Ascetic and Mendicant orders: Punjab, 1883
This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on Lahore: Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees |
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The Ascetic and Mendicant orders
I now turn to the consideration of that section of the community which is commonly included under the generic term of Faqir. I must first point out that our figures, though representing with fair accuracy the total numbers of this class, are wholly imperfect so far as the details are concerned. The divisional offices included the various orders under the general term, but that was easily remedied. I have had them picked out again, and have given the numbers to be added on this account to the figures of Table VIIIA in each case in the following paragraphs. But the real reason of the failure of our figures to show details is, that the great mass of these faqirs entered the name of their order not under tribe but under sect ; and as we were forbidden to tabulate any sects except Shiah, Sunni, Wahabi, and Farazi, the details were not worked out at all.
If I had known how largely this had been the case, I should not have tabulated separately even the few orders that are shown in Table VIIIA, as the figures are utterly misleading ; and for this reason I do not give details of Faqirs in my Abstract on The figures for Faqirs comprehend at least three if not four very different classes of people. First come the religious orders pure and simple. Many of these are of the highest respectability ; the members are generally collected in monasteries or shrines where they live quiet peaceful lives, keeping open house to travellers, training their neophytes and exercising a wholesome influence upon the people of the neighbourhood. Such are many at least of the Bairagis and Gosains. Some of the orders do not keep up regular monasteries, but travel about begging and visiting their disciples ; though even here they generally have permanent head quarters in some village, or at some shrine or temple where one of their order officiates. So too the monasterial orders travel about among their disciples and collect the offerings upon which they partly subsist. There is an immense number of these men whose influence is almost wholly for good. Some few of the orders are professedly celibate, though even among them the mle is seldom strictly observed ; but most of the Hindu orders are divided into the Sanyogi and Viyogi sections of which the latter only takes vows of celibacy, while among the Musalman orders celibacy is seldom even professed. Such however as live in monasteries are generally if not allways celibate.
The professed ascetics are called Sadhs if Hindu and Pirs if Musalman. The Hindus at any rate have their neophytes who are undergoing probation before admission into the order, and these men are called Chela. But besides these both Hindu and Musalman ascetics have their disciples, known respectively as Scwak and Mnrtd, and these latter belong to the order as much as do their spiritual guides ; that is to say a Kayath clerk may be a Bairagi or Pathan soldier a Chishti, if they have committed their spiritual direction respectively to a Bairagi and Chishti guru and pir. Now it is not probable that such men have returned the name of the order as their caste, though this may occasionally have happened ; and it is certain that none of them have returned themselves as Faqir.
Thus so far the orders are made up of men who have voluntarily entered them, renouncing caste and worldly pursuits. But these men marry and have bindi or carnal children ; while their nadi or spiritual children, the chela s just mentioned, may after admission to the order return to their homes. And it often happens that the descendants whether carnal or spiritual of a Bairagi, for instance, will grow into a separate caste known by the name of Bairagi, but having no connection whatever save by origin with the order of that name. Such men would return their caste as Bairagi, and will have been included under Faqir. How far this custom is general I cannot say ; but we have just discussed one instance of it in the case of the Chisti of Montgomery, and I know of villages held by Bairagis under precisely similar circumstances in Karnal.
I have said that many of the members of these orders are pious, respectable men whose influence is wholly for good. But this is far from being the case with all the orders. Many of them are notoriously pro fligate debauchers, who wander about the country seducing women, extorting alms by the threat of curses, and relying on their saintly character for protection. Still even these men are members of an order which they have deliberately entered, and have some right to the title which they bear. But a very large portion of the class who are included under the name Faqir are ignorant men of low caste, without any acquaintance with even the general outhnes of the religion they profess, still less with the special tenets of any particular sect, who borrow the garb of the regular orders and wander about the country living on the alms of the credulous, often hardly knowing the names of the orders to which the external signs they wear would show them to belong. Such men are mere beggars, not ascetics ; and though their numbers are unfortunately large, we have no means of separating them. Besides the occupations described above, the Faqir class generally have in their hands the custody of petty shrines, the menial service of village temples and mosques, the guardianship of cemeteries, and similar semi-religious offices. For these services they often receive small grants of land from the village, by cultivating which they supplement the alms and offerings they receive.
The subject of the religious orders of the Hindus is one of the greatest complexity ; the cross divisions between and the different meanings of such words as Jogi, Sanyasi, and Sadh are endless ; and no one who was not deeply versed in the sectarian system of Hinduism could hope to deal with the subject fully. I shall therefore not attempt to do more than jot down a few rough notes on some of the most important orders. The student will find a mass of information on the subject in Wilson's Sects the Hindus s while Trumpp in his introduction to his Adi Granth, and Cunningham in an Appendix to his History of the Sikhs give many particulars about the Sikh sects and orders.
The Hindu orders of ascetics
The Bairagl
Caste No. 53 Bairagi, or as it is more correctly spelled Vairagi, signifies any one devoid of passion. But the word is usually applied in the Panjab to a regular order of Vaishnava devotees, said f o have been founded by Sri Anand, the 12th disciple of Ramanand. They are divided into several sections, among which may be mentioned the Ramanandi who worship Ram Chandra, the Radhahalabhi who especially affect the worship of Radha the wife of Krishna, the Nimanandi whose chief object of reverence is Salig Ram, and the Ramannji who adore Mahadeo ; though these last two would appear to be Saiva rather than Vaishnava. They are for the most part collected in monasteries and are an exceedingly respectable class of faqirs, but many of the wandering mendicants also call themselves Bairagis. Thoir distinctive mark is a string of brown crinkled beads. They are most numerous in the Jamna districts, though to the figures of Table VNI A must be added 2,238 males and 1,621 females who returned themselves as faqirs and who are to be found in almost equal numbers in the Amritsar, Lahore, and Firozpur districts . The Bairagis of the monasteries are often but not always celibate. But there are in Karnal, and perhaps in other parts of the Province, villages held by descendants of both the children and the disciples of the Bairagi monks, who have dropped their original castes and are now known as Bairagis, though they have no longer any connection with the order.
The Sanyasi
CasteNo. 95 The word Sanyasi really means nothing more than the ascetic stage through which every Brahman should properly pass. But as commonly used it corresponds among the followers of Siva with Bairagi among the followers of Vishnu, and is as indefinite in its meaning. It is indeed specially applied to the Tridandi Ramanujas, a Vaishnava sect ; but it is also used to include all Saiva classes of ascetics except perhaps the Jogi. In the Panjab the word is commonly used to denote the followers of Shankar Acharj, and would include the Gosdins, The Sanyasis are said to be ordinarily buried in a sitting posture, and not burnt. To the figures of Table VNI A must be added 1,824 males and 727 females, about half of whom are in the Amritsar and another quarter in the Lahore division. The Sanyasis, so far as our figures go, seem specially to affect the districts of the eastern sub-montane.
The Gosain
Caste No. 102 The Gosain is a Saiva order corresponding in many ways with the Bairagis among Vaishnavas. Like them the Gosains are often collected in monasteries, while many of them officiate as priests in the temple of Siva. They are also like the Bairagis one of the most respectable of the Hindu orders. They are very commonly but not at all necessarily celibate. To the figures of the table must be added 1,368 males and 594 females, almost all in the Hissar district. The Gosain appears to be almost confined to the South-eastern districts.
The Sadh
Caste No. 155 Sadh is properly nothing more than the Hindu equivalent of the Musalmdn word F(r ; or rather Sadh applies only to a Hindu devotee, while Pir includes any Mahomedan holy man. But the word is especially applied to a set of Hindu Unitarians who are chiefly found in the Upper Ganges-Jamna doah, from Farnikhabad upwards, The sect was founded by one Birbhan some 200 years ago. The Sadhs do not smoke, and affect great personal cleanliness, and their religious ceremonies consist in eating together. It is a sect rather than an order and the Jats of a large village in Karnal are Sadhs by sect, though Jats by caste, {See Willson's Hindu Sects, pages 227^). To the figures of the tables must be added 100 men and 13 women, mostly in the Hissar district. Our figures show Sadhs chiefly for the Dehli district and Rohtak, which would appear to connect them with the Sadh sect ; yet the paucity of females show that the figures refer to a religious order. The priests of the menial classes are often called Sadh, the Chamarwa Sadhs of the Chamfirs, or the Charandasi Sadhs and the Kabfrbansi Sadlis of the Jalahas.
The Jogi
The Jogi will presently be discussed under the head of Minor Professional Castes. It will there be explained that the word originally means nothing more than one who has by the practice of mental abstraction acquired the power of clairvoyance and similar faculties. but besides the low-class Jogi Rawal there described there are two sets of exceedingly respectable Jogi Faqirs, the Kanphatta who pierce their ears and the Augar who do not. The former are priests of Siva and are generally to be found in Shivalas. The latter too are Saiva, but are more secular. The Kanphatta is also called Darshana. The figures for Jogi given in Table VNI A include 3,658 males and 1,750 females of the Kanphatta, and 1,720 males and 1,273 females of the Augar clan, but these figures are of course exceedingly incomplete. The jogis bury their dead in a sitting posture.
The Aghori or Aghorpanthi
Is an order which has happily almost died out. My figures show 816 only ; but I have been told by an intelligent native that he can remember that in his yonth they were common objects, wandering about the streets stark naked leading a jackal by a string, smeared with blood and human ordure, and carrying the same substances in a skull with which to bespatter him who refused them alms. Not two years ago one of these wretches was caught at Rohtak in the ;act of devonring the body of a newly buried child which he had dug out.'
The Sikh orders of ascetics -The Suthra Shahi
Caste No 163 This order was founded by a Brahman called Sucha under the auspices of Guru Har Rai.They are now numerous and widely distributed, though our figures, to which nnist be added 112 males and 15 females, show only a small number scattered through the Sikh tract. They are notorious for gambling, thieving, drunkenness, and debauchery, and lead a vagabond life, begging and singing songs of a mystic nature. They wear ropes of black wool on the head and neck, and beat two small black sticks together as they beg. Although a Sikh order, they are all entered as Hindus, use the Hindu Hlak or sectarian mark, and follow the Hindu rites throughout. They were founded before the time of Guru Govind, which probably accounts for their calling themselves Hindus. They genrally add Shah to their names, Trumpp says of them there is no order or regular discipline among them, and profligates and vagabonds join thv'^'n. _^ They are a public nuisance and disavowed bv the Sikhs.
The Udasi
Caste No. 84 The Udasi or Nanakputra founded by Sri Chand, the eldest son of Baba Nanak, and excommunicated by the seclnd Guru, Amr Das. They again, being founded before the time of Guru Govind, have for the most part returned themselves as Hindus. To the figures of Tabic VNI A must be added 7,127 males and 1,944 females. They are almost confined to the Sikh tract. They are for the most part celibate, and the naked section or Udasi Nanga are always so. They practise Hindu rites, wear the filalc or sect mark, and reject the Granth of Guru Govind but revere the Adi Granth of Baba Nacak. They are hardly recognised as Sikhs. They are said to bear a high character, and are sometimes collected in monasteries, though not usually so. Many live at home, engage in worldly pursuits, and differ little from their neighbours. So at least says Trumpp.
The Nirmala
Caste No. 152 The Nirmalas or ' without stain ' were originally strict Sikhs and followers of Guru Govind. They wore white clothes, lived chiefly at the centres of Sikhism, and had considerable influence in the Sikh councils. But they have of late years relapsed into Hinduism, and have taken to wearing red clothes and practising Hindu rites, and tbey are now hardly true Sikhs. The greater part of them, however, have returned themselves as Sikhs. They live almost entirely in monsateries and are almost always celibate. They do not beg, but live on the offerings of the faithful. They have a high reputation for morality, and used to be much respected at Amritsar, where there is a considerable Nirmala community, for purity of morals, though it is said that they are now degenerating. They are governed by a Council known as the Akhara which makes periodical visitations of the Nirmala Societies thoughout the Panjab, and is controlled by a head abbot or Mahant. To the figures of the table must be added 1,587 males and 5OO females, of whom 500 are in Amritsar and 300 in Jalandbar. They are con fined to the Sikh tract. It is said that tne Nirmalas and the Udasis are not unfrequently confused.
The Akali or Nihang
These famous soldier fanatics, who were the Ghazis of the Sikhs, are represented in my tables by a total of 547 which is of cource absurd. They were nihavg or 'reckless' soldiers of the akai or 'Immortal;and Bhula Singh Akali was Ranjit Singh's great leader. The order was founded by Guru Govind in person, and it was they who withstood the attempted innovations of Banda. They wear blue chequered clothes, bangles of steel on the wrist, and quoits of steel on their conical blue turbans, together with miniature daggers, knives, and an iron chain,
' Query. What is the derivation of ogre ?
2 Wilson says they look up to Teg Bahddur, the father of Guru Govind, as their founder; but Trumpp, who is quoted in the text, is more probably right.
Their head-quartors used to bo at Amritsar, where they assumed the direction of religious ceremonies and the duty of convoking the council of the Khalsa. They were dreaded even by the Sikh Chiefs for their fanaticism and turbidencc, and often level offeringg by force. They were warrior priests, and political rather than religious, and the order is now fast dwindling away. Their - glory
Sikhs, and an Akali who wishes to imply that he is alone will say that ho is ' with 125,000 Khalsa.'
The Diwana Sadh
or "mad saints" wear uncut hair, a necklace of shells, and a very large feather in their turbans. They are chiefly recruited from low casles, and are for the most part married. In their habits they resemble Sikhs, but they revere the Adi Grauth only. My figures show 495 males and 346 females, most of whom are in the Kangra district.
