Satnami
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From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India
By R. V. Russell
Of The Indian Civil Service
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.
NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from the original book. Therefore, footnotes have got inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot these footnotes gone astray might like to shift them to their correct place.
Satnami
LIST OF PARAGRAPHS I. Origin of the sect. 5. Social profligacy. 1. Ghdsi Das, foimder of the 6. Divisiotis of the Satndmis. Satndmi sect. 7. Customs of the Satndiiiis. 3. The message of Ghdsi Dds. 8. Character of the Satndmi move- 4. Subsequent history of the Sat- ment.
Satnami Sect
A worshipper of the true name of God), i. Origin —A dissenting sect founded by a Chamar reformer in the of 'Resect. Chhattlsgarh country of the Central Provinces. It is practically confined to members of the Chamar caste, about half of whom belong to it. In 1901 nearly 400,000 persons returned themselves as adherents of the Satnami sect, of whom all but 2000 were Chamars. The Satnami sect of the Central Provinces, which is here described, is practically confined to the Chhattlsgarh plain, and the handful of persons who returned themselves as Satnamis from the northern Districts are believed to be adherents of the older persuasion of the same name in Northern India.
The Satnami movement in Chhattlsgarh was originated by one Ghasi Das, a native of the Bilaspur District, between A.D. 1820 and 1830. But it is probable that Ghasi Das, as suggested by Mr. Hira Lai, got his inspiration from a follower of the older Satnami sect of northern India. This was inaugurated by a Rajput, JagjTwan Das of the Bara Banki District, who died in 1761. He preached the worship of the True Name of the one God, the cause and creator of all things, void of sensible qualities and without beginning ' This article is based principally on a paper by Mr. Uurga Prasad Pande, Tahsildar, Raipur.
Das founder sect. 308 ARTICLES ON RELIGIONS AND SECTS part or end. lie prohibited the use of meat, lentils (on account of their red colour suggestinj^ blood) of the brinjal or egg- plant, which was considered, probably on account of its shape, to resemble flesh, and of intoxicating liquors. The creed of Ghasi Das enunciated subsequently was nearly identical with that of Jagjiwan Das, and was no doubt derived from it, though Ghasi Das never acknowledged the source of his inspiration.
Ghasi Ghasi Das was a poor farmservant in Girod, a village formerly in Bilaspur and now in Raipur, near the Sonakan of the forests. On one occasion he and his brother started on atnami ^ pilgrimage to the temple at Puri, but only got as far as
Sarangarh, whence they returned ejaculating ' Satndin, Saindin' From this time Ghasi Das began to adopt the
life of an ascetic, retiring all day to the forest to meditate. On a rocky hillock about a mile from Girod is a large tendu tree {Diospyros touientosd) under which it is said that he was
accustomed to sit. This is a favourite place of pilgrimage
of the Chamars, and two Satnami temples have been built near it, which contain no idols.
Once these temples were annually visited by the successors of Ghasi Das. But at present the head of the sect only proceeds to them, like the Greeks to Delphi, in circumstances of special difficulty. In the course of time Ghasi Das became venerated as a saintly character, and on some miracles, such as the curing of snake-bite, being attributed to him, his fame rapidly spread. The Chamars began to travel from long distances to venerate him, and those who entertained desires, such as for the birth of a child, believed that he could fulfil them.
The pilgrims were accustomed to carry away with them the water in which he had washed his feet, in hollow bamboos, and their relatives at home drank this, considering it was nectar. Finally, Ghasi Das retired to the forests for a period, and emerged with what he called a new Gospel for the Chamars; but this really consisted of a repetition of the tenets of Jagjiwan Das, the founder of the Satnami sect of Upper India, with a few additions. Mr. Chisholm ^ gave a graphic account of the retirement of Ghasi Das to the Sonakan forests for a period of six months, and of his reappearance ' Bilaspur Setdemenl Report (\^?>'!i), p. 45. I SA TNAMI sect 309 and proclamation of his revelation on a fixed date before a great multitude of Chamilrs, who had gathered from all parts to hear him.
An inquiry conducted locally by Mr. Hira Lai in 1903 indicates that this story is of doubtful authen- ticity, though it must be remembered that Mr. Chisholm wrote only forty years after the event, and forty more had elapsed at the time of Mr. Hira Lfd's investigation.^ Of the Chamar Reformer himself Mr. Chisholm writes : " " Ghasi Das, like the rest of his community, was unlettered. He was a man of unusually fair complexion and rather imposing appearance, sensitive, silent, given to seeing visions, and deeply resenting the harsh treatment of his brotherhood by the Hindus. He was well known to the whole community, having travelled much among them ; had the reputation of being exceptionally sagacious and was universally respected.
" The seven precepts of Ghasi Das included abstinence 3. The from liquor, meat and certain red vegetables, such as lentils Ghas^^Dc^*^ chillies and tomatoes, because they have the colour of blood, the abolition of idol worship, the prohibition of the employ- ment of cows for cultivation, and of ploughing after midday or taking food to the fields, and the worship of the name of one solitary and supreme God. The use of tai^oi ^ is said to have been forbidden on account of its fancied resemblance to the horn of the buffalo, and of the brinjal * from its likeness to the scrotum of the same animal. The prohibition against ploughing after the midday meal was probably promulgated out of compassion for animals and was already in force among the Gonds of Bastar.
This precept is still observed by many Satnamis, and in case of necessity they will continue ploughing from early morning until the late afternoon without taking food, in order not to violate it. The injunction against the use of the cow for ploughing was probably a sop to the Brahmans, the name of Gondwana having been historically associated with this practice to its ^ Some of Mr. Chisholm's statements doubted fact, as shown by Mr. Hira are undoubtedly inaccurate. For in- Lai and others, that Ghasi Das was stance, he says that Ghasi Das decided born in Girod and had lived there all on a temporary withdrawal into the his life up to the time of his proclama- wilderness, and proceeded for this tion of his gospel, purpose to a small village called Girod ^ Ibidem. near the junction of the Jonk and ^ Luffa acntangula. Mahfinadi rivers. But it is an un- *
Solamim melongenum.
disgrace among Hindus.^ The Satnamis were bidden to cast all idols from their homes, but they were permitted to reverence the sun, as representing the deity, every morning and evening, with the ejaculation ' Lord, protect me.' Caste was abolished and all men were to be socially ecjual except the family of Ghasi Das, in which the priesthood of the cult was to remain hereditary. 4. Subse- The creed enunciated by their prophet was of a qiuin creditable simplicity and purity, of too elevated a nature for of the the Chamars of Chhattlsgarh. The crude myths which are Satmimis. ^^^^ associated with the story of Ghasi Das and the obscenity which distinguishes the ritual of the sect furnish a good instance of the way in which a religion, originally of a high order of morality, will be rapidly degraded to their own level when adopted by a people who are incapable of living up to it. It is related that one day his son brought Ghasi Das a fish to eat. He was about to consume it when the fish spoke and forbade him to do so, Ghasi Das then refrained, but his wife and two sons insisted on eating the fish and shortly afterwards they died.- Overcome with grief Ghasi Das tried to commit suicide by throwing himself down from a tree in the forest, but the boughs of the tree bent with him and he could not fall.
Finally the deity appeared, bringing his two sons, and commended Ghasi Das for his piety, at the same time bidding him go and proclaim the Satnami doctrine to the world. Ghasi Das thereupon went and dug up the body of his wife, who arose saying ' Satndm' Ghasi Das lived till he was eighty years old and died in 1850, the number of his disciples being then more than a quarter of a million. He was succeeded in the office of high priest by his eldest son Balak Das. This man soon outraged the feelings of the Hindus by assuming the sacred thread and parading it ostentatiously on public occasions.
So bitter was the hostility aroused by him, that he was finally assassinated at night by a party of Rajputs at the rest-house of Amabandha as he was travelling to Raipur. The murder was committed in i860 and its perpetrators were never
- Some of the Bundela raids in the protection of the sacred animal, north of the Province were made on ^ Yxi^m. Mr. Durgu Prasad Pande's the pretext of being crusades for the paper.
I SATNAMI SECT 311 discovered. Balak Das had fallen in love with the daughter of a Chitari (painter) and married her, [)roclainiing a revelation to the effect that the next Chamar Guru should be the offspring of a Chitari girl. Accordingly his son by her, Sahib Das, succeeded to the office, but the real power remained in the hands of Agar Das, brother of Ealak Das, who married his Chitari widow.
By her Agar Das had a son Ajab Das ; but he also had another son Agarman Das by a legitimate wife, and both claimed the succession. They became joint high priests, and the property has been par- titioned between them. The chief guru formerly obtained a large income by the contributions of the Chamars on his tours, as he received a rupee from each household in the villages which he visited on tour. He had a deputy, known as Bhandar, in many villages, who brought the commission of social offences to his notice, when fines were imposed. He built a house in the village of Bhandar of the Raipur District, having golden pinnacles, and also owned the village. But he has been extravagant and become involved in debt, and both house and village have been foreclosed by his creditor, though it is believed that a wealthy disciple has repurchased the house for him. The golden pinnacles were recently stolen. The contributions have also greatly fallen off.
Formerly an annual fair was held at Bhandar to which all the Satnamis went and drank the water in which the guru had dipped his big toe. Each man gave him not less than a rupee and sometimes as much as fifty rupees. But the fair is no longer held and now the Satnamis only give the guru a cocoanut when he goes on tour. The Satnamis also have a fair in Ratanpur, a sacred place of the Hindus, where they assemble and bathe in a tank of their own, as they are not allowed to bathe in the Hindu tanks. Formerly, when a Satnami Chamar was married, a 5. Social ceremony called Satlok took place within three years of the i"o«'ga'-y- wedding, or after the birth of the first son, which Mr. Durga Prasad Pande describes as follows : it was considered to be the initiatory rite of a Satnami, so that prior to its perform- ance he and his wife were not proper members of the sect. When the occasion was considered ripe, a committee of men in the village would propose the holding of the ceremony
to the bridegroom ; the elderly members of his family would also exert their influence upon him, because it was believed that if they died prior to its performance their disembodied spirits would continue a comfortless existence about the scene of their mortal habitation, but if afterwards that they would go straight to heaven. When the rite was to be held a feast was given, the villagers sitting round a lighted lamp placed on a water-pot in the centre of the sacred diauk or square made with lines of wheat-flour ; and from evening until midnight they would sing and dance. In the meantime the newly married wife would be lying alone in a room in the house.
At midnight her husband went in to her and asked her whom he should revere as his guru or preceptor. She named a man and the husband went out and bowed to him and he then went in to the woman and lay with her. The process would be repeated, the woman naming different men until she was exhausted. Sometimes, if the head priest of the sect was present, he would nominate the favoured men, who were known as gurus. Next morning the married couple were seated together in the courtyard, and the head priest or his representative tied a kanthi or necklace of wooden beads round their necks, repeating an initiatory text.^ This silly doggerel, as shown in the footnote, is a good criterion of the intellectual capacity of the Satnamis.
It is also said that during his annual progresses it was the custom for the chief priest to be allowed access to any of the wives of the Satnamis whom he might select, and that this was considered rather an honour than otherwise by the husband. But the Satnamis have now become ashamed of such practices, and, except in a {q.\m isolated localities, they have been abandoned. 6. Divi- Ghasi Das or his disciples seem to have felt the want iiie"^ ° of a more ancient and dignified origin for the sect than one Satnamis. dating Only from living memory. They therefore say that ' This text is recorded by Mr. Durga Or Prasad Pande as follows : <.^Ve have given up eating vegetables, *' Bhdji chhurai bhanta chhurdi we eat no brinjals : we eat onions with Gondii karai chhonka more relish ; we eat no more red vege- Liil bhaji kc chhu7-aivale tables. The chatika has been placed Gaon la viarai chauka. in the village. The true name is of God; Sahib ke Satndmia ; ' Thonka.^^' (to which the pair replied) ' Amen.'"
it is a branch of that founded by Rohi Das, a Chamar disciple of the great Hberal and Vaishnavite reformer Ramanand, who flourished at the end of the fourteenth century.
The Satnamis commonly call themselves Rohidasi as a synonym for their name, but there is no evidence that Rohi Das ever came to Chhattlsgarh, and there is practically no doubt, as already pointed out, that Ghasi Das simply appropriated the doctrine of the Satnami sect of northern India. One of the precepts of Ghasi Das was the prohibition of the use of tobacco, and this has led to a split in the sect, as many of his disciples found the rule too hard for them.
They returned to their chongis or leaf-pipes, and are hence called Chungias ; they say that in his later years Ghasi Das withdrew the prohibition. The Chungias have also taken to idolatry, and their villages contain stones covered with vermilion, the representations of the village deities, which the true Satnamis eschew. They are considered lower than the Satnamis, and inter- marriage between the two sections is largely, though not entirely, prohibited. A Chungia can always become a Satnami if he ceases to smoke by breaking a cocoanut in the presence of his guru or preceptor or giving him a present. Among the Satnamis there is also a particularly select class who follow the straitest sect of the creed and are called Jaharia from jahar, an essence. These never sleep on a bed but always on the ground, and are said to wear coarse uncoloured clothes and to eat no food but pulse or rice.
The social customs of the Satnamis resemble generally 7. customs those of other Chamars. They will admit into the com- ^^^}^^ . •' satnamis. munity all except members of the impure castes, as Dhobis (washermen), Ghasias (grass-cutters) and Mehtars (sweepers), whom they regard as inferior to themselves. Their weddings must be celebrated only during the months of Magh (January), Phagun (February), the light half of Chait (March) and Baisakh (April). No betrothal ceremony can take place during the months of Shrawan (August) and Pus (January). They always bury the dead, laying the body with the face downwards, and spread clothes in the grave above and below it, so that it may be warm and comfortable
during the last long sleep. They obsen^e mourning for three days and have their heads shaved on the third day with the exception of the upper lip, which is never touched by the razor.
The Satnamis as well as the KabJrpanthis in Chhattlsgarh abstain from spirituous liquor, and ordinary Hindus who do not do so are known as Saktaha or Sakta (a follower of Devi) in contradistinction to them. A Satnami is put out of caste if he is beaten by a man of another caste, however high, and if he is touched by a sweeper, Ghasia or Mahar. Their women wear nose-rings, simply to show their contempt for the Hindu social order, as this ornament was formerly forbidden to the lower castes. Under native dynasties any violation of a rule of this kind would have been severely punished by the executive Govern- ment, but in British India the Chamar women can indulge their whim with impunity. It was also a rule of the sect not to accept cooked food from the hands of any other caste, whether Hindu or Muhammadan, but this has fallen into abeyance since the famines.
Another method by which the Satnamis show their contempt for the Hindu religion is by throwing milk and curds at each other in sport and trampling it under foot. This is a parody of the Hindu celebration of the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna's birthday, when vessels of milk and curds are broken over the heads of the worshippers and caught and eaten by all castes indiscrimin- ately in token of amity. They will get into railway carriages and push up purposely against the Hindus, saying that they have paid for their tickets and have an equal right to a place. Then the Hindus are defiled and have to bathe in order to become clean.
8. Char- Several points in the above description point to the acteroftiie conclusion that the Satnami movement is in essence a social bat n ami movement, revolt on the part of the despised Chamars or tanners.
The fundamental tenet of the gospel of Ghasi Das, as in
the case of so inany other dissenting sects, appears to have
been the abolition of caste, and with it of the authority of the Brahmans ; and this it was which provoked the bitter hostility of the priestly order. It has been seen that Ghasi Das himself had been deeply impressed by the misery and debasement of the Chamar community ; how his successor I SATNAMI SECT 315 Balak Das was murdered for the assumption of the sacred thread ; and how in other ways the Satnamis try to show their contempt for the social order which brands them as helot outcastes.
A large proportion of the Satnami Chamars are owners or tenants of land, and this fact may be surmised to have intensified their feeling of revolt against the degraded position to which they were relegated by the Hindus. Though slovenly cultivators and with little energy or forethought, the Chamars have the utmost fondness for land and an ardent ambition to obtain a holding, however small. The possession of land is a hall-mark of respectability in India, as elsewhere, and the low castes were formerly incapable of holding it ; and it may be surmised that the Chamar feels himself to be raised by his tenant-right above the hereditary condition of village drudge and menial. But for the restraining influence of the British power, the Satnami movement might by now have developed in Chhattlsgarh into a social war. Over most of India the term Hindu is contrasted with Muhammadan, but in Chhattlsgarh to call a man a Hindu conveys primarily that he is not a Chamar, or Chamara according to the contemptuous abbreviation in common use.
A bitter and permanent antagonism exists between the two classes, and this the Chamar cultivators carry into their relations with their Hindu landlords by refusing to pay rent. The records of the criminal courts contain many cases arising from collisions between Chamars and Hindus, several of which have resulted in riot and murder. Faults no doubt exist on both sides, and Mr. Hemingway, Settlement Officer, quotes an instance of a Hindu proprietor who made his Chamar tenants cart timber and bricks to Rajim, many miles from his village, to build a house for him during the season of cultivation, their fields consequently remaining untilled. But if a proprietor once arouses the hostility of his Chamar tenants he may as well abandon his village for all the profit he is likely to obtain from it.
Generally the Chamars are to blame, as pointed out by Mr. Blenkinsop who knows them well, and many of them are dangerous criminals, restrained only by their cowardice from the worst outrages against person and property. It may be noted in conclusion that the spread
of Christianity among the Channars is in one respect a reph'ca of the Satnami movement, because by becoming a Christian the Chamar hopes also to throw off the social bondage of Hinduism. A missionary gentleman told the writer that one of the converted Chamars, on being directed to perform some menial duty of the village, replied : ' No, I have become a Christian and am one of the Sahibs ; I shall do no more bigdr (forced labour).'
As in 2024
Arjun Sengupta, June 14, 2024: The Indian Express
Members of the mostly Scheduled Caste Satnami Samaj or Satnam Panth live mainly in Chhattisgarh and contiguous areas of Madhya Pradesh. The desecrated shrine, known as Jaitkham, is located about 5 km from Giraud village in Baloda Bazar district, at the birthplace of Guru Ghasidas, an 18th century saint to whom the Chhattisgarh Satnamis trace their theological lineage.
Early Satnamis of Narnaul
Guru Ghasidas was born in 1756; however, the antecedents of the sect lie further back in history. The expression sat naam (literally “true name”) was popularised by the 15th century Bhakti poet Kabir, but was likely coined earlier.
Kabir, who rejected idolatry and the orthodoxy of organised religion, was a torchbearer of the nirguna bhakti tradition — the worship of an immanent, formless Absolute, which he referred to as sat naam or satya naam in several of his poems.
In 1657, a mendicant named Birbhan, who was inspired by the teachings of Kabir, founded a Satnami community in Narnaul in present-day Haryana. The Mughal court historian Khafi Khan (1664-1732) wrote that the Satnamis were “some four or five thousand householders in the pargana of Narnaul and Mewat… their livelihood and profession is usually agriculture and trade in the manner of Banyas [or tradesmen] with small capital” (Irfan Habib: The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707).
“Ritual and superstition were condemned, and allegiance was explicitly rendered to Kabir… Caste distinctions within the community of believers were forbidden… An attitude of sympathy with the poor and hostility towards authority and wealth is apparent [in Satnami preachings],” Habib wrote in his classic 1963 work.
Initially, most Satnamis belonged to an “untouchable” caste engaged in leatherwork. The community has, however, moved away from the profession over time.
Revolt against Aurangzeb
“If anyone should want to impose tyranny and oppression upon [the Satnamis]… they will not tolerate it; and most of them bear arms and weapons,” Khafi Khan wrote. In 1672, Satnamis living in present-day Punjab and Haryana rose in revolt against Aurangzeb’s ever-increasing tax demands.
“The revolt…began as a rural affray,” Habib wrote. “One of the Satnamis was working in his fields when he exchanged hot words with a [Mughal] piyada (foot-trooper), who was guarding the corn-heap. The piyada broke the Satnami’s head by a blow from his stick. Thereupon a crowd of that sect mobbed that piyada and beat him so much as to reduce him almost to a corpse.” (Habib: Agrarian System).
When the local Mughal shiqdar (police chief) sent troops to arrest the culprits, open rebellion broke out. The rebels occupied Narnaul and Bairat for some time, but the Mughals eventually crushed the rebellion and killed thousands of Satnamis. Despite lacking weapons and equipment, the Satnamis fought valiantly and “repeated scenes of the great war of Mahabharata”, the Mughal chronicler Saqi Mustad Khan wrote in the Maasir-i-Alamgiri.
Revival under Ghasidas
Aurangzeb all but wiped out the community, which would see a revival only in the mid-eighteenth century — in present-day Uttar Pradesh under Jagjivandas, and in present-day Chhattisgarh under Ghasidas.
There are several theories as to the sources of Ghasidas’ inspiration and spiritual development — from Sant Ravidas (15th or 16th century) to Kabir. However, “most present-day Satnamis either deny or know nothing of a connection between Ghasidas and the previous Satnami movements” in northern India, religious studies scholar Ramdas Lamb wrote in Rapt in the Name: The Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in India (2002).
Nonetheless, the religious philosophy of Guru Ghasidas echoed that of the older Satnamis. His “first and foremost rule was the worship of one true God, through the chanting of his name, ‘Satnam’, and the abolition of any form of image worship,” Lamb wrote. This rejection of deity worship effectively allowed the ‘untouchable’ Satnamis to transcend the restrictions on temple-entry.
Ghasidas also asked his followers to abstain from eating flesh (and flesh-like fruits such as eggplant), and consuming alcohol, smoking, or chewing tobacco. He asked them to use brass utensils instead of clay, stop working with leather and carcasses, and to wear a necklace of beads made from tulsi, like those worn by the Vaishnavas and Kabirpanthis. He also told his followers to drop their caste names and use ‘Satnami’ instead.
The Satnamis today
At the time of Ghasidas’ death, his following was estimated to be nearly a quarter million strong, belonging almost entirely to a particular scheduled caste. He stipulated a lineage of gurus who would lead the sect after him, starting with his son Balakdas.
According to Lamb, by the late 1800s, a two-tiered organisational structure developed with the guru at the top, and several village-level priests below him. This structure broadly persists even now. “These priests performed marriages, mediated disputes, meted out penance as well as acted as intermediaries in the organisation,” Lamb wrote.
Over the years, many Satnamis adopted caste-Hindu practices, beliefs and rituals, and came to see themselves as part of the Hindu religious mainstream. Some started to worship idols of Hindu Gods, and claimed to be of Rajput or even Brahmin lineage.
Satnamis are now an increasingly assertive political force. Satnami leaders enjoy clout over not just members of the sect, but also over the rest of Chhattisgarh’s 13% SC population.
The sect has been historically associated with the Congress, but since 2013, some Satnami gurus have shifted allegiance multiple times. The Satnami vote is today divided among various political parties in Chhattisgarh.
