A great Sant from Gujarat and Rajasthan : Sant Dadu Dayal

Phalgun Shuddha Ashtami, Kaliyug Varsha 5111

By V Sundaram, Retd. IAS Officer

I have been inspired to write this article on SANT DADU DAYAL (1544—1603) of Gujarat and Rajasthan by seeing the entry on 22-2-2010 in the SANATAN ALMANAC (Hindu Calendar rooted in Sanatana Dharma) published by Sanatan Sanstha in Goa. The entry on this date relates to ‘Dadu Dayal Jayanthi, Rajasthan, Gujarat’.

This great Hindu Calendar of Sanatan Sanstha is a veritable Hindu Encyclopedia. It is a spiritual power station of our timeless Hindu tradition. It is a storage warehouse of the most precious jewels of Hinduism. It is a Hindu Library; a great Hindu Amphitheatre; a Hindu Museum; a Hindu Hall of Timeless Archives; a seat of Hindu Justice and above all a seat of Informal Hindu People’s Government. This beautiful Hindu calendar rooted in Sanatana Dharma is now available in five languages–Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and English. I understand efforts are afoot to bring out this Hindu calendar in two more languages–Tamil and Malayalam. It is absolutely necessary in the larger national interest of promotion of Hindu Unity and Hindu Solidarity to bring out this calendar in all the major languages of India without any further delay. I offer my reverential salutations to Guruji H.H.Bhaktaraj Maharaj and his chosen disciple Guruji Dr.Jayant Balaji Athavale for giving us all the blessing of seeing and using this Hindu Calendar everyday.

DADU DAYAL JAYANTHI falls today (22-2-2010). Dadu Dayal (1544-1603) was a great saint from Gujarat who spent the best part of his spiritual life in Rajasthan. Consequently he has thousands of devotees both in Gujarat and Rajasthan who worship him with great reverence and devotion. "Dadu" means brother, and "Dayal" means "the compassionate one".

Very few authentic details relating to the early life of Dadu Dayal ji Maharaj are available. Born in Ahmedabad in 1544, he made Rajasthan his home.  Like Saint Kabir, Dadu came from one of the many lower artisan castes. It is said that Dadu was a foster son of Lodhi Ram, a Naga Brahmin of Ahmedabad, who had found the infant floating on the waves of the Sabarmati river in 1545. Dadu Dayal lived in the Jaipur region of Rajasthan, most probably as a pinjari, a cotton carder. He married and had a family of two sons and two daughters. He attained Samadhi in Naraina in Jaipur district in 1603. Emperor Akbar is said to have been one of his followers. 

Dadu Dayal is one of the major representatives of the Nirguna Sant traditions in Northern India.  He gathered around himself a group of followers, which became known as the Dadu-panth in his own lifetime. This organization has continued in Rajasthan to the present-day, and has been a major source of early manuscripts containing songs by the North Indian saints.

Dadu ji had 100 disciples who followed his teachings and attained salvation. He instructed an additional 52 disciples to set up ashrams, known as 'Thambas' around the region to spread the Lord's word.

Five thambas are considered sacred by the followers, namely, Naraina, Bhairanaji, Sambhar, Amer, and Karadala (Kalyanpura). Followers of these thambas then spread and set up other places of worship.

Shri Dadu Dham Bhairana, which lies in the secluded hilly tract of Bichoon district in the Jaipur division of Rajasthan, has become a sacred place of pilgrimage for lakhs of devotees of Saint Dadu Dayal Ji Maharaj from Haryana. The devotees come from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and other parts of the country. They hold the place in reverence. The remaining part of the story relating to the eternal importance of Bhairana in the life of Daduji Maharaj can now be told.

The ancient Bhairana hill, which is situated amidst exquisite natural surroundings, has been the hermitage of many saints and seers since times immemorial. It is said that at the pressing solicitations of Uddhava Bhagat, a prominent resident of Bhairana, on one occasion Daduji Maharaj himself made a brief visit to Bhairana during which time he intuitively and instantly realised the spirit of the adorable sanctity of this ancient abode of saints. Later at the time of his departure from the world in 1603, Daduji instructed his disciple-saints at Naraina thus: “After my demise, take my body to the Bhairana hill and then leave it there at the spot in its deep gorge. Hence forward, it shall be known as our sanctum-sanctorum and it shall continue to be a place of worship for saints and sadhus for all times to come in the future as well.”

Accordingly, when Dadu Ji Maharaj breathed his last on in 1603, his body was taken in a palanquin from Naraina to Bhairana and placed there in its gorge by thousands of his disciple-saints. When they were engaged in a discussion regarding the last rites to be performed, a supernatural incident is said to have occurred all of a sudden. Tila Ji, a disciple-saint of Dadu Ji Maharaj, saw his guru standing at the gate of a cave near the hilltop. He brought it to the notice of others too. Instantly Daduji Maharaj spoke “Satya Ram” to all and then vanished into the cave. According to the legend and tradition, the palanquin also disappeared and only some flowers were left there. The devotees had to remain contented with performing the last rites with those flowers at that site where now stands a large memorial, which is sacred to the Dadu-panthis.

The place is now popularly known as Dadu Khol or Dadu Ganga where ashes of saints, sadhus and other devotees of the Dadu cult are scattered at this sacred spot very much like the immersion of the ashes of the Hindus in the River Ganga at Haridwar.

Shree Dadu Dayal Dham near Kankaria Lake in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Dadupanth even today is a strong movement in the States of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and the adjoining regions.  Daduji belongs to the lineage of Nirguna Sants like Kabir and Guru Nanak. 

The Vaishnava Sant tradition developed in Maharashtra and it focused on devotion to a “Saguna” form of Lord Vishnu or Lord Krishna. Another Sant tradition developed in several parts of Northern India and more particularly in the Punjab which advocated devotion to a ‘Nirguna’ form of the Lord viewed as the ineffable absolute without shape or form, the source and support of the Cosmos, by WHOSE GRACE beings are liberated from the cycle of birth and death. Kabir, Guru Nanak, Meera Bai, Ravidas and Dadu Dayal belonged to this Nirguna Sant tradition.

Dadu Dayal was a great poet-mystic and spiritual Master of Divine Light, Sound, and Nirguna Bhakti from Rajasthan in the lineage of Guru Kabir.  Dadu alludes to the bliss of Sahaja in his songs. Much of the imagery used in his songs is similar to that used by Kabir, and similar also to that used by the earlier Sahajiya Buddhists and Nath yogis. Dadu's compositions were recorded by his disciple Rajjab and are known as the Dadu Anubhav Vaani, a compilation of 5,000 verses. His songs are in a Hindi dialect known as Braj Bhasa, being a mixture of Hindi and Rajasthani. Janagopal another disciple of Dadu Dayal wrote the earliest biography of Dadu.

Translations of Dadu bhajans are quite rare in English. Let me give an English translation of two of the verses of Sant Dadu Dayal titled ‘The Vision of the Beloved’ and ‘An Outer Guru That Is Not An Inner Guru, Not A Qualified Teacher’

We can see the essence of similarity between the above verse and the following verse of Kabir titled ‘Weaving Your Name’. Kabir too was a mystical poet like Sant Dadu Dayal. Kabir belonged to the 15th century. Both Kabir and Sant Dadu Dayal belonged to the Nirguna Sant Tradition.

I would also like to give another example from the same Nirguna Sant Tradition. Ravidas was a Hindu cobbler of 15th century Varanasi. He is remembered for his beautiful hymns and his gentle piety which drew many seeking souls to his shoe shop. I am presenting below a poem by Sant Ravidas titled ‘The City Of God’, Considered one of his most beautiful poems.

Philosophy in India is essentially spiritual. It is the intense spirituality of India, and not any great political structure or social organization that it has developed, that has enabled it to resist the ravages of time and the accidents of history. External invasions and internal dissensions came very near crushing its civilization many times in its history. The Greek and the Scythian, the Persian and the Mughal, the French and the English have by turn attempted to suppress it, and yet it has held its head high. India has not been finally subdued and its old flame of spirit is still burning. Throughout its life it has been living with one purpose. In every age it has fought for truth and against error. The saints and sages of India throughout its long and chequered history have striven for a socio-spiritual reformation of the country. The idea of Plato that philosophers must be the rulers and directors of society has always been practiced in India. The ultimate truths are truths of spirit, and in the light of them actual life has to be refined.

To conclude in the beautiful and sublime words of Dr.S.Radhakrishnan, another great philosopher-King of India: “From the beginning of her history India has adored and idealized, not soldiers and statesmen, not men of science and leaders of industry, not even poets and philosophers who influence the world by their deeds or by their words, but those rare and more chastened spirits whose greatness lies in what they are and not in what they do; men who have stamped INFINITY on the thought and life of the country, men who have added to the invisible forces of goodness in the world. They are the saints and sages, the sants, the rishis and the maharishis of India. To a world given over to the pursuit of power and pleasure, wealth and glory, they declare the resplendent splendour and transcendental reality of the unseen world and the eternal clarion call of the spiritual life. Their self-possession and self-command, their strange, deep and subtle wisdom, their exquisite kindness and courtesy, their humility and gentleness of soul, their abounding humility, proclaim that the destiny of man is to know himself and thereby further the universal life of which he is an integral element. This supreme ideal has dominated the Indian religious landscape for more than 50 centuries.”

Sant Dadu Dayal Maharaj whose Jayanti falls today (22-2-2010) belongs legitimately to this continuous, ancient and unbroken Hindu Tradition.

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