saint ravidas rachnaye
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Ravidas was an Indian mystic poet-sant of the Bhakti movement during the 15th to 16th century CE.[3][4] Venerated as a guru (teacher) in the region of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the devotional songs of Ravidas have had a lasting impact upon the bhakti movement. He was a poet-saint, social reformer and a spiritual figure.
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Life
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The details of Ravidas's life are not well known. Scholars state he was born in 1450 CE and died in 1520 CE.[1][8]
Ravidas was born in the village of Seer Goverdhanpur, near Varanasi in what is now Uttar Pradesh, India. His birthplace is now known as Shri Guru Ravidas Janam Asthan. Mata Ghurbinia was his mother, and his father was Raghuram.[9] His parents belonged to a leather-working Chamar community making them an untouchable caste.[3][4] While his original occupation was leather work, he began to spend most of his time in spiritual pursuits at bank of river Ganga .[9] Thereafter he spent most of his life in the company of Sufi saints, sadhus and ascetics.[9]
The text Anantadas Parcai, one of the earliest surviving biographies of various Bhakti movement poets, introduces the birth of Ravidas as follows,[10]
In Banaras, that best of cities, no evil ever visits men.
No one who dies ever goes to hell, Shankar himself comes with the Name of Ram.
Where Sruti and Smriti have authority, there Raidas was reborn,
in the home of a low-caste Shakta, his father and mother were both Chamars.
In his previous birth, he was a Brahmin,
he listened all the time to religious recitation, but did not give up meat.
For this sin, he was born into a low-caste family,
but he remembered his previous birth.
— Anantadas Parcai, 1600 CE, Translated by Winnand Callewaert[10]
Medieval era texts, such as the Bhaktamal suggest that Ravidas was not the disciple of the Brahmin bhakti -poet Ramananda.[5][6] He is traditionally considered as Kabir's younger contemporary.[3]
His ideas and fame grew over his lifetime, and texts suggest Brahmins (members of priestly upper caste) used to bow before him.[4] He travelled extensively, visiting Hindu pilgrimage sites in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and those in the Himalayas. He abandoned saguna (with attributes, image) forms of supreme beings, and focussed on the nirguna (without attributes, abstract) form of supreme beings.[9] As his poetic hymns in regional languages inspired others, people from various background sought his teachings and guidance.[9]
Most scholars believe that Ravidas met Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism.[4] He is revered in the Sikh scripture, and 41 of Ravidas' poems are included in the Adi Granth. These poems are one of the oldest attested source of his ideas and literary works.[3][4] Another substantial source of legends and stories about the life of Ravidas is the hagiography in the Sikh tradition, named Premambodha.[11] This text, composed over 150 years after Ravidas' death, in 1693, includes him as one of the seventeen saints of Indian religious tradition.[11] The 17th-century Nabhadas's Bhaktamal, and the Parcais of Anantadas, both contain chapters on Ravidas.[12] Other than these, the scriptures and texts of Sikh tradition and the Hindu Dadupanthi traditions, most other written sources about the life of Ravidas, including by the Ravidasi (followers of Ravidas), were composed in the early 20th century, or about 400 years after his death.[11]
[13] This text, called the Parcaīs (or Parchais), included Ravidas among the sants whose biography and poems were included. Over time new manuscripts of Parcais of Anantadas were reproduced, some in different local languages of India.[13] Winnand Callewaert notes that some 30 manuscripts of Anantadas's hagiography on Ravidas have been found in different parts of India.[14] Of these four manuscripts are complete, collated and have been dated to 1662, 1665, 1676 and 1687. The first three are close with some morphological variants without affecting the meaning, but the 1687 version systematically inserts verses into the text, at various locations, with caste-related statements, new claims of Brahmins persecuting Ravidas, notes on the untouchability of Ravidas, claims of Kabir giving Ravidas ideas, ridicules of nirguni and saguni ideas, and such text corruption:[15]