The Ramanandi sampradaya (Ramavat)

What the Ramanandi sampradaya is

According to Farquhar, Shri Vaishnavas worship all the avatars of Vishnu, but Ramananda and his disciples worshipped Rama and Sita and their attendants alone; the North Indian habit of calling the Supreme “Ram” is traced to them. According to Grierson, two principles ran through Ramananda’s teaching: perfect bhakti is perfect love directed to God, and all servants of God are brothers.

According to Grierson and Bhandarkar, Ramananda did not let caste decide whom he accepted as a disciple; his well-known disciples are said to include Pipa the Rajput, Kabir the weaver, Sena the barber, Dhanna the Jat, Raidas the leather-worker and a woman, Padmavati. Farquhar adds that this freedom applied to religious life; Ramananda did not try to change caste as a social order.

History in brief

By North Indian tradition Ramananda was born at Prayag into a Kanyakubja Brahmin family, his first name was Ramadatta, and he went to Varanasi to study. There he became a disciple of Raghavananda, a teacher in the line of Ramanuja, who initiated him and named him “Ramananda”. Tradition tells that when he returned from a long pilgrimage his fellow disciples objected over the rules of food, and Raghavananda allowed him to found his own path. Ramananda lived at Panchganga Ghat in Varanasi.

Ramananda preached in the spoken language, and his followers composed their songs in the dialects of Hindi. According to Grierson little of Ramananda’s own writing survives; according to Farquhar one hymn of his is found in the Sikh scripture. Separate panths also grew up in the names of his disciples Kabir, Raidas and Sena.

Grierson and Farquhar count Tulsidas (1532–1623) as a Ramanandi. According to Farquhar his guru Narahari stood sixth in line from Ramananda; Tulsidas began the Ramcharitmanas at Ayodhya in 1574 and finished it in Varanasi. Farquhar also writes that Tulsidas had been a Smarta Brahmin and that his poem shows deep reverence for Shiva. Nabhadas, author of the Bhaktamal, was according to Grierson in the line of Anantananda, Ramananda’s first disciple.

Beliefs and practice

By tradition the Rama mantra was given by Shri Rama himself to Sita, by Sita to Hanuman, and then came through Brahma, Vasishtha and a line of teachers to Ramananda; this order is given in Anantanandacharya’s “Shri Rama-mantra-raja-parampara Stotra”, which calls the tradition the “Shri sampradaya”. At initiation the guru gives the disciple the Rama mantra.

The sampradaya’s ascetics are called Vairagis (free of passion); according to Farquhar they are also called Avadhutas, and their discipline is less strict than that of Shankara’s Dashanami sannyasis. According to Grierson almost the only strict duty laid on Ramananda’s followers was hospitality to wandering holy men. Farquhar writes that at the Prayag Kumbh of 1918 only the Dashanami sannyasis matched the Ramanandi Vairagis in number. Many householders who are not initiated into any sampradaya are shaped, in their worship of Rama and Sita, by the tradition of Ramananda and Tulsidas.

Main centres

According to Farquhar the Ramanandi Vairagis have many monasteries in Ayodhya, Varanasi and elsewhere. According to Grierson, Ramananda settled at Panchganga Ghat in Varanasi, where his footprints are still shown. At Ayodhya Tulsidas began the Ramcharitmanas, and according to Farquhar it was his base for preaching devotion to Rama. In Rajasthan, Galta near Jaipur is held to be an old and important seat of the sampradaya.

Where the sources differ

• Ramananda’s date: tradition (cited by Grierson and Bhandarkar) gives birth in 1299 and death in 1410/1411, a life of 111 years that both scholars find improbable; Farquhar, from the dates of his disciples Pipa and Kabir, gives about 1400–1470, and Britannica also c. 1400–1470.
• Link with Ramanuja: followers and the Bhaktamal place Ramananda fifth in Ramanuja’s line; according to Britannica some scholars, and in the early 20th century some Ramanandis themselves, have questioned the link. Farquhar holds that some tie to the Shri Vaishnavas is certain, but given the differences in mantra, tilak and food rules, little more can be said.
• Philosophy: Grierson writes that the philosophy is Ramanuja’s, and Bhandarkar calls Raghavananda a teacher of Vishishtadvaita; according to Farquhar there is no direct evidence for this, and advaita language recurs among the saints inspired by Ramananda.
• Chief disciples: Grierson, following the Bhaktamal, lists twelve (Anantananda, Sukhananda, Surasurananda, Narahariyananda, Pipa, Kabir, Bhavananda, Sena, Dhanna, Raidas, Padmavati, Surasari); Bhandarkar gives thirteen names, including Yogananda and Galavananda but not Surasari. Bhandarkar also writes that Ramananda’s name does not occur in the works of Kabir that he had seen.
• Mantra: Farquhar gives the Ramanandi mantra as “Om Ramaya namah”, writes that the Shri Vaishnava mantra is “Om namo Narayanaya”, and calls the claim that Ramanuja’s mantra was also “Om Ramaya namah” an old error. According to Grierson, “Om Ramaya namah” was the mantra Raghavananda gave Ramananda, and Ramananda’s own initiatory formula was the words “Shri Rama”.
• Tulsidas: Grierson and Farquhar count him a Ramanandi; Farquhar also writes that he had been a Smarta Brahmin worshipping the five gods and that his poem contains devotion to Shiva and advaita elements. Bhandarkar writes that Tulsidas neither founded a sect nor set out a definite Vedanta doctrine.

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