Ravidas — also called Raidas — was born in Seer Govardhanpur near Varanasi into a family of leather-workers, a community then treated as untouchable. Tradition places his birth on Magh Purnima and gives very long dates; scholars place him in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a younger contemporary of Kabir.
मन चंगा तो कठौती में गंगा“If the heart is pure, the Ganga is in your wooden bowl.”A saying of Ravidas
He followed his family trade, mending shoes, and gave much of what he earned to holy men. Tradition counts him among the disciples of Ramananda. Devotees from every caste came to hear his songs.
A pure heart
A well-known story tells of a Brahmin going to bathe in the Ganga who asked Ravidas to offer a coin to the river for him. Ravidas did not leave his work, but said that if the heart was pure, the Ganga was in the bowl of water at his side — and the river herself, it is said, rose to take the offering. His hymns ask God, "You are the sandal, I am the water", and say that devotion, not caste or ritual, makes a person worthy.
Begampura
In one of his best-known hymns Ravidas describes Begampura, "the city without sorrow" — a place with no tax, no fear, no second or third class, where everyone may go where they please. It has been read as both a spiritual vision and one of the earliest Indian dreams of a just and equal society.
Mirabai and the Guru Granth
Tradition holds that the Rajput princess Mirabai accepted Ravidas as her guru, and some of her songs name him. Forty of his hymns were included by Guru Arjan in the Adi Granth (1604), so they are sung daily in gurdwaras. A large community, the Ravidassia, reveres him as Guru.
How they are remembered
Ravidas Jayanti on Magh Purnima draws hundreds of thousands of devotees to the Shri Guru Ravidas Janam Asthan temple at Seer Govardhanpur in Varanasi, and is celebrated across Punjab and among Ravidassia communities worldwide.
Ekatmata Stotra · Stanza 16
Named in Stanza 16 of the Ekatmata Stotra — the bhakti revolution — Ravidas to Guru Gobind Singh.
देवलो रविदासश्च कबीरश्च गुरुर्नानकः।
नरसी-तुलसीदासौ गुरुगोविन्दसिंहकः॥
Sources: Wikipedia: Ravidas · Wikipedia: Begampura. Written afresh for The Hindu Book; corrections welcome at [email protected].
