The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume II Part 7

List of Paragraphs

1. _Definition of name and statistics._ 2. _The four Sampradayas or main orders._ 3. _The Ramanujis._ 4. _The Ramanandis._ 5. _The Nimanandis._ 6. _The Madhavacharyas._ 7. _The Vallabhacharyas._ 8. _Minor sects._ 9. _The seven Akharas._ 10. _The Dwaras._ 11. _Initiation, appearance and customs._ 12. _Recruitment of the order and its character._ 13. _Social position and customs._ 14. _Bairagi monasteries._ 15. _Married Bairagis._

1. Definition of name and statistics.

_Bairagi_, [98] _Sadhu_.--The general term for members of the Vishnuite religious orders, who formerly as a rule lived by mendicancy. The Bairagis have now, however, become a caste. In 1911 they numbered 38,000 persons in the Provinces, being distributed over all Districts and States. The name Bairagi is supposed to come from the Sanskrit Vairagya and to signify one who is free from human pa.s.sions. Bairaga is also the term for the crutched stick which such mendicants frequently carry about with them and lean upon, either sitting or standing, and which in case of need would serve them as a weapon. Platts considers [99] that the name of the order comes from the Sanskrit abstract term, and the crutch therefore apparently obtained its name from being used by members of the order. Properly, a religious mendicant of any Vishnuite sect should be called a Bairagi. But the term is not generally applied to the more distinctive sects as the Kabirpanthi, Swami-Narayan, Satnami and others, some of which are almost separated from Hinduism, nor to the Sikh religious orders, nor the Chaitanya sect of Bengal. A proper Bairagi is one whose princ.i.p.al deity is either Vishnu or either of his great incarnations, Rama and Krishna.

2. The four Sampradayas or main orders.

It is generally held that there are four Sampradayas or main sects of Bairagis. These are--

(_a_) The Ramanujis, the followers of the first prominent Vishnuite reformer Ramanuj in southern India, with whom are cla.s.sed the Ramanandis or adherents of his great disciple Ramanand in northern India. Both these are also called Sri Vaishnava, that is, the princ.i.p.al or original Vaishnava sect.

(_b_) The Nimanandi, Nimat or Nimbaditya sect, followers of a saint called Nimanand.

(_c_) The Vishnu-Swami or Vallabhacharya sect, worshippers of Krishna and Radha.

(_d_) The Madhavacharya sect of southern India.

It will be desirable to give a few particulars of each of these, mainly taken from Wilson's _Hindu Sects_ and Dr. Bhattacharya's _Hindu Castes and Sects_.

3. The Ramanujis.

Ramanuj was the first great Vishnuite prophet, and lived in southern India in the eleventh or twelfth century on an island in the Kaveri river near Trichinopoly. He preached the worship of a supreme spirit, Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi, and taught that men also had souls or spirits, and that matter was lifeless. He was a strong opponent of the cult of Siva, then predominant in southern India, and of phallic worship. He, however, admitted only the higher castes into his order, and cannot therefore be considered as the founder of the liberalising principle of Vishnuism. The superiors of the Ramanuja sect are called Acharya, and rank highest among the priests of the Vishnuite orders. The most striking feature in the practice of the Ramanujis is the separate preparation and scrupulous privacy of their meals. They must not eat in cotton garments, but must bathe, and then put on wool or silk. The teachers allow their select pupils to a.s.sist them, but in general all the Ramanujis cook for themselves, and should the meal during this process, or while they are eating, attract even the look of a stranger, the operation is instantly stopped and the viands buried in the ground. The Ramanujis address each other with the salutation Dasoham, or 'I am your slave,' accompanied with the Pranam or slight inclination of the head and the application of joined hands to the forehead. To the Acharyas or superiors the other members of the sect perform the Ashtanga or prostration of the body with eight parts touching the ground. The _tilak_ or sect-mark of the Ramanujis consists of two perpendicular white lines from the roots of the hair to the top of the eyebrows, with a connecting white line at the base, and a third central line either of red or yellow. The Ramanujis do not recognise the worship of Radha, the consort of Krishna. The mendicant orders of the Satanis and Dasaris of southern India are branches of this sect.

4. The Ramanandis

Ramanand, the great prophet of Vishnuism in northern India, and the real founder of the liberal doctrines of the cult, lived at Benares at the end of the fourteenth century, and is supposed to have been a follower of Ramanuj. He introduced, however, a great extension of his predecessor's gospel in making his sect, nominally at least, open to all castes. He thus initiated the struggle against the social tyranny and exclusiveness of the caste system, which was carried to greater lengths by his disciples and successors, Kabir, Nanak, Dadu, Rai Das and others. These afterwards proclaimed the worship of one unseen G.o.d who could not be represented by idols, and the religious equality of all men, their tenets no doubt being considerably influenced by their observance of Islam, which had now become a princ.i.p.al religion of India. Ramanand himself did not go so far, and remained a good Hindu, inculcating the special worship of Rama and his consort Sita. The Ramaaandis consider the Ramayana as their most sacred book, and make pilgrimages to Ajodhia and Ramnath. [100] Their sect-mark consists of two white lines down the forehead with a red one between, but they are continued on to the nose, ending in a loop, instead of terminating at the line of the eyebrows, like that of the Ramanujis. The Ramanandis say that the mark on the nose represents the Singasun or lion's throne, while the two white lines up the forehead are Rama and Lakhshman, and the centre red one is Sita. Some of their devotees wear ochre-coloured clothes like the Sivite mendicants.

5. The Nimanandis.

The second of the four orders is that of the Nimanandis, called after a saint Nimanand. He lived near Mathura Brindaban, and on one occasion was engaged in religious controversy with a Jain ascetic till sunset. He then offered his visitor some refreshment, but the Jain could not eat anything after sunset, so Nimanand stopped the sun from setting, and ordered him to wait above a _nim_ tree till the meal was cooked and eaten under the tree, and this direction the sun duly obeyed. Hence Nimanand, whose original name was Bhaskaracharya, was called by his new name after the tree, and was afterwards held to have been an incarnation of Vishnu or the Sun.

The doctrines of the sect, Mr. Growse states, [101] are of a very enlightened character. Thus their tenet of salvation by faith is thought by many scholars to have been directly derived from the Gospels; while another article in their creed is the continuance of conscious individual existence in a future world, when the highest reward of the good will not be extinction, but the enjoyment of the visible presence of the divinity whom they have served while on earth. The Nimanandis worship Krishna, and were the first sect, Dr. Bhattacharya states, [102] to a.s.sociate with him as a divine consort Radha, the chief partner of his illicit loves.

Their headquarters are at Muttra, and their chief festival is the Janam-Ashtami [103] or Krishna's birthday. Their sect-mark consists of two white lines down the forehead with a black patch in the centre, which is called Shiambindini. Shiam means black, and is a name of Krishna. They also sometimes have a circular line across the nose, which represents the moon.

6. The Madhavacharyas.

The third great order is that of the Madhavas, named after a saint called Madhavacharya in southern India. He attempted to reconcile the warring Sivites and Vishnuites by combining the worship of Krishna with that of Siva and Parvati. The doctrine of the sect is that the human soul is different from the divine soul, and its members are therefore called dualists. They admit a distinction between the divine soul and the universe, and between the human soul and the material world. They deny also the possibility of Nirvana or the absorption and extinction of the human soul in the divine essence. They destroy their thread at initiation, and also wear red clothes like the Sivite devotees, and like them also they carry a staff and water-pot. The _tilak_ of the Madhavacharyas is said to consist of two white lines down the forehead and continued on to the nose where they meet, with a black vertical line between them.

7. The Vallabhacharyas.

The fourth main order is the Vishnu-Swami, which is much better known as the Vallabhacharya sect, called after its founder Vallabha, who was born in A.D. 1479. The G.o.d Krishna appeared to him and ordered him to marry and set up a shrine to the G.o.d at Gokul near Mathura (Muttra). The sect worship Krishna in his character of Bala Gopala or the cowherd boy. Their temples are numerous all over India, and especially at Mathura and Brindaban, where Krishna was brought up as a cowherd. The temples at Benares, Jagannath and Dwarka are rich and important, but the most celebrated shrine is at Sri Nathadwara in Mewar. The image is said to have transported itself thither from Mathura, when Aurangzeb ordered its temple at Mathura to be destroyed. Krishna is here represented as a little boy in the act of supporting the mountain Govardhan on his finger to shelter the people from the storms of rain sent by Indra. The image is splendidly dressed and richly decorated with ornaments to the value of several thousand pounds. The images of Krishna in the temples are commonly known as Thakurji, and are either of stone or bra.s.s. At all Vallabhacharya temples there are eight daily services: the Mangala or morning _levee_, a little after sunrise, when the G.o.d is taken from his couch and bathed; the Sringara, when he is attired in his jewels and seated on his throne; the Gwala, when he is supposed to be starting to graze his cattle in the woods of Braj; the Raj Bhog or midday meal, which, after presentation, is consumed by the priests and votaries who have a.s.sisted at the ceremonies; the Uttapan, about three o'clock, when the G.o.d awakes from his siesta; the Bhog or evening collation; the Sandhiya or disrobing at sunset; and the Sayan or retiring to rest. The ritual is performed by the priests and the lay worshipper is only a spectator, who shows his reverence by the same forms as he would to a human superior. [104]

The priests of the sect are called Gokalastha Gosain or Maharaja. They are considered to be incarnations of the G.o.d, and divine honours are paid to them. They always marry, and avow that union with the G.o.d is best obtained by indulgence in all bodily enjoyments. This doctrine has led to great licentiousness in some groups of the sect, especially on the part of the priests or Maharajas. Women were taught to believe that the service of and contact with the priest were the most real form of worshipping the G.o.d, and that intercourse with him was equivalent to being united with the G.o.d. Dr. Bhattacharya quotes [105] the following tariff for the privilege of obtaining different degrees of contact with the body of the Maharaja or priest:

For homage by sight Rs. 5.

For homage by touch Rs. 20.

For the honour of washing the Maharaja's foot Rs. 35.

For swinging him Rs. 40.

For rubbing sweet unguents on his body Rs. 42.

For being allowed to sit with him on the same couch Rs. 60.

For the privilege of dancing with him Rs. 100 to 200.

For drinking the water in which he has bathed Rs. 17.

For being closeted with him in the same room Rs. 50 to 500.

The public disapprobation caused by these practices and their bad effect on the morality of women culminated in the great Maharaj libel suit in the Bombay High Court in 1862. Since then the objectionable features of the cult have to a large extent disappeared, while it has produced some priests of exceptional liberality and enlightenment. The _tilak_ of the Vallabhacharyas is said to consist of two white lines down the forehead, forming a half-circle at its base and a white dot between them. They will not admit the lower castes into the order, but only those from whom a Brahman can take water.

8. Minor sects.

Besides the main sects as described above, Vaishnavism has produced many minor sects, consisting of the followers of some saint of special fame, and mendicants belonging to these are included in the body of Bairagis. One or two legends concerning such saints may be given. A common order is that of the Bendiwale, or those who wear a dot. Their founder began putting a red dot on his forehead between the two white lines in place of the long red line of the Ramanandis. His a.s.sociates asked him why he had dared to alter his _tilak_ or sect-mark. He said that the G.o.ddess Janki had given him the dot, and as a test he went and bathed in the Sarju river, and rubbed his forehead with water, and all the sect-mark was rubbed out except the dot. So the others recognised the special intervention of the G.o.ddess, and he founded a sect. Another sect is called the Chaturbhuji or four-armed, Chaturbhuj being an epithet of Vishnu. He was taking part in a feast when his loin-cloth came undone behind, and the others said to him that as this had happened, he had become impure at the feast. He replied, 'Let him to whom the _dhoti_ belongs tie it up,' and immediately four arms sprang from his body, and while two continued to take food, the other two tied up his loin-cloth behind. Thus it was recognised that the Chaturbhuji Vishnu had appeared in him, and he was venerated.

9. The seven Akharas.