The Dadu Panth (Dadupanthis)

Dadu Dayal’s life in brief

W. G. Orr (1947) gives the traditional account of Dadu’s life from Jangopal’s “Dadu Janmalila”, which he takes to have been written soon after Dadu’s death. In it Dadu was born at Ahmedabad in VS 1601 (1544 CE); at eleven an aged holy man blessed and instructed him, and at eighteen he left home for a life of devotion. After six years of wandering between Gujarat and Rajasthan he settled at Sambhar at the age of twenty-five, then lived fourteen years with his family at Amber, met Akbar by tradition (VS 1642, 1584–85 CE), and came to Naraina in VS 1659 (1602 CE), where he died in VS 1660 (1603 CE).

Orr writes that the birth year 1544 is probably right, and that his death in 1603 at fifty-nine was not something his disciples were likely to mistake; Dadu’s close ties with Sambhar, Amber and Naraina are fully established by local tradition. After his death the disciples carried his body to the hill of Bhairana, about twelve miles away. His elder son Garibdas took the seat at Naraina, but according to Orr soon gave up the office and spent his life in prayer and song until his death in 1636; the Naraina seat then stayed in the line of the younger son, Miskindas.

Dadu’s teaching

John Traill (1911), from the Dadu Vani, writes that Dadu rejected caste and caste marks, image worship, pilgrimages and ritual bathing, and said again and again that he was neither Hindu nor Musalman, belonged to none of the six schools of philosophy, and loved the merciful God. According to Bhandarkar (1913) the only mode of worship Dadu taught was japa, the repetition of the name of Rama; his sect did not worship images of Rama and built no temples, and his teaching resembles Kabir’s. According to Traill, Dadu describes God as one, unchanging, formless and present everywhere, and his longest poem is the chapter on “Viraha”, separation, in which the soul longs to meet God.

The Dadu Vani and worship in the Dadudwara

According to Orr, the tradition is that Dadu did not write his poems down himself; his sayings were recorded and memorised by disciples, among whom Rajjab, Tila, Mohan the scribe, Jagannath and Santdas are named in particular. In Rajjab’s edition the sakhis are grouped by subject into angas (chapters); this form is called the “Angabandhu Bani”. The Vani has two parts: the sakhis (couplets) in 37 angas, and songs set to ragas. The oldest manuscript Orr saw is dated VS 1718 (1661 CE), and its text differs little from the printed copies of today.

According to Orr, in a Dadudwara the Vani, resting on a cushion, takes the place of the image in a Hindu temple. Arati is held morning and evening: in the morning the invocation and chosen passages of the Vani are recited, and in the evening come prostration, the arati passages of the Vani, songs of Sundardas, and a final prostration. In the Naraina temple only a very old manuscript of the Vani is seen; beneath it Dadu’s robe is kept, and according to Farquhar Dadu’s sandals and clothes are worshipped there. In the temple grounds stands the khejri tree in whose shade Dadu passed away; Orr writes that no Dadupanthi leaves without bowing there. According to Orr no secret mantra is given at initiation into the panth; the invocation of the Vani and twenty-four names of God are taught.

The branches of the panth

According to Traill (1911) the panth has two classes: the lay followers, who may marry and follow any proper calling, and the sadhus, who give themselves to teaching the Vani. According to Farquhar the householders are called “sevaks”, and the name “Dadupanthi” is kept for the ascetics. Traill and Farquhar list five branches of sadhus, and Orr writes that these distinctions are not of belief but of place and way of life, and not wholly separate from one another; the one real divide has been between the fighting Nagas and the other sadhus.

Khalsa: sadhus attached to the original Dadudwara at Naraina or to the thambhas founded by Dadu’s direct disciples; the head mahant of the whole panth lives at Naraina, where a great fair is held every year (Traill); according to Orr the Khalsas wear white and have the oversight of the whole order. Uttaradhi: the branch of Banwaridas, who founded his seat at Ratiya in Hisar; according to Orr they carried the panth across the northern border of Rajasthan into Hisar and Rohtak, and took to farming, medicine, teaching and trade. Virakta: sadhus who may not touch money, keep moving and give themselves to study, and who according to Traill teach difficult Sanskrit works along with the Vani. Khaki: ash-smeared sadhus with matted hair who stress austerity and travel in small bands (Traill).

Naga: the sadhus who took up arms. Tradition traces them to Dadu’s disciple Sundardas the elder; according to Orr they were formally organised in the time of Jait Sahib, mahant of Naraina (1693–1732), and first appear in history fighting for Jaipur at the battle of Khatu in 1779. Traill (1911) and Farquhar write that some 20,000 Nagas lived in nine camps on the Jaipur border and defended the state; according to Orr the Jaipur state dispersed their four old jamaats in 1938 and reduced their number to 1,140.

Rajjab and Sundardas

Rajjab (Rajab Ali Khan) came from Sanganer near Amber, and according to Orr he held the highest place in the panth after Dadu. In the common telling he resolved to leave the world on the very day of his wedding, and at Dadu’s word wore a bridegroom’s dress for the rest of his life; Orr notes that the story is not in Jangopal’s account. Rajjab was at Naraina when Dadu died, worked to preserve and arrange Dadu’s Vani, left a Vani of his own, and his followers are called “Rajjabpanthis” or “Rajjabawat”. He died at Sanganer at a great age.

Sundardas the younger, whom Orr calls “the last and youngest, in fame the greatest” of Dadu’s disciples, was born at Dausa in 1596 and met Dadu as a child. According to Orr he studied grammar, poetry and philosophy at Kashi from 1606 to 1625, then settled at Fatehpur in Shekhawati, travelled through North India, Gujarat, the Punjab and the Deccan, and died at Sanganer in 1689. Farquhar calls him a famous Hindi poet; his songs are still sung at the evening arati in the Dadudwaras.

Where the sources differ

• Dadu’s birth and family: tradition (Jangopal’s account) says that a merchant of Ahmedabad found the infant in a basket floating on the river and raised him; Orr writes that the merchant’s name, Lodiram, is not in Jangopal’s poem but appears in later literature. Traill (1911) gives Lodiram as Dadu’s father; Bhandarkar (1913) writes that Dadu worked as a cotton carder at Ahmedabad; and Orr (1947) holds that Dadu’s early life was spent in a Muslim home.
• Dadu’s guru: by tradition the aged man who taught Dadu at the age of eleven was God himself, and he is called “Buddhan”, the Aged One; Sundardas, in his “Guru Sampradaya”, names him “Vriddhananda” and gives him a long line of teachers, which Orr does not think was meant seriously; Orr’s own view is that Buddhan was a historical Muslim saint of Sambhar.
• The number of branches: Traill (1911) and Farquhar (1920) list five; Bhandarkar (1913) gives three classes, the Viraktas, the Nagas and the householders (“Vistaradharins”); Orr (1947) writes that the branches are not separate sects, and that a Virakta or a Khaki may belong to any branch.
• The size of the Dadu Vani: Traill and Farquhar give about 5,000 verses in 37 chapters; according to Orr the sakhis are between two and three thousand couplets in 37 angas, with the songs in ragas besides.
• The number of disciples: tradition counts 152 disciples, 52 of whom founded “thambhas” (seats) (Traill; Farquhar speaks of 52 disciples); Orr accepts that many disciples did found settlements but thinks the count of “fifty-two” reads a later organisation back into early history.
• The founder of the Nagas: Traill calls Sundardas the elder a Rajput of Bikaner who trained his followers as soldiers; Orr writes that nothing is certainly known of him, that his story is of later origin and first appears in Raghavdas’s Bhaktamal (1713).
• The distance of Naraina: according to Traill about 40 miles south-west of Jaipur and 8 miles from Sambhar; according to Farquhar 40 miles from Jaipur; according to Bhandarkar about 20 kos from Jaipur.

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