Guru Ravidass Jayanti 2019, Biography of Shri Sant Ravidas

Guru Ravidass Jayanti is the birthday of Guru Ravidass, celebrated on Magh Purnima, the full moon day in the month of Magh month. It is the annual focal point for the Ravidassia religion. On the day the Amritbani Guru Ravidass Ji is read, the nishaan is changed ceremonially, and there is a special aarti and a Nagar Kirtan procession bearing the guru's portrait are taken out to the accompaniment of music through the streets of the temple locality. Also, devotees take a holy dip in the river to perform rites. In the bhajans, his image is worshiped. Every year, a grand celebration at Shri Guru Ravidass Janam Asthan Mandir, Seer Goverdhanpur, Varanasi takes place to mark the occasion along with lakhs of devotees who came from all over the world to celebrate the occasion. The 2019 date: is Tuesday, 19 February 2019.

Story By- Krishna Kumar

Biography of Shri Sant Ravidas

Most scholars state he was born about 1450 and died about 1520. Ravidas was born in the village of Seer Goverdhanpur, near Varanasi in what is now Uttar Pradesh, India. His birthplace is now known as Sri Guru Ravidas Janam Asthan.

Guru Ravidas was a North Indian mystic poet-saint of the Bhakti movement during the 15th to 16th century CE, Venerated as a Guru (teacher) in the region of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh. Ravidas of devotional songs made a lasting impact on the Bhakti movement. He was a poet-saint, social reformer, and a spiritual figure. He is considered as the founder of 21st-century Ravidassia religion, by a group who previously associated with Sikhism.

Guru Ravidas literature as symbolism

Peter Friedlander states that Ravidas' hagiographies, though authored long after he died, depict a struggle within the Indian society, where Ravidas' life gives the means to express a variety of social and spiritual themes. At one level, it depicts a struggle between the then prevalent heterodox communities and the orthodox Brahminical tradition. At another level, the legends are an inter-communal, inter-religious struggle with an underlying search and desire for social unity. At yet another level, states Friedlander, the stories describe the spiritual struggle of an individual unto self.

There is no historical evidence to verify the historicity in these hagiographies, which range from Ravidas's struggle with Hindu Brahmins to his struggle with Muslim Sultan Sikander Lodi. Friedlander states that the stories reflect the social dynamics that influenced the composers of the hagiographies during the 17th- to 20th-century. These are legends where Ravidas is victorious because God intervened with miracles such as making a stone float in water or making river Ganges reverse course and flow upstream.

David Lorenzen similarly states that poetry attributed to Ravidas, and championed by Ravidasi (his followers) from the 17th- through the 20th-century, have a strong anti-Brahminical and anti-communal theme. The legends, suggests Lorenzen, cannot be separated from the power and political situation of this era, and they reflect a strong element of social and religious dissent by groups marginalized during a period when Indian society was under the Islamic rule and later the colonial rule.

Guru Ravidas Quotes in English

The segregation of people into different castes, creeds, and religions isn’t something new in India. It might hurt to admit, but the truth is that it has been a part and parcel of India’s culture since time immemorial, though there have been prophets who have, time and again, tried to lead people in the right path, away from differentiation and immoral distinctions.

One such enlightened being was Guru Ravidass Ji of the 15th century.

Born in the pious land of Varanasi, he was the son of a cobbler, and hence, one among the subalterns who were seen as nothing more than filth by the common mass.

He opposed the myth that caste plays a very important role in establishing the relation with God. On the contrary, he was of the belief that God is omnipresent, and anyone with a clear conscience and “bhakti” can reach God through simple prayers.

He went on to say that it’s people’s “karma” that helps them to attain salvation, and that reading Holy texts was the birth right of everyone.

He openly denounced the notion of a Brahminical society (where the Brahmins are perceived as the supreme beings) and even established Begumpura, a state sans any hierarchical system of caste and creed.

He is a called a “sant” because of being a thinker, a socio-cultural reformer, a traveller, a spiritual figure, and, most important of all, a humanist who dedicated his whole life for the banishment of the treacherous caste-system.

Guru Ravidas said, “If God actually resides inevery human being, then it’s quite futile to segregatepersons on the basis of castes, creeds and other such hierarchical social orders.”

Guru Ravidasji’s poems portray all his feelings and teachings about an egalitarian society in pure words. In fact, these teachings, found in his poems, became the manifesto of the Dalit’s in Punjab. More and more people are resorting to the teachings of Guru Ravidasji and becoming self-professed Ravidasias.

His belief in one God and his unbiased religious poems won him numerous followers. In fact, around 41 of his poems were included in the religious text of the Sikhs, “Adi Granth” or “Guru Granth Sahib”. Those poems were compiled by the fifth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Arjan Dev.

Post the murder of Ramanand Das ji in Vienna in 2009, the association of Guru Ravidasji and the Sikhs broke, and the movement declared themselves as a different religion, known as the Ravidasia religion.

Apart from the Sikhs, Meera bai, a revered figure in Hindu spiritualism, too, is said to have considered Guru Ravidasji as her spiritual Guru.

One of the most astonishing things about Guru Ravidas ji was that in spite of becoming a revered figure in his lifetime, he didn’t give up on his filial job of a “chamar” - a cobbler. It is said that once he was asked by his followers to accompany them for a holy dip in the Ganges the next day, but he declined by saying that he has a pair of shoes to be delivered the same day to a client.

No matter how much we read about him, we won’t be able to understand the true principles of the great leader without a look at one of his poems.So, here’s one for you

Guru Ravidas Quotes in Hindi

“तोही मोही मोही तोही अंतरु कैसा ॥ कनक कटिक जल तरंग जैसा ॥१॥

जउ पै हम न पाप करंता अहे अनंता ॥ पतित पावन नामु कैसे हुंता ॥१॥ रहाउ ॥

तुम्ह जु नाइक आछहु अंतरजामी ॥ प्रभ ते जनु जानीजै जन ते सुआमी ॥२॥

सरीरु आराधै मो कउ बीचारु देहू ॥ रविदास सम दल समझावै कोऊ ॥३॥“

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