Ramanandi sect
Richard Burghart, a German anthropologist who is one of the few scholars to have worked on the Ramanandis, published a paper titled ‘The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect’ in 1978. In it, he writes, “The one thing which we do know is that we know very little indeed about Swami Ramananda; moreover, for a very long time our ignorance has been shared by the Ramanandi ascetics themselves.
According to most accounts, the Ramanandi sect was founded in the 14th century by Swami Ramananda.
Vaishnav bards say that many revered figures such as Tulsidas, Mira Bai, Kabir, Guru Ravidas, and Padmavati are all spiritual descendants of Swami Ramananda.
The sect’s monasteries are found across Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, as well as in the Nepal Valley and the Nepalese Tarai — a testament of their geographical spread and influence. Indeed, the Ramanandis are said to have the longest procession in the Kumbh Mela till date, writes Pinch.
According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Scottish clergyman James Hastings, Ramananda was born in Prayag (present-day Prayagraj) in 1299 AD as Ramadatta, and by the age of 12, he had become a “finished pandita”, who then left for Benares (Varanasi) to study philosophy. It was here that a young Ramadatta was initiated into the Sri Vaishnava sect founded by Ramanuja in southern India by Raghavananda — one of the sect’s most prominent teachers — who gave him an initiatory mantra. Even now, Ramanandi ascetics are initiated by receiving a secret mantra from their respective gurus, which, it is believed, eventually links all Ramanandi ascetics back to Ramananda, or even to the Hindu deity Ram himself — some Ramanandis believe that Ramananda was an incarnation of Ram. However, the Vaishnava sect into which Ramananda was initiated is believed to have consisted only of Brahmans, who observed strict dietary restrictions and wrote and learned only in Sanskrit. Ramananda was to change that by forming his own sampradaya or sect. “This,” the Encyclopedia noted, “resulted in one of the most momentous revolutions that have occurred in the religious history of northern India.”
Women, Muslims, “lower” and “untouchable” castes — all were recruited into this new, revolutionary sect.
Until the 18th Century, however, the Ramanandis were predominantly operating in western India, especially in Rajasthan and Punjab. How they amassed and consolidated power in Ayodhya, which they believed to be the birthplace of their supreme deity, is a story of deadly battles and power contestations — among Hindus.
In the early 18th century, the Dasnami sect of the Sanyasis captured Ayodhya on Ram’s very birthday, thereby driving away the Ramanandis. Startled by this aggression, Vaishnavite sects called for a historic conference in Galata near Jaipur, after which the Ramanandis began to organise themselves militarily into akharas. One of the first armed sects of the Ramanandis that came to Ayodhya to unseat the Sanyasis in the early 18th Century was the Nirmohi akhara. This akhara went on to become one of the main plaintiffs in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit over two centuries later.
They were followed to Ayodhya by other Ramanandi akharas, including the Nirvani and Digambari. By the close of the century, the militant orders of the Ramanandis and Sanyasis were locked in deadly, armed combat. Ultimately, however, the Dasnamis were pushed out of Ayodhya.
It was in this context of the early and mid-20th century that Abhiram Das — a muscular ascetic priest of the Ramanandi sect in Ayodhya — was accused of having placed Ram’s idols inside what was then the Babri Masjid two years after the Indian independence on the night of 23 December, 1949.
Since then or perhaps even earlier, the “temple” has been maintained by the Ramanandis — not Sanyasis, Shaivites or Shaktas, as Rai has emphasised— before it was handed over to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust in 2020.
