Ravidas

Ravidas (flourished 14th century?, near Varanasi [now in Uttar Pradesh], India) was a mystic, a poet, and one of the most renowned of the saints of the northern Indian bhakti movement. Thought to have been a contemporary of Kabir, another influential bhakti poet-saint, Ravidas is revered for his devotional poetry, which emphasizes spiritual and social equality and devotion to a formless God accessible to all regardless of caste or social status.

Life and background

Little is known with certainty about Ravidas’s life. He was born near Varanasi, possibly in a village commonly identified as Seer Govardhanpur or an area called Mandua Dih. He belonged to the Chamar community, a caste assigned leather-working occupations and considered “untouchable” under the Hindu caste system before untouchability was formally abolished in India. His beliefs were at odds with prevalent Hindu practices that emphasized ritual-based worship and caste-based hierarchy, and his poetry often mentions his low social position while challenging inequalities arising from this hierarchy.

Ravidas traveled widely throughout northern India, and his charisma, reputation, and egalitarian teachings attracted many followers across regions corresponding to the modern Indian states Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra. However, he drew opposition from Brahmins (members of the priestly class in the Hindu caste system).

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Poetry: First Lines

Social vision and literature

Ravidas’s poems and hymns, called bani s (sayings), form the main source of his social vision and teachings. Some 40 of the poems attributed to Ravidas are included in the Adi Granth (“First Book”), also called Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred scripture of Sikhism, and it is generally accepted that Ravidas met Guru Nanak, the founder and the first Guru of Sikhism. Several other poems and hymns attributed to Ravidas exist, such as 140 amrit banis (nectarine sayings) included in the holy book Amrit Bani Guru Ravidass used by the Ravidassia religion, which emerged out of Sikhism and venerates Ravidas and his teachings.

Ravidas’s banis identify him as a proponent of nirguna bhakti, or devotion to a formless God, and show that he rejected ritual-based practices and caste hierarchies. He taught that purity and sincere devotion, not birth or ritual status, determine one’s closeness to the divine: “Ek mati sab ghat sirjai eike sab kou sarjanhar” (“All are made from the same clay, by the same creator”). Ravidas also presents God as an object of both ultimate devotion and love, exploring faith as a bond between God and devotee:

Prabhuji tum chandan ham pani
Jaaki ang ang baas samaanee
(“My Lord! You are the sandalwood and I am water.
Together we make the sandal paste and fill the body with fragrance.”)

Though these hymns employ a humble tone to posit the devotee as lowly in comparison to God, they also criticize caste hierarchies:

Jaat-paat ke pher mah urjhai rahe sabh log
Mannukhta ku khat hai Ravidas jat ka rog
(“Everyone is trapped in the caste-system.
Ravidas, humanity is being eaten up by the disease called caste.”)

Ravidas also deliberately adopted the dress and symbols traditionally reserved for the priestly caste, such as the janeu (sacred thread worn by Brahmins) and tilak (forehead mark). The appropriation of these religious symbols was a conscious act of defiance to challenge caste-based restrictions on religious expression.

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Legacy

In the 19th and 20th centuries a new religious movement formed around Ravidas. A temple, the Sant Ravidas Janam Asthan, was established in Seer Govardhanpur near Varanasi, popularly believed to be his birthplace. His hymns are regularly recited at this temple, and his birth anniversary is celebrated there as a religious occasion.

In 2010, following tensions with Sikh authorities after the killing of a Ravidassia leader in Vienna, the Ravidassia sect formally separated from Sikhism and declared itself an independent religion. The Ravidassia community adopted the Amrit Bani Guru Ravidass as its holy book and established its own symbols and rituals.

Ravidas’s egalitarian philosophy has also made him a figure of veneration and pride among the Dalit community (referred to as “Scheduled Caste,” a term for a wide range of social groups historically marginalized in Hindu caste society), and some social-reform movements include him in their iconography as a symbol of Dalit consciousness. His significance in Dalit resistance movements is evidenced by the fact that some Dalit groups consider the most influential figure of Dalit social reform, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, as a reincarnation of Ravidas.