the bauls and their heretic tradition

8/13/2019 The Bauls and Their Heretic Tradition

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Social Scientist

The Bauls and Their Heretic TraditionAuthor(s): Atis DasguptaReviewed work(s):Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 22, No. 5/6 (May - Jun., 1994), pp. 70-83Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3517903.

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ATIS DASGUPTA*

The Bauls and TheirHeretic Tradition

Of late there has been a perceptible trend to treat the Bauls and theirmelodious songs as merely a segment of the folk culture of Bengalwhich is occasionally presented with much fanfare for theentertainment of the sophisticated urban audience. In the process wetend to forget the popular philosophic tradition of the Bauls inproviding a heretic counterpoint to the sectarian scholastic scripturesof both Hindu and Islamic religious establishments. The isolatedpresentation of the Baul songs seems to be somewhat meaningless unlessthe listeners are initiated to the underlying philosophic allusions ofthe compositions which have consistently negated, in an aestheticallydiscreet manner, the bondage of any institutional religion down thecenturies at the grass-root level. The Bauls, however, were not the loneheretics. They had emerged from the broader Buddhist Sahajiya andthe Vaisnava Sahajiya background and had also intermingled withthe Sufi mysticism and the Bhakti movement of the mediaeval santmystics of northern India. The objective of this paper would be toexplicate the distinctive features of the Baul philosophy in relationto the other devotional mystic streams of thoughts in order to assessthe historical role of their collective process in sustaining a populartradition of syncretism as a viable alternative to the opposite trend ofintolerant fundamentalism discernible in both Brahmanical Hinduismand orthodox Islam.The villagers of Bengal, though mostly unlettered till the massliteracy drive undertaken in several districts of West Bengal since1990, were well aware of the Baul tradition which had always beentransmitted by the Bauls through the presentation of the melodiousphilosophic songs accompanied with a simple rendering of ek-tara('one-string') instrument and soothing dance movements. The English-educated urban middle class, however, began to be acquainted withthis age-old oral tradition of the village-singers from the earlydecades of the present century mainly due to the pioneering collectionsof Kshitimohan Sen and Muhammad Mansuruddin and their introduc-

*SociologicalResearchUnit, Indian StatisticalInstitute, Calcutta.SocialScientist,Vol. 22, Nos. 5-6, May-June1994


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THE BAULSAND THEIRHERETICTRADITION 71tion by Rabindranath Tagore. Kshitimohan Sen's first collection ofthe Baul songs was published in an anthology of old Bengali songsentitled Bangabani, which was followed by his erudite article on theBauls in the Visva-Bharati Quarterly which was subsequentlyreprinted as an Appendix in Tagore's famous Hibbert Lecturespublished as The Religion of Man in 1931. Kshitimohan's anothernoteworthy contribution on the Baul songs and their philosophy cameout through the publication (by Calcutta University in 1954) ofBanglar Baul (in Bengali) which was originally delivered as LilaLecture in 1949. He had also incorporated illuminating chapters on theBauls in his various important works, such as Banglar Sadhana (aVisva-Bharati publication in Bengali in 1945), Bharate Hindu-Musalmaner Jukta Sadhana (a Visva-Bharati publication in Bengaliin 1949), and Hinduism (a Penguin publication in 1960). RabindranathTagore had himself devoted a special chapter (entitled 'The Man ofMy Heart') on the Bauls in The Religion of Man. Shortly after thepublication of Kshitimohan Sen's first collection on the Bauls in theanthology Bangabani, Muhammad Mansuruddin published(reprinted by Bangla Academy, Dacca, in 1976) a collection of hundredBaul songs under the caption of Haramoni ('the lost jewel') with aperceptive introduction by Tagore in 1927. Two hundred ninety sevenBaul songs of Lalan Fakir were added by Mansuruddin in his laterpublication (from Dacca in 1958) in the Bengali journal SahityaPatrika. Upendranath Bhattacharyya, who had conducted extensivefield work on the Bauls, was able to publish more than five hundredsongs in his Bengali work Banglar Baul 0 Baul Gan in 1957. In 1959Calcutta University came out with a publication of four hundred Baulsongs of Lalan Fakir under the title of Lalan-gitika, edited jointly byMatilal Das and Pijus Kanti Mahapatra. However, the mostcomprehensive analysis of Sahajiya philosophy of the Baul songs wascarried out by Sashibhusan Das Gupta in his outstanding work ObscureReligious Cults, first published in 1946 (the third edition was printedin 1969).In the chapter 'The Man of My Heart' in The Religion of Man,Rabindranath Tagore had described how he was attracted to one ofthe basic philosophical features of the Baul songs-the concept ofmanermanush or 'Man of My Heart'. While Tagore was stumbling uponthe formal constraints of the monotheistic Brahmo church of whichhis father was the leader, he 'came to discover that in my conduct Iwas not strictly loyal to my religion, but only to the religiousinstitution.... After a long struggle with the feeling that I was using amask to hide the living face of truth, I gave up my connection with ourchurch. About this time, one day I chanced to hear a song from a beggarbelonging to the Baul sect of Bengal ... What struck me in this simplesong was a religious expression that was neither grossly concrete, full


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72 SOCIALSCIENTISTof crude details, nor metaphysical in its rarified transcendentalism. Atthe same time it was alive with an emotional sincerity. It spoke of anintense yearning of the heart for the divine which is in Man and not inthe temple, or scriptures, in images and symbols. The worshipperaddresses his songs to Man the ideal, and says:

'Temples and mosques obstruct thy path,and I fail to hear thy call or to move,when the clerics and priests angrily crowd round me'.He does not follow any tradition of ceremony, but only believes in love.According to him, 'Love is the magic stone that transmutes by its touchgreed into sacrifice'.He goes on to say:

'For the sake of this loveheaven longs to become earthand gods to become man'.1We would deal with this concept of 'Man of My Heart'-so exquisitelysummed up by Tagore, and other features of the Baul philosophy inmore detail. Before such an analysis, however, the social backgroundof the emergence of the Bauls as a distinct group would be brieflytraced.The Bauls belong to the lower ranks of both the Hindu and theMuslim communities of Bengal and they are composed partly ofhouseholders and mainly of wandering mendicants. The word 'Baul'with its Hindi variant 'Baur' may be variously derived. It may bederived from the Sanskrit word 'vatula' (affected by wind-diseasei.e., crazy), from 'vyakula' (impatiently eager). Both thesederivations are consistent with the apparent life style of the Baulswhich denotes a group of inspired mystics with an ecstatic eagernessfor a spiritual life beyond the shackles of scriptures and religiousinstitutions. The name 'Baul', as also its cognate form 'Aul' can well beassociated also with the Arabic word 'awliya' (plural of 'wali', aword originally meaning 'near' which is used for 'friend' or 'devotee')that refers to a group of perfect mystics.2The Bauls had their basic outlook anchored in the ujan-sadhan (orulta-sadhan) or the philosophy of 'the reverse path' which was thefundamental tenet of all the Sahajiya traditions in Bengal andelsewhere. They proceed in a direction opposite to that followed bythe general run of the unaware people. They avoid all forms ofinstitutional religion in which the natural piety of the soul isovershadowed by the useless paraphernalia of ritualism and ceremonyon the one hand and pedantry and hypocrisy on the other. It is for thisreason that the Bauls and other Sahajiyas call their path ulta-sadhan (i.e. 'the reverse path') and denote the process of their


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THE BAULSAND THEIRHERETICTRADITION 73spiritual advance as the method of proceeding against the current (i.e.,ujan sadhan). It has been said in one of the Baul songs:

'Reverse are the modes and mannersof the man who is a real loverof the true emotional life.'The ultimate object of the Bauls for this reverse journey is to return toone's own self which is sahaja or inborn in nature. This approximationto one's real self is fundamentally based on the method of self-realisation. Shorn of all kinds of religious insincerity andartificiality, this return journey of the Bauls for self-realisation isSahaja not because the path is easy to travel but because it is the mostnatural path for the attainment of the 'ultimate reality'. The firstsystematised form of the Sahajiya movement can be found in the schoolof the Buddhist Sahajiyas which was followed by that of theVaisnava Sahajiyas. The Bauls emerged from this earlier Sahajiyabackground and enriched the movement with their own specialities.They were subsequently indebted to Sufism for invigoration of theirphilosophy in certain respects. The mediaeval sant mystics of northernIndia would also enrich this collective Sahajiya movement.3There were some instances of striking similarity between the earlier(the Buddhist and the Vaisnava) Sahajiyas and the Bauls. TheCharyapadas and Dohas of the Buddhist and the Natha Sahajiyas,which had been composed about 1000 years ago, were characterised bya spirit of heterodoxy and criticism which would likewise be a featureof the heretic songs of the Bauls. Moreover, the earlier Sahajiyas putemphasis on 'Guru-vada' which, however, was contrary to theBrahmanic conception of 'Guru- vada'. The Bauls were also inclined toshare the same Sahajiya perception as it appears from their'Murshida' songs. Furthermore, the earlier Sahajiyas had consideredthe human body as the microcosm of the universe within which truthresided-the truth which had to be realised from within. This wasexactly the conviction which the Bauls uphold consistently. Added toit, as already indicated, both the earlier Sahajiyas and the Baulsshared the initial formulation that the ultimate reality was Sahajaor inborn in nature.4But the earlier Sahajiya cult underwent a notable transformation inthe hands of the Bauls. The difference in ideology was subtle and itwas reflected in the variation in the conception of Sahaja itself. TheBuddhist Sahajiyas conceived Sahaja as 'Maha-sukha' which wasthe unity of the duality represented by man and woman as 'Upaya' and'Prajna'. To this, however, the Vaisnavas supplied the element oflove. But here also, Sahajawas conceived as supreme love which couldbe realised by the union of Krishna and Radha who resided in thecorporeal form of man and woman. This process of sadhana was,therefore, a process of the divinisation of the human love which


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74 SOCIALSCIENTISTinvolved a latent dualism in the interplay of rupa and arupa. On thecontrary, the Bauls could overcome this dualism and perceive Sahajaas the innermost eternal Beloved who the 'Man of My Heart' (manermanus). The Bauls also spoke of love and union, but this love meant thelove between the human personality and the Divine Beloved whichresided within the temple of the body. In other words, the Baulconcept of Sahaja-path was essentially a philosophic process of self-realisation. Certain elements of this new conception of Sahajacould betraced in the Charyapadas, but the formulation was much influencedby the tenets of Sufi philosophy of Islam. Among the earlierSahajiyas, a Doha of Saraha-pada brought into focus the Sahajaperception of the Divine Beloved as residing within the body:Here in this body is the confluenceof the Ganges and the Jamuna,here is the Ganga-Sagar,here are Prayaga and Banaras,Here are the sacred places,I have not seen a place of pilgrimageand abode of bliss like my body.5This incipient trend of the earlier Sahajiyas paved the way for theevolution of the Baul conception of 'Man of My Heart' under thesubsequent influence of Sufism. The mystic Sant poets of northern Indiain the mediaeval period, led by Kabir, Dadu and Nanak, had alsocontributed to the integration of the Sahajiya tradition with the Sufiphilosophy. The Bauls of Bengal assimilated all these syncretistictraditions into their own basic formulations with characteristicinnovation and aesthetic grace.One of the areas where this process of creative assimilation can beeasily located is in the Baul tradition of the out-pouring of the heartthrough their melodious songs. In this we find on the one hand, theinfluence of Chaitanyadeva's Vaisnavism, which had attached muchimportance to the Kirtan form of music as the medium of ecstaticcommunion, and on the other, the influence of the Sufistic method ofSama which combined song and dance as a mode of syncretisticreligious communication with the common people.6 The effect of suchmusic, the Sufis held, would help both the performing mystics and thelisteners in passing into fana-a stage of religious ecstasy. During thethirteenth and the fourteenth centuries the orthodox Islamic clericstried to prevail on the Turk-Afghan imperial government to barn thesyncretistic practice of Sama. But the orthodox strategy could not makemuch headway in the face of rising popularity of the Sufis. At samagatherings Persian poetry began to be relegated to. the background asHindawi poetry, with its Vaisnavite and other Bhakti imagery, cameto the fore.7


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THEBAULSAND THEIRHERETICTRADITION 75As regards the concept of 'Guru-vada',the Bauls incorporated theinfluence of the Sufis and the other Sahajiyas,but went ahead of themin formulatingtheir own philosophy; in this regard their formulationsare more akin to those of the sant mystics of northernIndia. The stresslaid by the Sufis on the Murshid or the Shaikh (i.e., the preceptor orspiritual guide) bears resemblance with that of the Guru-shishyarelationshipof the Indian traditionin general. This stress is borne outin the Sufi text entitled Awariful-l-Ma'rif: When he (i.e., the muridor the disciple) is possessed of manners, he taketh in love a place inthe shaikh's heart and is agreeable to God's sight; because, withmercy, favour and care, God ever looketh at the hearts of His own

friends (the darvishes).8In the Indianreligious traditionordinarilyone Guru s presupposed.The tantriks acknowledge two, who give intellectual and spiritualinitiation respectively. But in the sahajaview, such limitation of thenumber of gurus results in narrowness of realisation.Dadu, the northIndian sant mystic and a true follower of Kabir,indicates the sahajastand in a verse of salutation:Dadu first salutes the colourlessSupremePerson,Next, as the means of understandingHim,

he salutes his guru as divine,And thenhe transcends thebounds of salutation,by offeringreverence to all devotees.9The sahaja dea finds expression in the tantrasto some extent:

As thebee in questof honeyflits from flower to flower,So do thou gatherwisdomby goingfromguru oguru.10In the Vaisnavite text Chaitanya-Charitamrita, the salutations arealso offered to gurusin plural.The Bauls, however, introduced additional dimensions. They put itin one of theirsongs:

By what path comest thou, O Guru,the mystery I cannot solve;So it passethmy understanding,where to leave my obeisance.According to the Bauls, initiation is a life-long process, to be gainedlittle by little, from all kinds of gurus. So they asked:

Wouldst thou make obeisanceto thy guru,my heart?He is there at every step,on each side of thy path;fornumberlessarethygurus.


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76 SOCIALSCIENTISTTo which of them, then, wouldst thou makeobeisance, my heart?The welcome offeredto thee is thyguru,the agony inflicted on thee is thy guru,every wrench at thy heart-strings s thy guru,that maketh the tears to flow.

The Balus, therefore,tend to conclude that the guru resides within theheart of the worshipper:Theguruwho is the sourceof wisdomresides in thine own home.A great mistake hast thou madeby giving heedto the teachings of all the world.

And again:The voice from the depths tells theethat the guru is in the lotus of the heart.

Almost in tune with the formulationof the Balus,Kabir,the great santmysticof northIndia,would compose:The SupremeSelf, the Guru,abideth near thee,Awake, awake, O my heart.11Not that the Bauls do not admit any outward guru, but he is adanger to be feared, they feel, as well as a help to be sought; for, if heimposes himself on his disciple, he kills the latter's own spirit-amurderworse than the killing of the body. Theguru, therefore,shouldminister to his disciple from a distance:The lamp gives light from afar,still furtheraway is the sun;the guru gives light without heatwho sits aloof in the truth.

The Bauls also call the guru 'sunya', not implying the absence ofsubstance,but the spaciousness of freedom. That 'sunya'is not used inits negative meaning is clearly evident when the same concept isapplied to denote the SupremeBeing.Dadu had also perceived 'sunya'with the same overview:Whatname canbe given to Himwho is Nothing?Whatevername we useis less than the Truth.12We have already seen that the earlier Sahajiyas and the Baulsrecognised the human body as a microcosm of the universe and that


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THEBAULSAND THEIRHERETICTRADITION 77Sahajaas the ultimate reality resided within this form as our true selfor the ultimate nature. So Lalan Fakir, the noted exponent of Baulsongs,had composed:

Proceedcarefullyin your spiritualquest,May be, you will find wealth very near;Says Lalan,searchyour own home,Truthis not very far.13Traces of the Sahajacult of the Bauls could be even located in theVedas under the name Nivartiya, being described as those whoconformed to no accepted doctrines,but to whom, having known thetruth in its purity, all directions were free. Not bound by prescribedrites or ceremonials, they were ever mobile and in active communionwith all by virtue of their wealth of the natural. Certain specificreferences to the vratyas (which may be translated as the 'heretics'or'non-conformists')could be found in AtharvaVedain identical terms:'The Vratya was active in all directions' (XV, 1.2); 'The Vratya isever mobile' (XV, 1, 1, 1); Atharva Veda was also full of enigmaticverses similar to the sayings of the Bauls:

Manis a wondroustemple;when it was made,the gods came and took shelter.14

Let us now take up the Baul concept of 'Manof My Heart' (manermanus) in more details and find out the interplay of the otherSahajiyathoughts and the Sufi philosophy with the Baul perceptionin this regard.The Baulconception of 'Man of My Heart'brings in thequestion of its similarity or dissimilarity with the Vaisnavaconceptionof love. TheVaisnavaformulation s based on a principleofduality, theological, if not metaphysical. Theologically, theVaisnavas have conceived a kind of duality between God and theindividual (jiva) and this principle of duality invites the question ofSaguna Bhakti, which gradually culminates in the conception ofpassionate love. Metaphysically, however, the relation between Godand the individual has often been spoken of as incomprehensible-arelation of dualism in non-dualism. On the contrary, the Baulconception of nirguna bhakti is strictly based on a non-dualisticapproach. 15The Bauls have often criticised the Vaisnava followers. 'Had theseVaisnavas the understanding, they would have known better thatChandidas, vidyapati and others were good Vaisnava poets simplybecause they had had glimpses of Sahaja ideas. But are theirfollowers competent to understand their message? They took the ideaof Radhafrom us, but have dragged her down to the level of their lowdesires. Devoid of the realisationof the simple, their minds, obsessed


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78 SOCIALSCIENTISTwith the complexities of their literature, fail to do justice to thewealth they have inherited. At best they make an attempt atsimplicity and naturalness in their songs and festivals, but in theirlives, their temples, their religious observances, they are unable to getfree of the shackles of their scriptures. They have made a jumble oflove and desire, the workings of the spirit and the inclination of thesenses'.16 A Vaisnava once asked a Baul whether he was aware of thedifferent kinds of love as classified in the Vaisnava scriptures. TheBaul instantly gave his reply in a song:

A goldsmith, I think, has comeinto the flower garden.He would appraise the lotus,By rubbing it on his touchstoneOh the fun, what a pity 17The Bauls, however, have always paid high regards to Chandidas. Inparticular, the following song of Chandidas which was mentioned byRabindranth Tagore in The Religion of Man for its philosophical andliterary richness, has always evoked very positive response from theBauls:

Listen, O brother man,the Truth of Man is the highest of truths;there is no other truth above it.18To conform to the emotional approach of the Bauls, the sahaja orthe ultimate reality has gradually been transformed into a personalGod. This Sahaja as the personal God is the 'Man of My Heart' whichintrinsically calls for the realisation of the Sahaja or the ultimatenature of true self. The Baul conception of love is the love betweenhuman personality and the Divine personality residing within us as

the true self or our Sahaja-nature. As already indicated, the creed ofthe Bauls is, thus, fundamentally based on the question of self-realisation. This pivotal factor of self-realisation was also stressed inthe Upanishads, but the eternal love as envisaged by the Bauls wasnot given much importance in the Upanishadic formulation of self-realisation.19Let us now deal with the Sufistic conception of divinity and theideal of love. The Sufistic overview in this regard can be located inAliraja's Sufi text entitled the Jnana-Sagar. There it is said that Godin his absolute aloneness could not realise His love and a second or adual was required as the beloved. The Absolute, therefore, created adual out of its ownself. The Jnana-sagarupholds that the universe hadits origin in love, and the chaos was systematised into the cosmosthrough the bond of love. Man is the microcosm in which all attributesof the Absolute are united. Man thus synthesizes within his nature two


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THEBAULSAND THEIRHERETICTRADITION 79aspects of existence:these are called in Sufism the nasut, which is hishuman personality and the lahut,which is his Divine personality.20This conception of the Divine and the human combined in man maywell be affiliated with the Upanishadic conception of theParamatmanand the Jivatman. But while the Upanishads speak ofthe love between the Divine personality and the human personalitymore or less metaphorically, the whole emphasis of the Sufis is onlove. On this basic issue the Sufis come closest to the Bauls.In the Baulconception of Man of My Heart we may, therefore, find a happyblending of the sahajaof the Sahajiyasand the Sufistic conception ofthe Beloved.

Both the Bauls and the Sufis, in their ecstatic wonder at theexpression of the Infinite manifested through the human finite form,have comparedit with the movement of an 'unknown bird'.Thisbringsin the concept of Achin Pakhi(meaning 'the unknown bird') which isperceived to be playing the eternal game of self-manifestation and ofreturingonce more to itself. The 'unknown bird'or AchinPakhi ives inthe cage of the human body for a while, but it soon goes out and floatsin the boundless sky. The Baul seeks to capture this mysteriousmovement n his song.21Iwonder how thisunknownbirdcomes into the cageand, then, flies out far away.

It is comparablewith the Sufi song:22The bird of my heart is a holy bird,the ninth heaven is its dwelling.We have already noticed that, like all other Sahajiyas, the Baulshave no faith in places of pilgrimage. But they nevertheless

congregate on the occasions of religious festivals. If asked why, theBaulswould say:We would be within hail of the otherboatmento hear their calls,We may, then, make sureour boat rightly floatson the Sahajastream.23

The Sahajiyasseek the bliss of divine union only for its own sake. Theyoga of the Bauls, therefore, is essentially different from that of thetantriks who are mainly concerned with various methods of gainingoccult and other powers for securing some ulterior ends. Mundanedesires appear to be the chief obstacles in the sahaja way. However,for getting rid of them, the Bauls do not ask for a total renunciationof


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80 SOCIALSCIENTISTthe material objects; but they prefer to concentrate on the opening ofthe door to the higher self. Kabir says:

I close not my eyes, stop not my ears,nor torment my body;But every path I then traversebecomes a path of pilgrimage,and whatever work I engage inbecomes service;This simple consumption is the best.24We have sought to explain how the whole Sahajiya tradition aswell the Sufi and the sant mysticism have tried to provide analternative popular philosophy of syncretism opposing the intolerantfundamentalist tenets of institutional orthodoxy of Hinduism andIslam. Was this popular philosophy of syncretism a mere peripheralheretic movement? Rabindranath Tagore did not, however,underestimate the strength of this popular heretic philosophy. In hiswell-known Foreword to Kshitimohan Sen's outstanding workMediaeval Mysticism of India, 25 Tagore wrote: 'India has a sadhanaof her own and it belongs to her innermost heart. Throughout all herpolitical vicissitudes its stream has flowed on. A wonderful feature ofthis stream has been that it does not glide along any embankment ofscriptural sanctions, and the influence of scholasticism on it, if any, isvery small. In fact, this sadhana has mostly been unscriptural and notcontrolled by social laws of any kind. Its spring is within the innermostheart of the people whence it has gushed forth in its spontaneity andbroken through the barriers of rules, prescriptive as well asproscriptive. Most of the persons from whose heart this spring hascome forth belong to the masses and whatever they have realised andexpressed was 'not by means of intellect or much learning of the sacred

lore' ('na medhaya na bahuna srutena').This sadhana as indicated earlier, first took concrete shape throughthe philosophical efforts of Buddhist and Natha Sahajiyas under thePala rule in Bengal during the period from the eighth century to theeleventh century. The Charyapadas and the Dohas were the literaryexpression of the popular Sahajiya philosophy which sought toexpose the prevailing pretence of the Brahmanic Hindu orthodoxy.The songs of Mayanamoti were another literary expression of theSahajiya ethos of the same period. However, from the end of theeleventh century till the beginning of the thirteenth century the newruling of the Senas made an organised attempt to erode the widespreadSahajiya social base in Bengal by imposing the caste-ridden Hinduorthodoxy of northern India. In a sustained opposition to thisoverbearing trend, the popular Sahajiya tradition of Bengalreasserted itself during the Turk-Afghan and the Mughal periods


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THE BAULSAND THEIRHERETICTRADITION 81stretching over five hundred years from the middle of the thriteenthcentury till the mid-eighteenth century. During this mediaevalperiod, the Sahajiya tradition manifested itself in two interconnectedstreams: the Saguna Bhakti movement of the Vaisnavas led byChaitanyadeva and the nirguna Sahajiya movement of the Bauls whowere enriched by the interplay of the Sufi philosophy of unorthodoxIslam and the mysticism of Kabir and other sant poets of northernIndia.After the introduction of the British colonial rule in the second halfof the eighteenth century, the Sahajiyas in Bengal began to facespecial problems. The Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth century,inspite of its rational heights and firm commitment against religiousorthodoxy and fundamentalism, had an urban Hindu elitist bias whichcould not always appreciate the deep-rooted rural moorings ofreligious syncretism so long nurtured by the Bauls and other Sahajiyas.The recent research investigations26 have brought to light the findingsthat from the middle of the ninetenth century, a large number ofpeople, belonging to both the Hindu low castes and the lower ranks ofthe Muslim community, began to come out of the domination ofBrahmanic Hinduism and Shariati Islam and join the ranks of theBauls and the Sufi fakirs. The Sahajiya leaders like Lalan Shah, byvirtue of their egalitarian approach and pious life style, turned out tobe an alternative focus of attraction as opposed to the oppressivebrahmins and mullahs. Meanwhile the suppression of the great SepoyRevolt of 1857-58 was accompanied with the assumption of directcontrol over the Indian affairs by the British Crown-in-Parliament. Asa part of the new comprehensive policy of domination, the colonialrulers decided to initiate moves to divide the united forces ofopposition in order to forestall any repetition of the experience of theSepoy Revolt. Consequently, the British Viceroys and ProvincialGovernors embarked upon a cynical policy of playing with the Hindu-Muslim religious diversities among the Indians, pitting one communityagainst the other.It was against this general background that the Bauls of Bengalbegan to experience organised onslaughts from the orthodox ShariatiIslamic leaders in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Themaulanas and mullahs concentrated their offensive against thepresentation of syncretistic philosophical songs by the Bauls as well asthe Sufi fakirs. The Islamic clerics and their armed supporters used toprovoke communal tension during the Baul musical performances andoccasionally resorted to arson and even murder. The Bengali tract,written by Maulana Riyajuddin Ahmad of Rangpur, was laterpublished under the title of Baul Dhangsher Fatwa towards thebeginning of the twentieth century (second edition reprinted in 1925).The tract contained explicit instructions given by the Maulana to hisorthodox followers to organise militant committees in each district of


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82 SOCIALSCIENTISTBengal aiming at a ruthless suppression of the Sahajiya Bauls and theSufi fakirs. Similarly the Hindu orthodox leaders at Calcutta cameout with satiric song processions viciously criticizing the Bauls and thefakirs for their syncretistic inclinations.27 Inspite of all theseorganised onslaughts, Maulana Riyajuddin's tract admitted that inthe early decades of the present century, sixty lakh Bauls wereactively engaged in propagating their Sahajiya philosophy throughthe presentation of songs and dance in the villages of most of thedistricts of undivided Bengal.Let us conclude with the incisive observations of RabindranathTagore which he made in his introduction to MuhammadMansuruddin's rare collection of the Baul songs entitled Haramoni28(meaning 'the lost jewel'): 'The elites in our country who callthemselves educated have been exploring tactical measures for Hindu-Muslim amity out of their own compulsions. They have taken thetraining of history in schools which are alien to us. But the realhistory of our country bears testimony to the devotion for synthesiswhich has been shared by the common people as the innermost truth intheir emotional depths. This devotion can be located among theBauls-their syncretistic tradition emerging as a common heritage ofboth the Hindus and the Muslims who came close without hurting eachother. Such a confluence did not end in a meeting or a committee. Thisblending has produced songs. The language and music of these songs ismelodious with a suavity which is untutored and natural. The voicesof both Hindus and Muslims have converged to make the songs resonateas a chorus, without giving anybody a chance for provoking aconfrontation between the Koran and the Puranas. This confluence isthe real reflection of the Indian civilization, while the confrontationexposes the uncivilized edges. The inspiration for the higher process ofcivilization has been relentlessly at work in the depths of the villagemilieu of Bengal, unnoticed by the institutional educational system ofschools and colleges. This innermost inspiration has prepared the basicground for a common anchorage for both Hindus and Muslims. The Baulsongs spring from this deep-rooted anchorage'.

NOTESAND REFERENCES1. RabindranathTagore,TheReligion fMan,London,1931,pp. 68-69.2. SashibhusanDas Gupta, ObscureReligiousCults (3rd edition), Calcutta,1969,

pp. 160-61.3. Ibid.,pp. 164-65.4. Ibid.,pp. 165-67.5. Dohakosaof Saraha-pada, umbers 47 and 48, Dr. Probodh ChandraBagachi'sedition.6. EnamulHaq,A Historyof Sufism n Bengal,1975,pp. 138-40.


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THE BAULSAND THEIRHERETICTRADITION 837. S.A.A. Rizvi, 'Islam in Mediaeval India' in A.L. Basham (ed.) A CulturalHistoryof India,1975,pp. 291-92.8. Awarifu-l-Ma'arif,ranslatedby H. WilberforceClarke,p. 18.9. KshitimohanSen, MedievalMysticismofIndia,Appendix IV, London, 1930.10. The Tantriktext Kularnava, 3, 132.11. KshitimohanSen, op.cit., Appendix IV.12. Ibid.13. SashibusanDas Gupta,op.cit.,pp. 173-74.14. KshitimohanSen, op.cit, Appendix IV.15. SashibhusanDas Gupta,op.dt., p. 175.16. KshitimohanSen, op.cit, Appendix IV.17. RabindranathTagore,TheReligion fMan,AppendixI, London,1931.18. Ibid.19. SashibhusanDas Gupta,op.cit., pp. 175-76.20. Aliraja,Inana-sagar,Sahitya Parishad,Series no. 59.21. MuhammadMansuruddin,Haramoni in Bengali),p. 4, firstVolume publishedin 1927(reprintedby BanglaAcademy,Dacca, n 1976).22. Divan-i-Hafiz,translatedby Carke, Part II, p. 772.23. RabindranathTagore,TheReligionofMan,Appendix I.24. Ibid.25. KshitimohanSen, MedievalMysticismof India, London, 1930.26. Sudhir Chakraborti,GabhirNirjanPathi (in Bengali),Calcutta, 1989.27. Ibid.28. Muhammad Mansuruddin, Haramoni (in Bengali), first published in 1927(reprintedby BanglaAcademy,Dacca, n 1976).

the bauls and their heretic tradition

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