1. Richard Burghart interpreted Nabhadas’s Bhaktamal as evidence of “the broadening of the criteria for recruitment into a Vaishnavite sect[,] thereby enabling the sect to compete more effectively for devotees and disciples” in the seventeenth century; see “The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect,” 133. Burghart cites a 1903 commentary on the Bhaktamal, authored by Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad and recently republished by the Tejkumar Press in Lucknow. I discuss an earlier edition of this commentary and the author himself, Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad, in the pages below.

2. Similar ideological tensions between ortodox and nonorthodox were present in other monastic communities, most notably the Dasnami order at the beginning of the twentieth century, though those tensions were not expressed in terms of the hagiography of Shankaracharya. For an example, see Sinha and Saraswati, Ascetics of Kashi, 96–97.

3. While sant has often been translated as “saint,” the two words are distinct in both etymology and meaning; sant is derived from the Sanskrit sat, or “truth,” whereas saint is derived from the Latin sanctus, meaning sacred. Hence a more accurate, though cumbersome, translation for sant would be “truth-exemplar.” For differing interpretations of what constitutes inclusion in the sant genre, see John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer, eds. and trans., Songs of the Saints of India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 3–7; and Karine Schomer, “The Sant Tradition in Perspective,” in Schomer and W. H. McLeod, eds., The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1987), esp. 1–9.

4. Thus van der Veer’s main criticism of Daniel Gold, The Lord as Guru: Hindi Sants in the Northern Indian Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), in the Journal of Asian Studies 47, no. 3 (August 1988): 678–79: “Although the name of Ram is central to sant tradition and Ramanand is often said to be the guru of Kabir, there is no mention of the most important ‘Vaishnava’ ascetic tradition of North India, that of the Ramanandis.”

5. See, for instance, Linda Hess’s introduction to The Bijak of Kabir, ed. and trans. Hess and Shukdev Singh (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986).

6. See Schomer, “The Sant Tradition in Perspective,” 8; and Charlotte Vaudeville, “Sant Mat: Santism as the Universal Path to Sanctity,” in Schomer and McLeod, eds., The Sants, 21.

7. Charlotte Vaudeville, Kabir (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 1:36 n. 3 (see also 113–14).

8. Richard Burghart, “The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect,” 121–39. Burghart approached the life of Ramanand not from the perspective of sant literature, but as an anthropologist interested in Indian monastic communities in general and in the Ramanandi sampraday in particular.

9. This characterization of Ramanand is drawn from John Stratton Hawley, “The Sant in Sur Das,” in Schomer and McLeod, eds., The Sants, 192 and n. 1.

10. Hawley and Juergensmeyer, eds., Songs of the Saints of India, 17.

11. Shabda 41, The Bijak of Kabir, trans. Hess and Singh, 55. Shabda, or “word,” refers to the organizational sequence of Kabir’s verse.

12. See Hess, Introduction to The Bijak of Kabir, 9–13.

13. Darshan 127, cited and translated in K. N. Upadhyaya, Guru Ravidas: Life and Teachings (Dera Baba Jaimal Singh, Punjab: Radha Soami Satsang Beas, 1982), 208.

14. Adi Granth 29, cited in Hawley and Jurgensmeyer, eds., Songs of the Saints of India, 17.

15. David Lorenzen, “Traditions of Non-Caste Hinduism: The Kabir Panth,” Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s., 21, no. 2 (1987): 267. Lorenzen adds here that subsequently “Kabir Panth sadhus have very gradually moved toward caste Hinduism [although] the traditions of the Panth retain a quite separate ‘non-caste’ character.”

16. Ibid., 280. The notion of non-caste Hinduism is in part the result of a long-standing debate between those who view the “Great Tradition” of “caste” Hinduism as the dominant cultural monolith that encompasses all of Hindu society—twice-born, shudra, and untouchable—and those (including Lorenzen) who have attempted to forward an understanding of shudra and untouchable religious experience as the basis for separate and competing ideologies. See also 263–64.

17. This and other kshatriya campaigns are considered in chapters 3 and 4, below.

18. Quoted in R. S. Khare, The Untouchable as Himself, 48. Khare cites Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu, Santapravara Ravidas Saheb [Eminent Saint Ravi Das Sahib], 2 vols. (Lucknow: “Janata’s Welfare Publications” [a pseudonym provided by Khare to shield the identity of the publisher; see 174], 1968).

19. Hawley and Juergensmeyer, eds., Songs of the Saints of India, 9. Hawley cites Julie Womack, “Ravidas and the Chamars of Banaras,” an essay written for the Junior Year Abroad Program of the University of Wisconsin in Benares, 1983.

20. Before the twentieth century, it was generally thought that Ramanand produced little in the way of written or verse compositions from which his life could be reconstructed. After 1921, Swami Bhagavadacharya decided to devote his life to the compilation of traditions regarding the life and work of Ramanand. Bhagavadacharya and the controversies surrounding his efforts are discussed below.

21. The description of the Galta tradition relies on Burghart, “The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect,” esp. 129–31. Galta, it should be noted, figured in the history of Vaishnava soldiering described in the previous chapter.

22. A total of fifty-two gateways were designated at the Galta gathering. Besides the thirty-six originating with Ramanand, twelve emanated from Nimbarka, and the remaining four derived from Madhvacharya and Vishnuswami.

23. Burghart, “The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect,” argues that four from that circle—namely, Kabir, Ravidas, Dhanna, and Sen—had in the meantime gained independent followings, and that this may have contributed to the exclusion of their Ramanandi followers from the sampraday in the early 1700s. See also Parshuram Chaturvedi, Uttari Bharat ki Sant Parampara [The North Indian Sant Tradition], 218–252.

24. Richard Burghart, “Renunciation in the Religious Traditions of South Asia,” Man, n.s., 18, no. 4 (December 1983): 641.

25. Considering his importance, remarkably little is known of Priyadas save that he was a resident of Vrindaban, a disciple of one Manohardas (a follower of the Bengali Chaitanya) and famed for his public narrations of the Nabhadas Bhaktamal. See R. D. Gupta, “Priya Dasa, Author of the Bhaktirasabodhini,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 32, no. 1 (1969): 57–70.

26. See R. D. Gupta, “The Bhaktirasabodhini of Priya Dasa,” Le Muséon 81, no. 3–4 (1968): 554.

27. For some of those stories, see Hawley and Juergensmeyer, eds., Songs of the Saints of India.

28. For an overview of the religious-historical significance of printing presses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Kenneth W. Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 213–15.

29. A similar intellectual reflexivity resulting from the use of print is evident in the performance, recitation, and commentary of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas in cities and towns throughout north India. See Philip Lutgendorf, “Ram’s Story in Shiva’s City: Public Arenas and Private Patronage,” in Sandria Freitag, ed., Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment, 1800–1980 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), 45–49. For a juxtaposition of oral versus print transmission of meaning across generations in the European context, see Roger Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

30. According to J. F. Blumhardt, Catalogue of the Library of the India Office Library, vol. 2, part 3: Hindi, Panjabi, Pashtu, and Sindhi Books (London: India Office Library, 1902), this edition was “translated by Hari Bakhsh Raya from a Hindustani version by Lala Tulsi Ram of the Braj original.”

31. J. F. Blumhardt, Catalogue of the Hindi, Panjabi and Hindustani Manuscripts in the Library of the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1899), 67, referred to the third edition, noting that this commentary was authored by Pratap Sinha, Maharaja of Sidhua (near village Pararona, Muzaffarpur District), and translated into Hindi at the request of his son, Madan Gopal Lal, by one Pandit Kalicharana. In his more detailed consideration, Kailash Chandra Sharma, Bhaktamal aur Hindi Kavya mem Uski Parampara [The Bhaktamal and Its Tradition in Hindi Poetry] (Rohtak: Manthan Publications, 1983), 136, makes note of both the original publication date and that of the twelfth edition, and observes (136–37) that the original author of the commentary was Tulsiram, the translator Pratap Sinha. Sharma makes no reference to Pandit Kalicharana.

32. “The Bhaktamal: text, commentary, and list of names.” The bibliographic details of Bhagvan Prasad’s commentary are less than clear: According to Sharma, Bhaktamal aur Hindi Kavya mem Uski Parampara, 141, the commentary was first published in 1903 in six parts as Bhaktisudhasvadtilak [The Sweet Nectar of Bhakti] by Babu Baldev Narayan, vakil (or pleader) of Kashi. This would appear to be the edition referred to by George Grierson, “Gleanings from the Bhakta-Mala,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1909, 608–9, who notes in 1909, however, that it was “in course of publication.” The edition I have used here was also issued in six parts, in two volumes of three parts each, by the Chandraprabha Press in Kashi, between the years 1903 and 1909. On the inside title page one Baldev Narayan Sinha (described here as vakil of Gaya District) is credited for having arranged the publication of the earlier imprint. R. D. Gupta, “The Bhaktirasabodhini of Priya Dasa,” 552 n. 22, maintains that “this is the oldest printed edition.” Later editions were published by the Naval Kishore Press (1913, 1925) and the Tejkumar Press (1962), both in Lucknow. On the high scholarly regard for the Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad, see Sharma, Bhaktamal aur Hindi Kavya, 142–43, and Grierson, “Gleanings,” 609, 623.

33. Shri Bhaktamal, 2:420 and 432, respectively. Bhagvan Prasad pointed out that the nineteenth-century Indologist Horace Hayman Wilson and other English scholars mistakenly placed Ramanand fifth in descent from Ramanuja, whereas according to the Bhaktamal he was twentieth (see also 414). Grierson includes this correction in his article “Ramanandis, Ramawats,” in Hastings, ed., Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics; see esp. 571.

34. Bhagvan Prasad cites Tapasviram, along with other bibliographic sources, in Shri Bhaktamal, 2:426.

35. For more on Tapasviram’s scholarship and poetry, see Shivpujan Sahay, Hindi Sahitya aur Bihar [Hindi Literature and Bihar] (Patna: Bihar Rashtrabhasha Parishad, 1963), 2:5–7, esp. n. 3. Sahay (6 n. 3) renders the title of the work in question Rumaze Mehovafa. Tulsiram, as noted above, was the author of Bhaktamalpradipan.

36. Shri Ramanand Yashavali was published in 1879 by the Suryya Prabhakar Press, Kashi. There is a great deal of mytho-geographic symmetry here that should not pass unremarked. The Agastyasamhita (or hymns of Agastya) was of central importance in the early development of the “Rama cult” and, consequently, of Ayodhya as a pilgrimage center; see Hans Bakker, Ayodhya (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1986). Agastya himself is thought to have been a Vedic sage who figured in both the Ramayana and Mahabharata and, according to a strict reading of those and other Sanskrit texts, to have been responsible for rendering the southern peninsula hospitable for Arya religion and culture; see, e.g., K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar, 3d ed. (Madras: Oxford University Press, 1966), 68–81. The Ramanandi controversy of 1918–21, which originated in Ayodhya, concerned the question of whether Ramanand should be regarded as the sole originator of bhakti in the north or continue to be regarded as merely the northern, Gangetic transmitter of southern bhakti and all that it implied. The former, Ramanand-centered position could be read as the expression of northern dissatisfaction with the important fact that the two theologians thought to have straddled the horizon of religious thought in post-Vedic India were Shankara and Ramanuja, products of the culture and civilization of the southern peninsula. That the final debate over the question of Ramanand took place in 1921 in Ujjain, on the edge of the south, further adds to the subcontinental scope of the controversy.

37. Reprint, New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1983, 1987. See pp. 94–95.

38. Shri Bhaktamal, 2:414–32.

39. “Shri” is an honorific that precedes the name; 108 is an auspicious number that indicates the number of times the prefix “shri” occurs before the name, or, in other words, the extent of veneration due the individual.

40. This point has also been noted by Baldev Upadhyay, in Vaishnava Sampradayom ka Sahitya aur Siddhant [The Literature and Philosophy of the Vaishnava Sampraday] (Varanasi: Chaukhamba Amarbharati Prakashan, 1978), 247.

41. Bhagvan Prasad, Shri Bhaktamal, 2:415. Bhagvan Prasad’s phrasing echoes the early seventeenth-century verse of Nabhadas:

(6)After him [Ramanuja] came Ramanand in whom every blessing took form.
(7)The splendor of Ramanuja’s doctrine spread like nectar all over the world.

42. Of or having to do with smriti, remembered knowledge (that contained in the dharmashastra texts), which is based on sruti, revealed knowledge (that contained in the Vedic texts).

43. This mantra was either om ramaya nama (in the name of Ram) or om namo narayanaya (in the name of Narayan). After 1918, the former would indicate allegiance to the radical Ramanandi faction, the latter to the Ramanuji faction.

44. Bhagvan Prasad, Shri Bhaktamal, 2:421–22.

45. To describe Ramanand’s codisciples, Bhagvan Prasad employed the term achari guru-bhai, which can be translated as “virtuous (or overly virtuous) guru-brothers.” More importantly, the term “achari” is quite close to “acharya,” a designation that prior to 1921 referred to a class of powerful Ramanandis who claimed high status and special privileges within the sampraday and, consequently, maintained strict commensal separations from the rank and file. They would be the target of prolonged criticism by a radical wing of the sampraday after 1921 and would be referred to as “Ramanujis.” See the section in this chapter entitled “The Rise of Radical Ramanandis.”

46. On the significance of commemoration as a way of extending the past into the future, see Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomonological Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 216–57 and passim. I am grateful to my colleague Vera Schwarcz for this reference.

47. See Shivnandan Sahay, Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad-ji ki Sachitra Jivani [An Illustrated Biography of Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad] (Patna: Khadgavilas Press, 1908), 5–6. This differs only slightly from a guru parampara given in Bhagvan Prasad’s Shri Bhaktamal, 2:414, which places Ramanand twenty-first in descent from Ramanuja, who is described here as “Shri 108 Swami-ji”. That Bhagvan Prasad was referring to Ramanuja is confirmed in a passage on the following page (415) in which Ramanand is described as a vehicle for the continued spread of “the glory of the auspicious path of Shri 108 Ramanuja.”

48. Buchanan, Bihar and Patna, 1811–1812, 1:373. Jagannath Das’s remarks should be contrasted with a version Buchanan recorded further east in Purnia District that described Ramanand as a brahman from Ayodhya who traveled south to study under Ramanuja. See Purnea, 1809–1810, 274.

49. J. N. Farquhar, “The Historical Position of Ramanand,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, April 1920, 185–92.

50. Farquhar’s view reflects the difficulty scholars have had in trying to date Ramanand. He also advances the interesting hypothesis that Ramanand was in fact a member of a now extinct Ramchandra-worshipping order of South India. This argument has been rejected by a number of scholars, most notably perhaps by Shrikrishan Lal, “Swami Ramanand ka Jivan Charitra” [A Biography of Swami Ramanand], in Pitambar Datt Barthwal, ed., Ramanand ki Hindi Rachnaen [The Hindi Works of Ramanand] (Kashi: Nagari Pracharani Sabha, 1955), 40–42.

51. See Farquhar’s clarification of “The Historical Position of Ramanand” and his response to critics in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, July 1922, 373–80.

52. See the Grierson collection at the Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library, London. The letters are catalogued under Mss.Eur.E.223.XI.93: “Correspondence with Sita Ram.” Rai Bahadur and Lala are prefixes connoting a respected status in society.

53. Sitaram (Lala), Ayodhya ka Itihas [History of Ayodhya] (Prayag [Allahabad]: Hindustani Academy, 1932).

54. Sita Ram to George Grierson, 29 June 1920, Grierson Papers. The substance of this letter was eventually published in the “miscellaneous communications” portion of the April 1921 issue of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

55. Grierson, “Ramanandis, Ramawats,” 570, was of the opinion, however, that the “shri mantra” of the sampraday was “om ramaya nama.”

56. Farquhar, “The Historical Position of Ramanand,” 191.

57. Grierson was also intimate with Indian Sankritists, particularly in Bihar: a full quarter century after his departure from the subcontinent and retirement to England, the Bihar and Orissa Sanskrit Association conferred upon him the title of “vagisha,” or savant. See Grierson to Dr. Bari Chand Shastri (acknowledging the honor), 30 September 1921, Grierson Papers.

58. I utilize the term Shri Vaishnava to refer to Ramanuja-oriented Vaishnavas; however, many who were to be distinguished after 1921 as either Ramanandis or Ramanujis would claim the title. Likewise, prior to 1918–21 the term Ramanandi would have indicated individuals who would later be distinguished as either Ramanuji or Ramanandi. Shri, incidentally, is an honorific, akin to “revered.”

59. Sahay, Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad-ji ki Sachitra Jivani, 35.

60. Buchanan, Bihar and Patna, 1811–1812, 1:373–74.

61. Burton Stein, “Social Mobility and Medieval South Indian Sects,” in J. Silverberg, ed., Social Mobility in the Caste System in India (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), 92.

62. GOI, Census of India, 1911, vol. XV: United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, part 1: “Report,” subsidiary table 8-A.

63. van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 102–3; my account of the controversy relies in part on van der Veer’s description (101–7), though I disagree on some minor points of interpretation. Additional details come from Swami Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari Anantshrivibhushit JagadguruRamanandacharya Shriswami Bhagavadacharya ji Maharaj” [The Vigilant Protector of the Shri Sampraday, the Forever-shri-adorned (i.e., infinite shri) JagadguruRamanandacharya Shriswami Bhagavadacharya Ji Maharaj], in Swami Hariacharya, ed., Shrisampraday Manthan [The Stirrings of the Shrisampraday] (Varanasi: Swami Hariacharya Prakashan, 1991), part 2, 120–25.

64. Swami Dharnidharacharya, Shri Awadhvamshiya Kshatriya Martandah [Honorable Awadh-lineage Kshatriyas of the Sun] (1930; 2d ed., Chapra: Awadhvamshi Kshatriya Sabha, 1936), 143–44. This is a “caste-history” pamphlet, a fact of no small importance given the religious identity of the author. I return to a consideration of this remarkable individual in chapter 3.

65. “Shri Ramanand Sampraday ke Vartman-Vidvan” [Contemporary Scholars of the Ramanandi Sampraday], in Avadh Kishor Das, ed., Ramanand-Granth-Mala ka Shri Ramanandank [Special Issue of the Ramanand Book Series dedicated to Ramanand] 1, no. 5–6 (Ayodhya: Shri Ramanand-Granthmala Prakashan Samiti, 1935–36), 62. This publication contains numerous essays, poems, and prose tributes by various authors to Ramanand and the Ramanandi sampraday, and will be referred to hereafter simply as Ramanandank.

66. Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 122. Van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 104, notes that Bhagavadacharya changed the suffix of his name from “das” to “acharya” as an affront to the Ramanujis. Van der Veer also observes that he was from Bihar; however, a sectarian account describes him as a Kanyakubja Brahman from Sialkot, Punjab, born in September-October 1880, and that he traveled widely throughout north India before coming to Ayodhya. See Vijay Raghav Prapann, “Acharya-Parampara ke Apratiya Purush: Swami Bhagavadacharya” [The Skeptic of the Acharya Parampara: Swami Bhagavadacharya], in ShriMath Smarika [A Memorial of the ShriMath] (Varanasi: ShriMath, Panchganga Ghat, 1989), 251. Both van der Veer and Prapann note that Bhagavadacharya was briefly attracted to the Arya Samaj; the latter holds that it was only a passing phase.

67. Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 122, asserts that both committees were founded by Bhagavadacharya. According to “Shri Ramanand Sampraday ke Vartman-Vidvan,” 62, the latter committee was formed in 1918 at the urging of Sitaramiya Mathuradas, another leading Ramanandi of Ayodhya. In any case, both committees reflected the strong imprint of Bhagavadacharya.

68. Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 122; Prapann, “Acharya-Parampara ke Apratiya Purush,” 253.

69. Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 123. According to Vijay Raghav Prapann, “Ramanand Sampraday men Ujjain Kumbh—Ek Adhyayan” [The Ramanandi Sampraday at the Ujjain Kumbh—an Investigation], in Amrit Kalash [The Nectar Jar] (Varanasi: Shri Math, 1992), 15, the Ramanuji side was defended by two scholars, Swami Ramprapann and Swami Ramanujadas.

70. B. P. Sinha, Rama Bhakti men Rasika Sampraday, 320–22, cited in Burghart, “The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect,” 131–32.

71. Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 122.

72. Three of the four judges were naga mahants, according to Prapann, “Ramanand Sampraday men Ujjain Kumbh,” 15. In addition, van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 103–4, cites a 1958 autobiography—Swami Bhagavadacharya (Alvar, Rajasthan: Shri Ramanand Sahitya Mandir, 1958)—in which the fraud is said to be readily admitted.

73. Shyamsundar Das, “Ramavat Sampraday,” Nagaripracharani Patrika, n.s., 4, no. 3 (1924): 329.

74. ShrimadRamanand-digvijayah [The World-Conquest of Shri Ramanand] (Abu: Shri Ramshobhadas Vaishnaven, 1927), 18. Since reissued as ShriRamanand-digvijayah (Ahmedabad: Adhyapika Shrichandandevi, 1967), but without the lengthy preface. See also Lal, “Swami Ramanand ka Jivan Charitra” 43; and Burghart, “The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect,” 133.

75. Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 123.

76. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, 152.

77. Avadh Kishor Das, “Yogank aur Shri Ramanandacharya” [Yogank and Shri Ramanandacharya], Ramanandank, 75–76.

78. Sahay, Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad-ji ki Sachitra Jivani, 5–6.

79. Brajendraprasad, Shri Rupkala Vak Sudha [The Essence of Shri Rupkala’s Sayings] (New Delhi: Dr. Saryu Prasad [the author’s son], 1970), 14. Rupkala was Bhagvan Prasad’s rasik name.

80. Bhagvan Prasad, Shri Bhaktamal (Lucknow: Tejkumar Press, 1962), 283.

81. Dharnidharacharya, Shri Awadhvamshi Kshatriya Martandah, 148. For Ramanujis in present-day Ayodhya, see van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 104–6. Mention of the dispute continues to evoke an spirited response all over north India.

82. Van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 104; Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 122.

83. It is said that prior to 1921, Raghuvaracharya and Bhagavadacharya were close friends, the former having prevailed upon his own guru, Rammanoharprasad, to initiate the latter as a rasik Ramanandi (Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 122). Raghuvaracharya’s authorship of such a text is appropriate, inasmuch as the eighteenth-century founder of the Bara Asthan, Swami Ramaprasad, was said to have authored the commentary of the sampraday’s main doctrinal text, entitled Janakibhashya (The Discourses of Sita), and introduced a tilak known as “Bindu Shri”—the bindu representing Sita. See Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, 167.

84. Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 123, implies that his decision to shift to Ahmedabad was not unconnected to the financial assistance offered him from a prominent seth, or banker-businessman.

85. Bhagavadacharya, ShriJanakikripabhashyasya [The Discourses of Shri Janaki, or Sita] (Ahmedabad: Swami ShriRamcharitracharya Vyakaranacharya, 1958). The contentious circumstances surrounding this work are recounted by Bhagavadacharya in the introduction, 1–42 (and esp. 1–7). The similarity of the title to Ramaprasad’s eighteenth-century discourse, Janakibhashya, should be noted.

86. Bhagavadacharya, ShriRamanandabhashyam [The Discourses of Shriramanand] (Ayodhya: Swami Shribhagavadacharya-Smaraksadan, [1963?]). Though the publication gives no date, the year is taken from Bhagavadacharya’s preface (pp. 5–18) which is dated August 26, 1963. The text purports to be Ramanand’s commentary of Badarayana’s Brahmasutra, describing thereby Ramanandi dualist doctrine. See the postscript, 201–6, for sampraday reactions to the impending publication of this volume.

87. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, 168.

88. The proceedings of this festival were published as SwamiBhagavadacharyaShatabdiSmritiGranth [A Book Commemorating a Century of Swami Bhagavadacharya] (Ahmedabad: Shrichandanbahin “Sanskritibhushana,” 1971).

89. Jayramdas, “Shrisampraday ke Sajag Prahari,” 124. It should be noted that according to a 1987 publication, Raghuvaracharya’s disciple Ramprapannacharya was declared jagadguru Ramanandacharya in 1974 by scholars and students connected to the Shri Ramanand Sanskrit Mahavidyalay in Varanasi. However, this declaration does not seem to have gained wide acceptance in the sampraday. It may have provided the stimulus, however, for the decision on the part of sampraday leaders to declare Bhagavadacharya jagadguru Ramanandacharya at the 1977 Prayag kumbh. See Swami Rameshwaranandacharya, Vedarthchandrika [Illuminations on the Vedas] (Porbandar, Gujarat: ShriRamanandacharyaPith, 1987), 15–16. The author, Rameshwaranandacharya, is Ramprapannacharya’s disciple and currently aspires to the seat of jagadguru Ramanandacharya; the other main claimant, who seems to have stronger institutional support, is Swami Haryacharya, a second-generation disciple of Bhagavadacharya.

90. I would therefore disagree also with Burghart’s conclusion (“The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect,” 134) that 1921 constituted a final act of exclusion. The radical faction certainly sought the religious exclusion of the acharyas, labelled Ramanuji, but the greater social inclusion of heretofore stigmatized groups in the sampraday.

91. van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 106.

92. See chapters 3 and 4 for a discussion of these movements. A significant contribution was made by Swami Dharnidharacharya (after 1921 a Ramanuji), in his Shri Awadhvamshiya Kshatriya Martandah, a Kurmi tract.

93. Cf. Bernard Lewis’s reflection that a “new future required a different past.” See his History—remembered, recovered, invented (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 11. The newly interpreted life of Ramanand, in this sense, can be understood as a charter for future action.

94. In Hindi, Shri Ramanand-Granthmala Prakashan Samiti. Responsible as well for the publication of the Ramanandank, as noted on the inside cover page.

95. This could be a veiled reference to the alleged expulsion from the company of Raghavanand and his codisciples, as remembered by the Ramanuji faction.

96. Bhagavadacharya, “Shri Ramanandacharya aur Shri Vaishnava Dharma” [Ramanand and Vaishnava Belief], in Ramanandank, 12.

97. Sitaramiya Mathuradas, “Hinduon ka Gaurav arthat Shri Shri Ramanandacharya” [The Savior of the Hindus, or Shri Shri Ramanandacharya], in Ramanandank, 5.

98. Shyamsundar Das, “Ramavat Sampraday,” 340. This is an oblique reference to the famous couplet attributed to Ramanand.

99. Buchanan in Martin, Eastern India, 2:485.

100. Bhagavadacharya, “Shri Ramanandacharya aur Shri Vaishnava Dharma” 10, 12.

101. The biographical information for Bhagvan Prasad is drawn from Shivnandan Sahay, Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad-ji ki Sachitra Jivani; Brajendraprasad, Shri Rupkala Vak Sudha, 16–17; and Shivpujan Sahay, Hindi Sahitya aur Bihar, 2:57–61.

102. Bhagvan Prasad’s father (Tapasviram) and paternal uncle (Tulsiram) were regionally famous as Bhaktamal exegetes and had retired to lives of spiritual devotion in Ayodhya. For more on Tapasviram and his rasik poetry, see Shivpujan Sahay, Hindi Sahitya aur Bihar, 2:6; and Shivnandan Sahay, Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad-ji ki Sachitra Jivani, 4–10.

103. Sahay, Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad-ji ki Sachitra Jivani, 17–18.

104. Many rasik Ramanandis append the suffix sharan to their names as the final aspect of a five-staged initiation sequence. B. P. Sinha, Ram Bhakti men Rasika Sampraday, 180–86, cited in Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text, 317.

105. Sahay, Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad-ji ki Sachitra Jivani, 37–38.

106. Along the lines of a Chamar convert to Christianity who reportedly refused to perform a menial task by responding, “I have become a christian and am one of the the Sahibs; I shall do no more bigar [forced labor].” Russel and Lal, Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, 1:316, cited in Pandey, Construction of Communalism, 90.

107. Sahay, Shri Sitaramsharan Bhagvan Prasad-ji ki Sachitra Jivani, 35.

108. Buchanan, Bihar and Patna, 1811–1812, 1:329–39; Martin, Eastern India, 2:466–70. Buchanan notes that in Gorakhpur both Halwais and Kandus were included as Vaishyas and thus considered twice-born (Martin, Eastern India, 2:465).

109. These movements are explored in the following chapters.

110. Lala Sitaram, Ayodhya ka Itihas [History of Ayodhya] (Prayag: Hindustani Academy, 1932), 46.

111. This point emerged repeatedly, and without any prompting on my part, in discussions with Ramanandis, most recently with Mahant Lakshmananandacharya of the Balanand Math (Jaipur, 15 December 1994), and Baba Gyan Das, a mahant of Hanuman Garhi in Ayodhya (Delhi, 14 November 1994).

112. Burghart, “Renunciation in the Religious Traditions of South Asia,” 644. It should be noted that Burghart referred to the monks he studied as Ramanandis, even though the prevailing opinion in Janakpur was Ramanuji. See also his “The History of Janakpurdham: A Study of Asceticism and the Hindu Polity” (Ph.D. diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1978), 105–9. Note, however, the criticism of Burghart in van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 68–69.

113. Sitaram to Sir George Grierson, 29 June 1920. Grierson Papers (Correspondence), folio 2.

114. Das, “Ramavat Sampraday,” 337 (emphasis is mine).

115. The dispute over varna in the Ramanandi sampraday is described in “Shri Ramanand Sampraday ke Vartman-Vidvan,” 74, from which the quotes in this paragraph are taken.

116. By mention of this viewpoint, the author implies that Udasins represented an integral yet distinct Ramanandi subgrouping. This would seem to indicate that a portion of the Nanakshahi community was absorbed into the Ramanandi sampraday during the nineteenth century.

117. Members of each faction, in order to substantiate their positions on the issue, referred repeatedly to such ancient textual authorities as Manu Smriti, Bhagavad Gita, not to mention a host of Vedic texts. The anonymous author of “Shri Ramanand Sampraday ke Vartman-Vidvan,” cynically compared these texts to Kamdhenu, a mythical cow that gives an endless supply of milk, and noted with disdain that “whatever proof you want, you will find it in the shastras [law codes]” (74).

118. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, 168.

119. The current disagreements over caste in the sampraday are reflected in the contradictory interpretations of van der Veer and Burghart. See Gods on Earth, 172–82, and “Renunciation in the Religious Traditions of South Asia,” 641–44. Their renderings have much to do with their respective geographic orientations: Van der Veer worked and lived in Ayodhya, now dominated by “pure” Ramanandis; Burghart’s earliest research was in Janakpur (in Nepal), and he later worked in Galta near Jaipur as well, dominated by “pure” Ramanujis. Indeed, Burghart’s greater familiarity with Ramanuji views sheds light on his decision to argue (in “Founding of the Ramanandi Sect”) that Ramanand did not in fact establish the Ramanandi sampraday.

120. Based on discussions with Ramanandis at the 1995 ardh or “half” kumbh recently held in Allahabad, Haryacharya of the Shri Math Acharya Pith, Rajghat, Varanasi, is generally regarded as the dominant claimant to the position of jagadguru Ramanandacharya. His guru was Shivramacharya, whose guru was Bhagavadacharya. However, Rameshwaranandacharya, a highly regarded scholar of Kosalendra Math, Ahmedabad, also claims the honor. Despite his guru parampara descent from Raghuvaracharya, who befriended Bhagavadacharya in 1918–19 and later became a main Ramanuji opponent, Rameshwaranandacharya is universally regarded as an important contributor to the compilation of Ramanandi tradition and scholarship, even by Ramanandis who regard Haryacharya as the jagadguru Ramanandacharya. A third claimant to the title is Ramnareshacharya of Shri Math, Panchganga Ghat, Varanasi, who, it would appear, regards Bhagavadacharya as his immediate predecessor in the position. An important fact in his favor is his possession of the site regarded by Ramanandis as the original residence of Ramanand in the fourteenth century.

121. On ambiguity and social discourse, see Khare, The Untouchable as Himself, esp. 8, 35–36, 46–48, and 171 n. 3.