Bhagat Ramanand Ji

Bhagat Ramanand Ji has one hymn in the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, in Basant. He was a Vaishnav teacher of Benares who took disciples without regard to caste, which was the break that made the northern Bhakti movement possible.

The disciples named in the tradition include Kabir Ji, Ravidas Ji, Pipa Ji, Sain Ji and Dhanna Ji, all of whom are in the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Whether all of them were literally his pupils is doubted; the chronology does not work for every pairing.

His hymn describes setting out to worship, being stopped by his own teacher inside himself, and finding that there is nowhere to go.

He is the hinge between the older Vaishnav orders and the sant tradition that runs through to Guru Nanak Dev Ji, and the Guru Granth Sahib Ji contains him and five of his reputed disciples in one volume.

The Basant hymn is the account of an interrupted journey. He sets out with incense and water to worship and is stopped by the recognition that what he is going to find is where he already is.

The dates given for him are fourteenth or fifteenth century, and the tradition that all the northern sants descend from him is later and is not established.

One hymn is his whole presence in the volume, and it is enough to place him at the head of a lineage the rest of the Bhagats belong to.

What we don't know

  • The discipleship claims, several of which are chronologically impossible.

Where to check this

  1. Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Basant. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji (searchable text and translations) ↗

Named but not linked. These are real, findable documents. This project has not consulted them for this page.

  • Standard scholarship on the Ramanandi sampradaya.

This page has not yet been read through by the editor. Treat it with more caution than the rest.

How this page was written. The text is compiled from the standard published histories and reference works, not from a document held in hand. Nobody from this project has visited the place or read the archive. The list above is where a reader can go to check it, not a record of what was consulted line by line. Dates and figures are the received account. If you hold something better, write in and it will be corrected.

This is one of 65 accounts in Before the Gurus, the chapter of this site covering the region before 1469, from the Indus cities to the Lodhis.