari’s feet,
I would sacrifice ten million Brahmins for this one devotee Raidas.)
 
Vyas goes on to declare him as one of his family and says,

itnau hai sab kutum hamārau,
sain dhanā aru nāmā pipā aur kabīr raidās chamārau
(These are all members of my family, Sain, Dhana, Namdev, Pipa, Kabir and Raidas the Chamar.)

When one of his senior contemporaries Kabir said ‘Jāti nā pūchhiye sadhu kī, pūchh lijiye jnān, Mol karo tarvār kā padā rahan do myān’ (Never enquire of the corporeal race or caste of the saints, rather know from them the things of knowledge. Bargain for the sword keeping apart the sheath), he was perhaps underlining the same challenge which saints like Kabir himself along with Raidas and others were facing at that time.

To become a real Bhakta or saint one had to overcome his caste identity. A spiritual precondition that equally applied to those too who were so called Brahmins and Kshatriyas by birth. And thus Kabir went on to say, ‘bhaktī karai koī sūrmā jātī baran kul khoy’ (Only a valorous person remains engrossed in devotion by shunning pride of caste, class and creed).

The acceptability of the likes of Kabir and Raidas beyond Kabirpanthi and Ravidasiya sects calls for the same valour and spiritual depth. It is this sense of spiritual and universal oneness that has the potential to further deepen and broaden the modern egalitarian ideologies. How much ‘Chamar Rap’ or ‘Chamar Pop’ will it take to make us listen to that call?

(Avyakta is an independent consultant, and also a contributing columnist for several online magazines. His twitter handle is @vishwamanushah).
 

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