Burchett2009 Article BhaktiRhetoricInTheHagiography

Bhakti Rhetoric in the Hagiography of ‘Untouchable’ Saints:
Discerning Bhakti’s Ambivalence on Caste and Brahminhood
Patton Burchett
Bhakti has often been praised as a form of religion based on loving devotion that
transcends social class, caste, and gender. Since at least the early twentieth century,
the history of bhakti has generally been told in terms of “the bhakti movement,” a
single coherent “wave” of devotional sentiment and egalitarian social reform that
spread across the entire Indian subcontinent. According to the commonly accepted
narrative, this “movement” began in the Tamil South between the sixth and ninth
centuries CE with the Çaiva Nåya~års and Vai‚~ava Å¬vårs. These poet-saints,
according to one scholarly rendition of the trope, “produced a transformatory
avalanche in terms of devotion and social reform that is now known as the Bhakti
Movement” (Nandakumar 2003: 794; emphasis added). The concept of a single,
coherent and socially progressive “bhakti movement” grew in large part out of the
context of early twentieth century Indian nationalist agendas which sought to create
a sense of national identity by propagating the notion of a shared pan-Indian bhakti
religious heritage. Early and mid-twentieth century North Indian nationalist scholars
such as Ramcandra Sukla and Hazariprasad Dvivedi sought to construct a nationalist
history of India through the medium of bhakti and thus spoke of a pan-Indian bhakti
“movement,” or åndolan (in Hindi), sweeping across and uniting the subcontinent in
shared values of love, progress, and social egalitarianism that reached deep into the
past.1 In his series of 1966 radio addresses to the Indian public, V. Raghavan gave a
classic example of this rhetoric, referring to bhakti as the “democratic doctrine
which consolidates all people without distinction of caste, community, nationality, or
sex” (1966: 32). This conception of bhakti as being socially progressive continues
still today. In 2003, Gail Omvedt wrote about the “radical bhakti (devotional)
movement that had swept over northern and western India, bringing together women
and men of low caste to proclaim equality and reject Brahmanic ritualism and caste
hierarchy” (2003: 277). Rohini Mokashi-Punekar, in an essay published in 2005,
described bhakti as a “deeply spiritual and democratizing movement” which is
characteristically “revolutionary in spirit” and centered on “a questioning of the
orthodox and repressive Brahminical understanding of Hinduism, [which] as such
made it possible for the lower castes and women to give a form to their religious
International Journal of Hindu Studies 13, 2: 115–41

© 2009 Springer
DOI 10.1007/s11407-009-9072-5
116 / Patton Burchett
aspirations, emphasizing devotion and love, not knowledge, as a means of salvation”

(123–24).
While the notion of bhakti as an egalitarian, democratizing and revolutionary force
uniting an Indian nation is a rather recent one, the idea that devotion is the true path
to salvation is far more time-tested. That the devotee’s love for God, just like God’s
love for the devotee, transcends distinctions of birth and social class is a message as
old as bhakti itself. It would seem that from the beginning, bhakti has by-and-large
been spiritually egalitarian in theory; however, modern-day scholars have not
hesitated to point out that bhakti theory has rarely if ever been translated into actual
social reform or sustained egalitarian bhakti practice.2 As Karen Pechilis writes,
“Indeed, the failure of not only low-caste but also especially untouchable peoples to
‘effect any change of place’ through bhakti has been noted in contemporary scholar-
ship” (1999: 29). David N. Lorenzen adds that, “The only significant rejection of
caste among Hindu sects is found in Virasaivism, in nirguni sects such as the Kabir
and Ravidas Panths, and to a lesser extent in the Arya Samaj. Even in these cases,
the opposition is limited mainly to the realm of ideology rather than practice” (2004:
10). Reasons given for the inability of bhakti to effect social change include, among
others, (a) its failure to address fundamental economic structures (that is, the inti-
mate ties between caste and systems of production)3 and (b) the fact that its egali-
tarian message may have originated and endured primarily as a political rhetoric
motivated and propagated more by power concerns and economic interests than by
any broad grassroots support for social change.4 These arguments, which focus on
the political and economic aspects of bhakti’s socio-historical context, are both valid
and important; but in this paper, I aim to explore the gap between bhakti theory and
bhakti practice in a different fashion. In what follows, I will examine a literary genre
vital in the formation of the bhakti tradition: the hagiographies of the bhakti saints.
As we will see, the hagiographies of the four major ‘untouchable’ poet-saints—those
bhaktas at the very lowest rung of the Hindu social order who would have benefited
most from bhakti-inspired social change—offer us an especially productive point
of access to the question of why egalitarian bhakti ideology has consistently not
translated into egalitarian bhakti practice or social reform.
John S. Hawley has noted that “[bhakti’s] ecumenical spirit is almost never
extended from the realm of bhakti hagiography into the real world” (1988: 16). In
this essay, I argue that the problem goes beyond a simple and widely accepted lack
of connection between theory and practice, or spirit and real world, when it comes
to the bhakti ideology expressed in hagiographical literature. As I will demonstrate,
it is not simply that there has been a failure to put the egalitarian bhakti theory of
these ‘untouchable’ hagiographies into actual practice, but rather that the messages
in these hagiographies are themselves far less democratizing and socially progressive
than they might at first appear.5 While the remembered life-stories of these four
‘untouchable’ saints seem on the surface to speak to the caste-transcending nature of
bhakti, a closer reading shows that, in subtle ways, these stories also reinforce the
social hierarchy and confirm Brahmins as possessing a social identity of higher
Bhakti Rhetoric in the Hagiography of ‘Untouchable’ Saints / 117
purity and value than any other. In other words, what appears to be egalitarian
bhakti theory is itself, on one level, subtly working against the actual practice of
egalitarian social relations and for the maintenance of the purity-based caste hierar-
chy. A brief overview of the place of ‘untouchable’ bhakti saints in contemporary
Dalit (‘untouchable’) movements will illustrate my point further, for it seems that
modern-day Dalits have become attuned to the ambiguous and less-than-progressive
nature of the bhakti message and have largely abandoned the ‘untouchable’ bhakti
poets who would seem to represent a clear source of pride and inspiration for them.6
While, for convenience, I use the terms “bhakti theory,” “bhakti ideology” and
“bhakti message” throughout this essay, in the pages that follow we will see that the
very notion of any such singular, coherent bhakti “theory,” “ideology” or “message”
is a problematic one, for the popular conception that there is an egalitarian ethos
inherent in bhakti, while certainly not without some basis, is simply not accurate.
In presuming (and exalting) the presence of a democratizing and revolutionary spirit
in bhakti across history, many scholars have unintentionally presented a notion of
bhakti that is far more coherent, consistent, and anachronistically modern than what
a close reading of bhakti texts actually demonstrates. This essay, then, in offering a
close examination and analysis of the hagiographies of the four main ‘untouchable’
bhakti saints, is meant to disrupt overly simplistic and naïve conceptions of bhakti
and to contribute to and strengthen an existing strand of scholarship (much of which
I draw on in the pages below) that has pointed out clear instances of bhakti’s
ambivalence on caste, Brahminhood, and social reform. An implicit component of
my argument is thus—to borrow the language of Shantanu Phukan (1996: 43)—that
we should not approach the theory/ideology of bhakti as some unitary presence
inherent in bhakti songs, poetry, and hagiographical stories, but rather as a range
constructed variously by different readers and listeners in their encounters with
bhakti art forms. While the egalitarian, democratic and revolutionary may occupy
important spaces on this range, bhakti’s message in regard to the social sphere has
throughout history often been far more complex—muddled even—and far less
progressive than these words convey.7
In what follows, it will become undeniably clear that the ‘untouchable’ bhakti
hagiographies exalt the caste-transcending nature of both God’s love for the devotee
and the devotee’s love for God. Yet while these stories admit salvation to all, they
also largely affirm the caste and purity restrictions of ordinary life in the world. I
argue here that these mixed messages result in large part from an apparent cultural
ambivalence regarding the identity of the Brahmin male. On the one hand he
represents a spiritual ideal; while on the other, he is a hereditary member of a
privileged social class.
Let us now turn to the stories of our ‘untouchable’ bhakti saints. Hawley writes
that, “The bhakti tradition by nature runs in families—this is a piety of shared expe-
rience, of singing and enthusiastic communication—and each clan, to be inclusive,
needs to have at least one representative from the Untouchable castes” (1988: 13).
While this statement may imply that bhakti movements are formed with far more
of an organized agenda than they actually are, the fact is that there are only four
major ‘untouchable’ saints, each seemingly representing a distinct community. In
South India this ‘untouchable’ representative was Tirruppå~ Å¬vår for the Vai‚~avas
and Nanda~år for the Çaivas; in Maharashtra it was Chokhåme¬å; and in North
India it was Raidås. An examination of key events in the hagiography of these four
‘untouchable’ poet-saints follows.
Tiruppå~ Å¬vår
Tiruppå~ Å¬vår lived in the Tamil South in the eight or ninth century CE and seems
to be the first ‘untouchable’ devotee to have been given the status of a bhakti saint.
He is one of twelve Vai‚~ava Å¬vårs, a title which refers to those “who are deeply
immersed in the love of Vishnu.”8 Only a single poem is attributed to Tiruppå~, but
it is one of the most treasured in the entire ÇrIvai‚~ava tradition and is still today
recited as part of the daily liturgy of all ÇrIvai‚~ava temples. His biography appears
in each of the five collections of the lives of the Å¬vårs written between the twelfth
and fifteenth centuries. The earliest and simplest version is the Divyas¨ricaritam
(The Life) of Garuavåhana-Pa~ita, written in Sanskrit around the twelfth century
CE. Next chronologically are two collections written in Tamil and both entitled the
Guruparamparåprabhåvam (The Splendor of the Succession of Gurus), one from
each of the two subsects of the ÇrIvai‚~ava community: the Vataka¬ai, whose version
dates from the late fourteenth to early fifteenth century, and the Te~ka¬ai, whose ver-
sion’s date is disputed but is likely from the thirteenth century. Another key source is
a Tamil collection of all the Å¬vårs’ lives called the Alvarkal Vaibhåvam (The
Glory), written by Vativalakiya Nampi Tacar in the fifteenth or sixteenth century.
In the basic story, Tiruppå~ grows up as part of an ‘untouchable’ på~ar caste of
bards and minstrels9 in a town near the temple of ÇrIra~gam, arguably the most
revered of all Vai‚~ava pilgrimage sites and indisputably the single most important
temple for ÇrIvai‚~ava devotees. From the moment he is able to speak, Tiruppå~
sings beautiful songs praising the qualities of RagI (or Raganåtha), the form of
Vi‚~u worshipped in the temple of ÇrIra~gam just across the river from his home-
town. Every day he travels to the south bank of the river and sings from a distance to
his beloved RagI. Tiruppå~ yearns to see the image of his beloved, but is unable to
enter the temple due to his ‘untouchable’ status. Eventually, the beauty of his songs
and the intensity of his devotion awake the compassion of RagI, who comes in a
dream to the Brahmin priest of ÇrIra~gam and tells him to bring Tiruppå~ into the
temple on his shoulders.10 The priest goes to get Tiruppå~, but he refuses to come,
saying, “How could you do such a thing with me, your slave, who belongs to the
class of untouchables?”11 In another version, he states, “How can I step with my
feet on to the holy temple of Raga?” And the Brahmin replies, “Never mind! You
can go [sitting] on my shoulders.”12 In yet another version, Tiruppå~ is so insistent
that he cannot come to the temple because of his low birth and sinful life that the
priest must physically force him onto his shoulders.13 Eventually, Tiruppå~ enters
the temple riding on the shoulders of the Brahmin priest, and, gazing at Rag? in
devotional ecstasy, he sings ten verses of praise describing the God from foot to
head. These are the very verses that are remembered and recited still today in the
Çr?vai‚~ava community. The story concludes with Tiruppå~ miraculously uniting
with and disappearing into the image of his beloved Rag?.
In this story, Tiruppå~’s devotion is rewarded with the sight of the Lord, yet he is
only allowed to enter the temple on the shoulders of a Brahmin. By riding piggy-
back on the Brahmin priest, he does not actually set foot on temple ground and can
thereby avoid polluting the sacred temple space. On one level, the story is genuinely
triumphant: the ‘untouchable’ not only enters the temple, but is carried in by a
Brahmin, who evidently pollutes himself by doing so. Furthermore, despite his
presumed caste impurity, through the power of his devotion Tiruppå~ achieves the
highest spiritual goal by merging with the divine. Yet the message is mixed. Clearly,
Tiruppå~ is not allowed to touch the temple ground as he will pollute it. In even the
very earliest version, it is Rag?, Vi‚~u himself, who commands (in a dream) that the
temple priest bring Tiruppå~ in on his shoulders, a divine affirmation that as an
‘untouchable,’ at least in the human world, he truly is polluting. While in this earliest
account of his life, Tiruppå~ is born from his ‘untouchable’ mother, in the later
versions he is born miraculously outside a human womb and becomes a ca~åla
(‘untouchable’) simply because he is found and raised by a ca~åla family.14 In this
way, ‘Brahminizing’ authors removed the problem of Tiruppå~’s ‘untouchability’
and sought to demonstrate that he was a truly exceptional and miraculous figure, not
an ordinary human being whose life could be emulated.
Nanda~år
Nanda~år is one of sixty-three Çaiva saints known as Nåya~års. He was born into an
‘untouchable’ community called the pulai and, like Tiruppå~, lived in the Tamil
South in the eighth or ninth century CE. In contrast to both Raidås and Tiruppå~,
Nanda~år left behind no poetry and is remembered only for the remarkable story of
his life as an ‘untouchable’ devotee. The oldest and most famous version of his
story, along with those of all the other Nåya~års, is told in Cekkilar’s twelfth century
Tamil Tirumurai or Periya Puranam (Great Story). Here I rely on Vidya Dehejia’s
brief account of the basic narrative:
This untouchable came from a community that provided leather for drums and
animal gut for the stringed musical instruments used in the temples. Nandanar was
an ardent devotee of Siva who stood every day outside the temple walls (not being
allowed closer access), singing the praises of his Lord. His greatest desire in life
was to go to Chidambaram and see the dancing Siva within the shrine. Each day
he vowed that he would go the next day, and hence acquired the name of Tiru-
nalai-povar, or “He who will go tomorrow.” Ultimately, he made his way to the
Chidambaram temple, where he stood outside its high walls, dancing in ecstasy
that he should have reached the holy city and weeping in despair that he could not
enter the temple. Siva appeared to his temple priests and commanded them to light
a fire and lead the untouchable through it and into his presence in the sanctum.
Nandanar walked unharmed through the flames, entered the sanctum, walked
deliriously up to the image of the dancing Siva, and disappeared under the raised
foot of his Lord (1988: 173–74).
What is not mentioned in this account is for our purposes the most interesting point
in the story: Why Nanda~år had to walk through a fire in order to enter the temple
sanctuary. The translation of the episode in Cekkilar’s text goes like this:
In his sleep he thought: “This base birth is certainly a hindrance.” But the Lord of
the Dance in the sacred hall knew of his state, and appeared before him in a dream,
smiling gracefully, in order to resolve all his troubles. The Lord of the sacred hall
gracefully told him: “When you bathe in the fire it will extinguish this birth and
you will be as a Brahmin wearing the triple thread on his chest.”15
Çiva commanded the temple Brahmins to prepare the fire and
Nandanar with his hands pressed above his head, thinking of the feet of God,
rounded the fire, then entered it. Immediately his false image disappeared. Then in
the image of a muni [sage] who does good deeds, with sacred thread, with the
braided tuft of a munivar he came out of the fire.16
Again, on one level this story exalts the caste-transcending power of bhakti. Çiva
personally responds to the pure and intense devotion of Nanda~år and arranges for
this ‘untouchable’ to transgress social convention by entering his sacred temple.
Despite being ‘untouchable,’ Nanda~år’s love for Çiva is so powerful that he
achieves union with the god, merging into the feet of the image of his dancing Lord.
Unfortunately, things are not as simple as this. Nanda~år is not able to enter the
temple until he has shed his lowly birth by passing through the fire, something that
Çiva himself commands. Thus, again we see God himself confirming the impurity of
the ‘untouchable.’ What’s more, Nanda~år does not enter the fire simply to purify
himself, but to become a Brahmin. In fact, one could argue, as Lynn Vincentnathan
does, that in this story, “Nandanar is not really an Untouchable; the Untouchable
form is his false image” which is destroyed in the fire to reveal his true Brahmin
form (2005: 110). Either way, the story makes it clear that true spiritual purity is
represented by the ideal of the Brahmin with his sacred thread.
Raidås
The most popular of ‘untouchable’ saints, Raidås (also known as Ravidås), lived in
Benares in the fifteenth or sixteenth century (ca. 1450–1520 CE)17 and was part of
the ‘untouchable’ camår community of leatherworkers whose traditional occupation

primarily involved removing animal (especially cow) carcasses and tanning their
hides. The most detailed sources for the life of Raidås are Anantadås’s Raidås
Parca (ca. 1588), Priyådås’s Bhaktirasabodhin (1712),18 and a Punjabi text, the
Poth premabodh (ca. 1693). Anantadås and Priyådås stress Raidås’s victories in his
multiple confrontations with orthodox Brahmins who questioned his authority. Both
authors explain that Raidås was a Brahmin in his previous life who was reborn as a
camår because of errors in conduct. Specifically, Priyådås explains that in Raidås’s
prior birth, he was a pupil of Råmånand.19 When he compromised his guru’s purity
by offering him food from a merchant who had earlier been tainted by contact with
camårs, Raidås was cursed to die and be reborn a camår himself. In this version,
baby Raidås refuses to take milk from his camår mother and only feeds when
Råmånand, having heard of the baby’s distress, comes to adopt him.
Anantadås and Priyådås both mention that a Queen JhålC from Chittorgarh came to
Benares to seek initiation from Raidås and later invited him to a feast at her home,
thereby enraging the Brahmins in her royal court.20 One of the best-known episodes
in Raidås’s hagiography comes from their accounts of this visit to Queen JhålC’s
court. The court Brahmins refuse to eat at the same table as the ‘untouchable’
Raidås, so he seats himself in deep meditation in a camp outside the palace and
mentally projects the image of his body between each and every Brahmin as they
begin to eat. Embarrassed, overwhelmed, and fearful of the retribution of such a
clearly powerful saint, the Brahmins run off to find Raidås and to touch his feet.
They arrive at his camp, begging forgiveness, and ask Raidås for his council. At this
point, Anantadås’s text states:
Raidas spoke, telling the story of his previous birth. “I was a Brahmin but did not
know god (i.e. Hari). Thus I took birth as a Shudra.” [Ripping open his chest] he
revealed his sacred thread of gold within; all present grew faint at the sight. Raidas
continued, “Practicing bhakti I was saved. Without god’s love the world is base.
Caste and kinship confer no authority. Only he who practices devotion crosses
over.”21
Here the classic bhakti message is stated outright: caste does not matter in spiritual
concerns; it is devotion that brings salvation. Yet, significantly, the enduring image
is that of Raidås ripping open his chest to reveal a sacred golden thread, “one of the
most tangible physical symbols signifying the Brahmin’s privileged position at the
apex of the social hierarchy” (Schaller 2005: 226). This episode forcibly demon-
strates that to be spiritually pure is to be a Brahmin and to be the wearer of a sacred
thread.22 At the same time, it is clear that the Brahmins in this story are shamed by
Raidås and shown the error of refusing to eat with or acknowledge the spiritual
authority of the ‘untouchable’ Raidås. They touch his feet and beg for his council,
admitting their ignorance and hypocrisy. The question is, however, are the Brahmins
guilty of refusing to eat with an ‘untouchable’—of following conventional purity
restrictions—or are they guilty of not recognizing that Raidås is in actuality a

Brahmin?
The exposure of Brahmin ignorance and pettiness is not an isolated incident in
Raidås’s hagiography. On multiple occasions in his story he encounters Brahmins
and illustrates their arrogance, insincerity, and mistaken attachment to knowledge,
social distinctions, and ritual forms over what really counts: loving devotion and
purity of heart. In fact, stories mocking and criticizing Brahmins appear again and
again throughout all the bhakti hagiographical literature, much of which was written
by Brahmins. In his Patterns in Indian Hagiography, W. L. Smith (2003) devotes an
entire chapter to retelling various hagiographical stories mocking and criticizing the
Brahmin. Clearly some Brahmins were willing to openly acknowledge and critique
their own faults and to admit a real gap between the spiritual ideal of the Brahmin
and their own behavior as members of the Brahmin social class. However, acknowl-
edging that the social hierarchy and its purity restrictions were themselves faulty was
an entirely different matter for these hagiographers. For, in all the stories we have
discussed, on some significant level caste purity distinctions, and the social hierar-
chy based on them, are entirely upheld. Here, even in theory, bhakti is not at all
egalitarian, democratizing, or socially revolutionary. Whether revealing a sacred
Brahmin thread within their body, passing through a fire to shed caste impurity and
emerge as a Brahmin or entering the sacred temple only on the shoulders of a
Brahmin, the message of these hagiographical accounts seems not to be that the
‘untouchable’ is equally as pure as the Brahmin but rather that the ‘untouchable’
can overcome his impurity and become like a Brahmin through the power of his
devotion. Loving devotion is now the ultimate good, but the socio-spiritual hierarchy
of purity remains in place.
Cokhåme¬å
Cokhåme¬å was born in the second half of the thirteenth century in Maharashtra.
He was a Mahår, “a caste which performed village service duties ranging from
carting away dead animals and bringing fuel to the funeral pyre to adjudicating
boundaries and caring for the horses of traveling government officials” (Zelliot
1995: 212), and represents the only major bhakti figure in Maharashtra from an
‘untouchable’ caste.23 Cokhåme¬å (also known as “Cokhå”) is a revered figure in the
VårkarI sampradåya (“the tradition of the pilgrims”), a tradition of the Marathi-
speaking area of India dedicated to the worship of K®‚~a in the form of Vi††hal (or
Vi†hobhå) and centered on pilgrimage to his temple in Pandharpur (Zelliot 1981:
136). Beyond his poetry itself, the primary source for the life of Cokhåme¬å is the
Marathi hagiographical literature produced by MahIpati (1715–90), a householder
and village accountant who renounced his administrative position to devote himself
to collecting and recording the lives of notable bhaktas. The following stories from
Cokhåme¬å’s life come from MahIpati’s first and most-widely circulated work, the
massive collective hagiography entitled the Bhaktavijay (Victory of the Bhaktas).24
Cokhåme¬a lived in Pandharpur, home of the temple of Vi†hobhå located on the

banks of the Bhima River. He would bathe in the Bhima, circumambulate the entire
city and then prostrate himself in devotion at the main door of the temple, since the
temple priests would not allow ‘untouchables’ to enter. Due to his steadfast devo-
tion, Vi†hobhå one night comes to Cokhå, takes him by the hand, and lovingly leads
him into the innermost shrine. When the Brahmin priests learn of his entry into the
temple they order him to leave Pandharpur so as no longer to defile Vi†hobhå. Cokhå
responds that God cannot be defiled—though (and this is a vital point) he implicitly
assumes his own impurity and defilement—and that, “To God supreme, the Lord of
Rukmini, all castes are alike”; but this only enrages the Brahmins further. They state:
“We are expert in every Shastra, but you are of low caste, and though an outcaste
you are attempting to give us knowledge. So now go to the other side of the Bhima
river and live there. If on the morrow you are seen here, we shall give you a good
punishment.”
Cokhå moves to the other side of the river, where he continues to worship Vi†hobhå
with all his heart. One day, while he is eating his lunch, Vi†hobhå suddenly appears
and sits down to eat beside him. While serving curds, Cokhå’s wife accidentally
spills food on Vi†hobhå’s yellow robe. As Cokhå is scolding his wife a Brahmin
priest walks by and hears his conversation. Angrily, he says, “Seeing me here, he
[Cokhå] is talking at random. For how can the Lord of the World have dined with
one who is an outcaste?” The Brahmin approaches Cokhå, slaps him hard on the
mouth, and immediately departs. When the priest returns to the temple he is aston-
ished to find the image of Vi†hobhå soiled with curds and the cheek of the God
severely swollen. Full of fear and sorrow at persecuting God’s beloved bhakta, the
priest takes Cokhå from the banks of the Bhima and leads him by the hand into the
temple. When Cokhå embraces Vi†hobhå, the swelling on the image’s face immedi-
ately subsides. The story concludes by stating that from that time forward, Cokhå
always entered the temple freely.
In several ways, Cokhåme¬å’s story contrasts with that of Tirrupå~, Nanda~år, and
Raidås. He is not carried into the temple by a Brahmin (like Tirrupå~), nor does he
become a Brahmin before entering the temple (like Nanda~år); rather, he walks into
the temple on his own two feet as an ‘untouchable.’ Furthermore, unlike Raidås, he
is not made out to be a Brahmin in a previous birth, though his birth is described as
miraculous (outside of a human womb). Disguised as a Brahmin, Vi†hobhå begs a
mango from Cokhå’s mother. He takes a bite of the fruit, deems it sour, and hands it
back to her. Later, when she takes it out from the folds of her sari, she discovers that
the mango has miraculously transformed into a beautiful baby, none other than
Cokhå. Zelliot remarks that aside from this miraculous birth story, “There is no
attempt to relate [Cokhå’s] existence to any other realm than that of the Untouch-
ables. In other words, he has not been Brahminized, although the birth legends
contain possibilities” (2005: 22).
Nevertheless, Cokhå’s life story also offers important parallels with that of the
other three major ‘untouchable’ saints. Brahmin arrogance, prejudice, and ignorance
are once again displayed and criticized. More importantly, mixed messages about
caste persist even in Cokhå’s apparently un-Brahminized legend. Cokhå maintains
that it is impossible for God to be polluted by anyone and asserts that, in the eyes
of the Lord, all castes are the same; yet at the same time, the clear message in both
his own poetry and in the hagiography about him is that Cokhå acknowledges,
accepts, and actually feels he deserves his ‘untouchable’ status in the ordinary social
sphere. As Jayashree B. Gokhale-Turner explains, the difficulty of his life as an
‘untouchable’ caused Cokhå to pose two questions: “First, why was he ever born,
and second, how may he attain the Divine if the very shadow of his presence is
defiling?” (1981: 31). Cokhå acknowledges that his low birth is the result of
previous crimes committed against K®‚~a, yet he asserts that it is still possible to
reach God through faith and grace. Thus he prescribes acquiescence to the var~a
order and fulfillment of the duties prescribed by the caste system in combination
with bhakti to erase the stain of ‘untouchability’ (Gokhale-Turner 1981: 31). As we
will now see, this perspective has been quite problematic for contemporary Indian
social movements seeking the abolition of caste. As Zelliot remarks, “Chokhamela
had accepted the concept of sins in past lives which resulted in low birth, and not
only Mahars but also other Untouchables seem to reject this rationale. Chokhamela
had found joy in equality with other bhaktas and in God’s sight; the new generation
wanted it in social and political matters” (1981: 143).
‘Untouchable” Bhaktas and the Dalit Movement
In an important article about bhakti and contemporary Dalit movements, Gokhale-

Turner makes the striking statement that, “For the bhakti tradition no social solution
to Untouchability is possible; indeed, the very question is irrelevant. As Untouch-
ability has suprahuman origins and justifications, it is pointless to call for social
action to remedy it” (1981: 32). While one might question whether devotion to the
Divine necessarily implies acceptance of the notion that one’s place in the caste
hierarchy is divinely ordained by karmic processes, the fact remains that this
perspective towards bhakti seems to have been adopted by a great many Dalits
today. As Gokhale-Turner states, “The teachings of Chokha Mela have been almost
completely repudiated, and the bhakti tradition’s understanding of caste and the
solution to Untouchability is now seen as an ideological mystification perpetrated by
the higher castes and succumbed to by the lower castes” (33).25 She explains that
writers of dalit sahitya26 have made it clear that “Chokha Mela and his tradition
exercise no particular appeal or attraction for them.…His example of acceptance and
self-abnegation, coupled with an unswerving faith in the religious system which
made him Untouchable, is anathema to a generation raised on the teachings of the
Ambedkar movement” (34).27
Modern-day Dalits have found hagiographical representations of Raidås equally
problematic. In regard to the well-known story in which Raidås rips open his chest to
reveal a sacred thread inside, Hawley writes that,
Certain recent interpreters of Ravidas from among the camår community have
wished to disown the story altogether, especially the influential Lucknow writer
Candrikåprasåd Jijñåsu, who desired so intensely to separate Ravidas from the
Brahmin and even the larger Hindu tradition that he made him out to be a
Buddhist (2005: 156).
Jijnasu’s book—written in 1956, the same year that Ambedkar converted to

Buddhism—urges the reader to abandon Hinduism, stressing that Raidås was not a
Brahmin, but a camår, and not a Hindu, but a Buddhist (Lochtefeld 2005: 156).
While Jijnasu provides a somewhat extreme example, many Dalits have struggled
with exactly how to conceive of Raidås in relation to their own goals for social
and political change. Raidås’s message, in his poetry and hagiography, is clearly
not about social transformation, but about the saving power of devotion and the
unimportance of caste in one’s relationship with God; and for this very reason he has
not been as central a symbol in social movements for Dalit rights as one might
expect. In a fascinating unpublished paper, Joel Lee (2006) takes up exactly this
topic—“the dilemma in Dalit movements over whether or not to own Ravidas, or to
what degree to own him, and the arguments given in support of such decisions.” So
far as we know, it was not until the twentieth century that Raidås was utilized in
political contexts as a figurehead of Dalit movements. In the Punjab region, the Ådi
Dharm (“Original Religion”) movement of the 1920s and 30s projected Ravidås as
its patron saint and symbol, while in Uttar Pradesh, SvåmI Ach¨tånand’s Ådi Hind¨
(“Original Hindu”) movement made the same decision at roughly the same time.
Yet Lee makes it clear that it is Ambedkar and Buddhism that have been the most
powerful and widespread symbols/instruments of contemporary Dalit rights move-
ments.28 Through textual research and interviews with Dalit activists, Lee identifies
the following “problems” with Raidås as a Dalit icon: (1) he is a Hindu and his
message is often seen as too compatible with Hindu thought (and thus with the caste
system); (2) he is not considered revolutionary enough (especially in comparison to
KabIr and Ambedkar) and is seen as more religious than social in his concern; and
(3) his potential is limited by the fact that he is known specifically as a camår and
not as an ‘untouchable’ generally. As Lee points out, “Indeed, twentieth century
history suggests that non-Chamar rallying under the banner of Ravidas is rare.”
The case of Nanda~år proves to be much the same as that of Cokhå and Raidås. As
Lynn Vincentnathan writes, “Nandanar is not much of a hero for today’s Untouch-
able youth, who have other more progressive heroes, such as Ambedkar” (2005:
115). In interviews with young ‘untouchables’ in Tamil Nadu, she found that
Nanda~år’s obliging and obedient acceptance of his caste place and duties did not
make him a role model for achieving a better life in this world.29 Clearly, then,
contemporary Dalits have by and large rejected, abandoned, or ignored the ‘untouch-
able’ bhakti saints in their struggle for social justice.30
While this brief overview of Dalit perspectives on the ‘untouchable’ bhakti saints
has taken us slightly astray from the hagiographical literature, it has further illus-
trated one of this essay’s key assertions about that literature: namely, that the bhakti
theology in the poetry and life stories of the ‘untouchable’ saints demonstrates an
ambivalence about caste and Brahminhood that actually works against efforts at
egalitarian social change. In the end, it seems that bhakti’s enduring success and
popularity among the lower classes should not be linked to an ideology of revolu-
tionary and democratizing social reform and progress, but rather to an ideology
“which offers them a more positive status and self-image” in their own eyes and
perhaps even in the eyes of others (Lorenzen 1987: 295). As Lorenzen has pointed
out in his work on the KabGr panth, participation in certain bhakti communities may
indeed embody “an element of social protest against the hierarchical structure of the
Hindu socio-religious order,” but it simultaneously “represents a general acceptance
of the hegemony of that order” (1987: 295). Similarly, A. K. Ramanujan, using the
terminology of Victor Turner, has remarked that “bhakti-communities, while
proclaiming anti-structure, necessarily develop their own structures for behaviour
and belief, often minimal, frequently composed of elements selected from the very
structures they deny or reject” (1973: 35).31 Joseph O’Connell goes even further,
suggesting that bhakti actually works to make discriminatory caste practices and
structures more enduring. He argues that bhakti’s impact on society “tends not to
involve major structural changes, but rather modest modifications” which may
soften caste attitudes and make social norms slightly more flexible, but simultane-
ously makes those norms and attitudes that much more durable (O’Connell 1993:
12–13).
Untangling Social Brahminhood and Spiritual Brahminhood
Our foregoing analysis of bhakti hagiography leads me to concur with Ranajit

Guha’s historical assessment that, in most cases, “Bhakti could do little to abolish
the social distance between the high-born and the low-born, although some of the
former’s spiritual qualities might, under certain conditions, be acquired by the latter,
without, however, effecting any change of place” (1997: 54).32 One could argue even
further that not only does bhakti not effect any change of social location, it can
actually work to highlight and justify social distance. For instance, Vincentnathan
notes that hagiographical stories exalting the lives of ‘untouchable’ bhakti saints can
actually “serve to emphasize the inherent inferiority of all other Untouchables” by
implying that since they have not achieved the spiritual heights of the ‘untouchable’
saint, their low status must be a deserved result of their degraded nature and not a
function of external factors (2005: 118).
Whether one agrees with Vincentnathan or not, what is clear in the hagiographical
stories we have discussed—with the possible exception of Cokhåme¬å—is the exis-
tence of mixed and conflicting messages regarding the identity of the Brahmin. The
Sanskrit word bråhma~a, a member of the Brahmin social class, is a (v®ddhi) deriva-
tive of the word brahman, which refers to the Absolute, the ultimate spiritual entity.
Thus a connection between the social class of Brahmins and elevated spiritual status
is built into the very language. Among the authors of these hagiographies, and
presumably among many others in Indian society as well, the identification of the
social class of the Brahmin with the spiritual ideal of the Brahmin seems to have
been so culturally entrenched that these ‘untouchable’ bhaktas had first to be
considered Brahmins in some sense before their spiritual achievements could make
any sense.
This ambiguity and confusion regarding the identity of the Brahmin has clear
precedents in early Sanskrit literature as well as obvious parallels in other vernacular
texts of the bhakti tradition. The Manusm®ti (Laws of Manu) states:
The very birth of a Bråhma~a is an eternal incarnation of the sacred law; for he is
born to [fulfill] the sacred law, and becomes one with Brahman. A Bråhma~a,
coming into existence, is born as the highest on earth, the lord of all created
beings, for the protection of the treasury of the law. Whatever exists in the world
is the property of the Bråhma~a; on account of the excellence of his origin the
Bråhma~a is, indeed, entitled to it all (1.98–100).33
Clearly, here birth is what makes one a Brahmin and what gives one both sacred
spiritual status and corresponding social privileges. This perspective—that class is
assumed at birth—dominates the Sanskrit literature, but undoubtedly there are
important instances when this notion is challenged.
A particularly good example of an alternative vision of Brahmin identity comes in
a story from the third book of the Mahåbhårata (175–78), the Åra~yakaparva (Book
of the Forest).34 BhEma is wandering through the woods when he sees a huge snake,
a starving boa which suddenly attacks and overpowers him, wrapping him in a single
mighty coil. The snake—a former royal seer cursed to this condition for insulting
Brahmins!—states that he will set BhEma free if he replies correctly to a series of
questions. Yudhi‚†hira comes and finds his brother encircled by the snake’s coils and
agrees to respond to the snake’s questions. The key conversation occurs in 3.177.15–
30 when the snake asks who a Brahmin is and how he can be identified:
Yudhi‚†hira says: “He is known as a Brahmin, King of Snakes, in who truthful-

ness, liberality, patience, deportment, mildness, self-control, and compassion are
found. And he may gain knowledge of the supreme Brahman, beyond happiness
and unhappiness, Snake, on reaching which they grieve no more.”
The Snake says: “Authority, truth, and the Brahman extend to all four classes:
even çudras may be truthful, liberal, tolerant, mild, nonviolent, and compassion-
ate, Yudhi‚†hira.”
Yudhi‚†hira responds: “The marks of the çudra are not found in a Brahmin; but
a çudra is not necessarily a çudra, nor a Brahmin a Brahmin. In whomever the
Brahmin’s marks are found, Snake, he is known as a Brahmin; and in whom they
are not found, him they designate as a çudra.”
The Snake says: “If you judge a Brahmin by his conduct, king, then birth has no
meaning, my dear sir, as long as no conduct is evident.”
Yudhi‚†hira responds that birth is hard to ascertain and conduct is the chief postulate
determining class. At the end of their conversation, the Snake states (3.178.42–45):
“Truthfulness, self-control, austerity, discipline, noninjuriousness, and continual
charity are people’s means to greatness, and not birth or family, king. Your strong-
armed brother BhBma here is unhurt and free.”
In this narrative, Brahminhood is unmistakably defined by one’s conduct and
personal qualities and not by birth. Yudhi‚†hira implies that even one born with the
social identity of a Brahmin can be designated a çudra if his ethical conduct does
not meet Brahmin standards. Yet even in this ‘enlightened’ perspective, the word
“Brahmin” is still used to refer to the highest spiritual and ethical status while
“çudra” marks one of lesser moral conduct. Just as in the hagiographies we exam-
ined, the relationship between social and spiritual Brahminhood is questioned, but at
the same time the term “Brahmin”—a term marking a hereditary social identity—
maintains a monopoly on spiritual achievement. The confusion between social and
spiritual categories is clearly evident in Yudhi‚†hira’s comment that “a çudra is not
necessarily a çudra, nor a Brahmin a Brahmin.” Such a convoluted and ambivalent
perspective would certainly be hard put to inspire social change.
Another important example of ambiguity regarding the identity of the Brahmin
comes from the Råmcaritmånas. This text, a vernacular rendering of the Råmåya~a
by the sixteenth/seventeenth-century Brahmin poet-saint TulsBdås, brings us back
into the realm of bhakti literature. In fact, the Råmcaritmånas is arguably the most
important and influential piece of bhakti literature in all of North India. Linda Hess
has noted that in this text,
hierarchical and egalitarian prescriptions sometimes directly follow one another. A

declaration that merit can be gained only by worshipping the feet of Brahmans
may be followed by a ringing affirmation that Råm is blind to distinctions and
cares for nothing but bhakti (1988: 246).
She points out a particularly striking instance of this in the third book of TulsBdås’s
epic, where Råm states:
I am never pleased with an enemy of Brahmans;

but one who serves those gods on earth sincerely, in
thought, word, and deed, gains power over me,
Brahma, Shiva, and all the gods.
Though a Brahman curse you, beat you, or abuse you,
he should be worshipped. So sing the saints.
Worship Brahmans, even those with no kindness or virtue.
Don’t worship Shudras, even those with every virtue, skill,
and wisdom (3.33.8–34.2).35
Immediately after this speech, Råm goes to the åçram of ÇabarE, a savage hermit
woman and a model devotee. She asks how she can possibly praise Råm since she is
of such a vile caste. Råm replies:
Listen, lady, to my words. I recognize

only one relationship: devotion. Caste, kinship,
lineage, piety, power, wealth, strength, connections,
virtue, achievements—a man with all these but without
devotion is like a cloud without water (3.35–36).
These verses illustrate, in characteristic fashion, bhakti’s ambivalent message

regarding caste and Brahminhood. Immediately after praising the virtues of
Brahmins (“those gods on earth”) and remarking that even Brahmins exhibiting
improper conduct should be worshipped, Råm states that in his eyes—the eyes of
God—birth and caste are of no concern; only devotion matters. Just as in the
‘untouchable’ saints’ hagiographies, when it comes to bhakti, egalitarianism applies
in the spiritual sphere but not in the social. And again, just as in the hagiographies,
we see that the identity of the Brahmin is the vital point where the spiritual and the
social meet and become inextricably confused.
It must be admitted, though, that not all of India’s texts share this ambivalent
attitude about Brahminhood. The Vajras¨c$,36 for instance, offers perhaps the best
example of a pre-colonial Sanskrit text whose central theme is a full-scale, unambi-
guous attack on the birth-based var~a system. This text aims to demonstrate “that
there exists no single essential intrinsic trait or substance in which var~a distinctions
can be located and legitimized” and thus that the “only legitimate basis for var~a
distinctions is personal conduct. A person who acts as a Brahmin becomes a
Brahmin; a person who acts as a Shudra becomes a Shudra” (Lorenzen 2000: 445–
46). Cases such as the Vajras¨c$ are quite rare; however, even where texts like the
Mahåbhårata, Vålmiki Råmåya~a, and Råmcaritmånas clearly affirm inegalitarian
social ideologies (for example, privileges and prohibitions based on birth into a
particular social class), there often exist “alternate” or “oppositional” tellings of
these narratives that adapt, remove, and/or reinterpret stories in the interests of
specific communities who have been offended or disadvantaged by the more
normative/dominant versions. In this respect, Paula Richman’s pioneering volumes
on the diversity and dissent encompassed in the Råmåya~a tradition deserve special
mention for having enriched our understanding of how various communities—
ranging from women to ‘untouchables’ to Tamil-separatists—have not passively
received these narratives, but rather have taken an active role in creating, adapting,
and interpreting them in ways that affirm their specific self-identity and social
philosophy (Richman 1991a, 2001).37 One might consider many such “alternate”
tellings as examples of James C. Scott’s “hidden transcripts,” narratives that a
“subordinate group creates, out of its ordeal…that [represent] a critique of power
spoken behind the back of the dominant” (1990: xii). Regardless, the key point to be
made here is that the narratives from the epic and hagiographical literature that I
have presented in this essay constitute—to borrow Richman’s typology—“authori-
tative” tellings which, unlike “oppositional” or “alternate” tellings, have a long-
standing (typically centuries-old) and vast (often pan-Indian) sphere of influence and
have thus acquired a privileged cultural status “as literary monuments…from which
it is difficult to escape. One can negotiate, reject, or be in conversation with them,
but one can seldom ignore them” (Richman 2001: 10). These “authoritative” tellings
cannot be ignored because they represent the terms of the dominant discourse and, as
Scott points out—and as the “alternate” tellings themselves seem to affirm—“the
terrain of the dominant discourse is the only plausible arena of struggle” (1990: 103).
In briefly looking at the “authoritative” passages above from the Mahåbhårata
and Råmcaritmånas, then, I have sought simply to show that ambiguity regarding
caste and Brahminhood has quite a long and influential history in India and is rather
deeply culturally entrenched. In bhakti literature, this ambivalence emerges and
subtly disrupts and hinders any genuine egalitarian spirit. As we have seen, the
hagiographies of Tiruppå~, Nanda~år, Cokhåme¬å, and Raidås openly acknowledge,
mock, and criticize the flaws of Brahmins and clearly demonstrate the gap between
the behavior of Brahmins and the spiritual ideal of ‘Brahminhood.’ Ultimately,
however, the Brahmins still end up right where they started: on the top of a purity-
based social hierarchy. The hagiographies of the ‘untouchable’ saints teach us
that even in the context of bhakti theory Brahmins are innocent until proven guilty;
they are Brahmins until deeming themselves not worthy. The ‘untouchable,’ on
the other hand, is guilty until proven innocent; his impurity is real and he deserves
his lot until, through extraordinary behavior, he proves that his spiritual worth does
not match his social status, as the laws of karma and rebirth would seem to necessi-
tate.
Concluding Thoughts
In conclusion, I have sought here to demonstrate that the failure of bhakti religious
movements to achieve lasting egalitarian social reform is not merely a problem of
bhakti theory not successfully being put into practice, but is a function of bhakti
theory itself, which is not so egalitarian after all. In briefly examining episodes from
the hagiographies of the four main ‘untouchable’ bhakti saints, we have seen that a
confusion emerges in these texts in which the social identity of the Brahmin caste—a
social class that one is born into—continues to be identified with the spiritual ideal
of ‘the Brahmin’ while at the same time the stories openly express a message that
true Brahminhood—a spiritual condition in which one’s thoughts, words, and deeds
are pure—is not a function of caste position, but rather of one’s devotion and spiri-
tual mindset. In the end these bhakti texts demonstrate that sincerity and intensity of
devotion may allow one to transcend all impurities and social distinctions in the
spiritual sphere, but caste is much less easily discarded in the ordinary social sphere.
As King Bijjala states in Girish Karnad’s play Tale-Da~a, “One’s caste is like the
skin on one’s body. You can peel it off top to toe, but when the new skin forms,
there you are again: a barber—a shepherd—a scavenger!” (1993: 15).
Authorial Intention in Bhakti Hagiography
Thus far, I have purposefully avoided an extended discussion of the sticky issue of
intentionality in the writing of these bhakti hagiographies. My central goal has not
been to explain why the contradictory messages regarding caste are present in these
hagiographies so much as to show that (a) they are indeed present as part of the
stories’ fundamental narrative structures (and should thus disrupt any notions we
might have of a singular, coherent bhakti ideology characterized by an egalitarian
ethos) and (b) the presence of such ambiguity within the bhakti message itself
provides strong evidence for why bhakti has consistently failed throughout its
history to bring about enduring egalitarian social praxis. In this final section, I would
like to speculate briefly on the matter of authorial intention in the bhakti hagiogra-
phies. If one were to attempt to answer the question of why these mixed messages
about caste emerge in these hagiographical texts, one might begin their interpre-
tation from one of two primary poles.
In one scenario, Brahmin authors could sincerely have sought to make spiritual
ideal into social reality, to make ‘Brahminhood’ only about the purity of one’s
thoughts, words, and deeds and not about birth or social class. In this scenario, one
might argue that the notions of caste impurity and Brahmin spirituality are so funda-
mental and deeply ingrained in Indian culture that they emerge in the hagiographical
literature almost unconsciously, outside of intention. Unable to think outside of the
networks of power and knowledge defining their very subjectivity, the theme of
caste impurity would have emerged unintended alongside and in opposition to the
theme of spiritual egalitarianism whose propagation was these authors’ conscious
goal.
In a second scenario, one could argue that the double messages in the hagiography
are quite intentional on the part of the Brahmin authors. One might suggest that
theory and narrative often hide the true motives of the theory-makers and thus the
gap between bhakti theory and practice is quite intentional and quite intentionally
concealed. From this perspective we might see bhakti hagiography as a form of
hegemonic discourse designed to create a bhakti “tradition,” an intentionally
selective version of the past designed to connect with and ratify a present that is in
the interests of the dominant social class (Williams 1977: 115–16). Approaching the
issue from this angle, one might argue that while the bhakti tradition is usually
understood to be characteristically opposed to Bråhma~ical religious orthodoxy, it
has actually been mediated, molded and authorized by the dominant institutional
power, the hegemonic discourse, of the Brahmin elite. In this view, by admitting that
salvation is open to all and that spiritual worth is entirely separate from birth and
social class, Brahmins subtly reinforced the social hierarchy in place, maintaining
Brahmin social superiority under the guise of an egalitarian spirituality. In large part,
this would fit Guha’s understanding that the bhakti mode of religion is “an ideology
of subordination par excellence” used throughout Indian history as a means “to
endear the dominant to the subordinate and thereby justify servitude, spiritualizing
the efforts and frustrations experienced by the lower classes in the labor they
provided to the elite” and thus making submission “appear self-induced, voluntary,
and collaborative” (1997: 54). While a number of Dalit intellectuals have adopted
this line, I think the model is far too skeptical and conspiratorial, while also inac-
curately conceiving the dynamics of power as primarily a top-down exertion of
ideology by and for the dominant. Nevertheless, one could soften Guha’s approach
to argue more convincingly that Brahmin self-interest was a major force in the
composition of these hagiographies and was consciously used as a tool to maintain
power.
The historical reality—if such a thing exists—almost certainly lies somewhere in
between the two poles of interpretation I have laid out. Undoubtedly, these bhakti
hagiographers were products of their socio-historical context and their specific
location within that context. The challenge is to conceive of them in a way that
allows for agency and sincerity of intention, as opposed to cynically reading their
work as simply either a conscious exertion of strategy in the interests of the Brahmin
class or as a product of power-knowledge discourses entirely removed from the
author’s agency and intention. In the end, surely it is the case that sincere devotional
sentiment and genuine egalitarian motivation, along with tactful self-interest and
greed for power, all played their part in the convoluted messages of the bhakti
hagiographies we have examined. These mixed messages express a tension within
both Indian culture and the individual hagiographers. As Hess remarks, “bhakti and
orthodoxy are in some important sense opposed, and…the struggle between them
can be observed in both the poet and the culture” (1988: 247). As we have seen, this
very same tension can also be observed in the bhakti hagiographer.
Notes
1. For a more detailed analysis of how Indian nationalism and “the bhakti
movement” narrative fit together, see especially Hawley’s edited volume of the
International Journal of Hindu Studies (11.3 [2007]) entitled The Bhakti Movement:
Says Who? The emphasis put on bhakti as a pan-Indian socially egalitarian move-
ment by late-nineteenth and early twentieth century Indian intellectuals such as
Shukla, Dvivedi, and Bharatendu Harishchandra undoubtedly served to win the
support and involvement of “the masses” in the nationalist movement. This social
progress/reform/anti-caste dimension of bhakti rhetoric demonstrates how deeply
entwined British colonialism and Indian nationalism are, for it not only reads liberal
values into the past, but also reads colonial knowledge formations into that past. In
light of Dirks’ (2001) work on the British construction of caste as the central marker
of Indian identity, it seems that many writers’ championing of bhakti as anti-caste
may be an articulation of colonial knowledge formations which speaks to something
that is, at least in part, an historical illusion. If caste did not exist in the way we—
both in the West and in India—have typically conceived it since British rule, how
can “the bhakti movement” be characterized, as the common trope suggests, as
having transcended or opposed caste throughout its history?
2. This is not to say that well-intentioned efforts for egalitarian social change have
not been made in the context of bhakti movements, but successes, especially in regard
to caste, have generally been rare and short-lived. Basava (ca. 1105–68), the great
VGraçaiva (Ligåyat) leader and saint, inaugurated a religious movement centered on
social reform and the rejection of caste distinctions; however, caste came to reassert
itself within the VGraçaiva community (see Leslie 1998). Dalmia (2001) provides
evidence for the radical social teachings of the early Vallabhite community, suggest-
ing that the Vallabha sampradåya was originally quite egalitarian and only later
gained its reputation for opulence and strict hierarchy. Stein (2004) describes the
failed attempts of ÇrGvai‚~avas in allowing ‘untouchables’ into their temples in
medieval times. Perhaps the closest thing we have to a success story in bhakti-related
social reform and rejection of caste is the RåmnåmGs of central India, who are
discussed in detail in Lamb (2002).
3. Srinivas (2003) argues that “The Bhakti movement gave the hope of salvation to
millions of people from among low class groups and women. The Brahmin was
ridiculed for his preoccupation with ritual, and purity and impurity; and his claims to
supremacy. The Bhakti saints proclaimed that a non-intellectual love of god was all
that mattered. But powerful as these movements were, they failed to make a dent on
caste hierarchy, for at the village level, the system of production of foodgrains and
other necessities was inextricably bound up with a caste-based division of labour.
The moral is that ideological attacks on hierarchy and Brahmanical claims to
supremacy failed to create an egalitarian social order since at the local level the
production of basic needs was inextricably bound up with jati.” This quotation
comes from an originally unpublished talk Srinivas delivered in November 1999 at
the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore.
4. Champakalakshmi (2004) suggests that the egalitarian theology of Tamil
bhakti—the supposed original source of “the bhakti movement”—originated as
much out of political necessity and competition for patronage and followers than
out of any other reason. In the Tamil South, popular Hinduism was in fierce compe-
tition with Buddhism and Jainism for patronage and followers (more so than with
Bråhma~ical religion) and “bhakti, by throwing open the path of salvation to all,
irrespective of caste and social hierarchy, imbibed the ideals of the non-orthodox
creeds, namely birth and caste as no obstacles to salvation, and thereby succeeded in
rooting out ‘heretical’ sects” (69). In other words, from this perspective egalitarian
bhakti rhetoric was at its very origin more about acquiring patronage and the alle-
giance of large segments of the populace than it was about actually changing the
structure of society or addressing injustice.
5. Most scholars would readily agree that a clear ‘Brahminization’ of bhakti hagio-
graphies can be observed over time, a process which occurred primarily in order that
higher castes could justify allowing popular bhakti figures (especially low-caste or
‘untouchable’ figures) into their pantheon of saints. In this essay, I want to argue for
more than this widely accepted ‘Brahminization’ of bhakti hagiography. My point is
that even in the earliest, least ‘Brahminized’ versions of these ‘untouchable’ hagiog-
raphies, we see the phenomenon of mixed messages about caste—confusion about
spiritual versus ‘social’ Brahminhood and an affirmation of caste purity distinctions
expressed simultaneously with a message about the power of devotion to transcend
all caste distinctions—built into the fundamental structure of these narratives.
6. As Mishra writes, “bhakti has not been read by the Indian Untouchable as a
precursor moment in their own struggle toward political legitimation. Indeed, the
absence of any agonistic or vidroha [protest] poetics in bhakti has led to the dis-
avowal of bhakti as a precursor moment in contemporary Dalit Sahitya (Untouchable
writing) itself.…In their literature, contemporary Dalit intellectuals, by and large,
have repudiated bhakti and have instead returned either to the teachings of the
Buddha or to Marxism for epistemologies of social change” (1998: 40–41).
7. For a fascinating exploration of similar issues in the Islamic context—namely,
Í¨fL egalitarian rhetoric in fourteenth century North India—see Lee’s excellent essay
(2009).
8. Narayanan (2005: 56) notes that Tiruppå~ is not the poet’s real name (which is
unknown), but a title in which tiru is a Tamil equivalent to the Sanskrit çr while på~
refers to the untouchable på~ar social class of bards.
9. Interestingly, in the Amar Chitra Katha comic book’s contemporary retelling of
the story, Tiruppå~ is not raised by bards but by a sweeper, “a change that reflects a
north Indian stereotype of Untouchables as sweepers, bhangi, or leather workers, not
as bards” (Zelliot and Mokashi-Punekar 2005: 17).
10. In some manuscripts we have another episode added to the story, one that has
become crucial in twentieth century retellings of Tiruppå~’s life. (This additional
episode occurs frequently in more recent versions of the story, but prior to the
eighteenth century it seems to occur only in certain manuscripts of the Te~ka¬ai
Guruparamparåprabhåvam.) According to these versions, one morning while
Tiruppå~ was on the riverbank, the temple priest went to the river to fill a pitcher
with water. The Brahmin commanded Tiruppå~ to move away from the river, but
Tiruppå~ was in a devotional trance and did not hear the command. When he did not
respond, the angry priest threw a stone at him, hitting him on the face and making
him bleed. When the priest returned to the temple, he was shocked to find the image
of RagL bleeding from the face and prayed for forgiveness for his violent action
against Tiruppå~. It is at this point that RagL comes to the priest in a dream and
orders him to bring Tiruppå~ into the temple on his shoulders, ostensibly more as
punishment for his violent act against a pure-hearted devotee than for any other
reason (see Hardy 1991: 140–42; Narayanan 2005: 60–61).
11. Vataka¬ai Guruparamparåprabhåvam, p.37, last nine lines. See Hardy (1991:
137).
12. Te~ka¬ai Guruparamparåprabhåvam, p.56, lines 17ff. See Hardy (1991: 140).
13. Alvarkal Vaibhåvam, vv. 12–18. See Narayanan (2005: 58).

14. Furthermore, these versions all find it important to mention that Tiruppå~’s
‘untouchable’ family “brought the baby up by giving him pure food” (polluting food
such as meat, alcohol, and so on, normally being associated with ‘untouchables’).
Vataka¬ai Guruparamparåprabhåvam, p.37, lines 7–18. See Hardy (1991: 136).
15. See translation in Pechilis (2005: 99).
16. See translation in Vincentnathan (2005: 110).
17. For a detailed discussion of Raidås’s dates, see Callewaert and Friedlander
(1992: 26–28).
18. PrIyadås’s text is a commentary on Nåbhådås’s Bhaktamål (ca. 1600), a
concise but critically important bhakti hagiography written in the Hindi dialect of
Brajbhå‚a.
19. Råmånand is an absolutely pivotal, yet mysterious and controversial figure in
the historiography of bhakti. According to most traditions, he lived in the fourteenth
century and, preaching and writing in the vernacular, began a tradition in North India
admitting men and women of all castes, serving as the guru of several famous North
Indian bhakti-saints including KabIr and Ravidås. For more information on the
Råmånandi sect, see Burghardt, (2004); Pinch (1996).
20. In the Poth'premabodh, this woman who comes to seek initiation from Ravi-
dås is not Queen JhålI, but rather “princess MIråbåI.” This encounter has become a
popular element in the hagiography of both Raidås and MIråbåI (see Callewaert and
Friedlander 1992: 26).
21. Anantadås’s Raidås Parchai, chapter 13, verses 5–7. See translation in
Schaller (2005: 224–25).
22. The sacred thread, or yajñopav'tam, is traditionally given in the upanayana
ceremony which makes up part of the Vedic initiation process among the three
‘twice-born’ classes of Bråhma~s, K‚atriyas, and Vaiçyas. McGee explains that the
sacred thread received by the Vedic student is to be worn daily “as a reminder of his
responsibilities to a life of purity and righteousness” (2004: 345). She also notes
importantly that the sacred thread, “although traditionally permitted to Vaiçyas and
K‚atriyas who were also eligible to undergo upanayana, has largely become a hall-
mark of Bråhma~-hood. The sacred thread thus has become more of a mark of social
status rather than of religious knowledge” (345). The sacred thread consists of three
separate interwoven strands (given various symbolic interpretations) and is typically
supported on the left shoulder and wrapped around the body, falling underneath the
right arm.
23. Cokhå’s household—his wife (SoyrabåI), son (Karmame¬å), sister (Nirmalå),
and brother-in-law (Bakå)—also wrote bhakti poems, though their corpus is
considerably smaller and less well-known. For more on the lives and poetry of
SoyrabåI, Karmame¬å, Nirmalå, and Bakå, see Zelliot and Mokashi-Punekar (2005:
143–67).
24. In what follows, all quotations from the Bhaktavijay come from sections of the
text translated in Zelliot and Mokashi-Punekar (2005: 189–94).
25. Gokhale-Turner elaborates on this position in a separate piece, stating that

“The implications of Chokha’s message to the Untouchables are twofold. On the
one hand, loyalty to Hinduism is taken for granted, and this involves simultaneous
acceptance of the notions that Untouchables are the repository of pollution and that
they will accept their role in the division of labor without demurral or hesitation. On
the other hand, an even more potent suggestion is planted: the conviction that the
solution to Untouchability cannot be collective—it must occur at the individual level
and can only be expressed on a religious or spiritual plane. The distinctions of caste
lie in the minds of men and not in the eyes of God; to that extent they are insignifi-
cant, and ultimately, unreal” (1986: 271).
26. Dalit Sahitya is a genre of modern Indian literature (authored primarily by
Dalits) which emerged in the early 1960s and is dedicated to themes of ‘untoucha-
blity,’ poverty, repression, revolution, and attacks on the Hindu religious and social
order of caste.
27. Zelliot reiterates this sentiment, writing that Cokhåme¬å “explained in one
abhaga that his untouchable status was due to previous sin, and this means he no
longer serves as a religious icon or source of pride,” especially since “the Ambedkar
movement, which culminated in a Buddhist conversion, totally rejected the concept
that untouchable status was the result of karma, birth according to past deeds” (2000:
279).
28. Indeed, more than any other figure, B. R. Ambedkar has influenced the atti-
tudes of contemporary Dalits and their perspectives on bhakti. Ambedkar was an
‘untouchable’ Mahår, like Cokhåme¬å, but western-educated and politically oriented,
he asserted emphatically that religious piety was ineffective in bringing about socio-
economic justice and change. He stated once that “The appearance of TulsI leaves
around your neck will not relieve you from the clutches of the money-lenders.
Because you sing songs of Rama, you will not get a concession in rent from the
landlords. You will not get salaries at the end of the month because you make
pilgrimages every year to Pandharpur.” In late 1955, Ambedkar was asked to
dedicate a small temple to Cokhåme¬å, but he agreed to come only if he could
dedicate the temple to the Buddha instead. As Ambedkar’s ideology had become
considerably more important and relevant than Cokhå’s, the group agreed (see
Zelliott 1981: 142–43). Not long after this, in October 1956, Ambedkar converted
to Buddhism—converting hundreds of thousands of Dalits along with him—and
explicitly condemned and rejected Hinduism. Since his death in December 1956,
a cult of Ambedkar has developed in which he is deified and worshipped as a
bodhisattva, a life-giver and protective father of the Dalit community whose
writings are seen as sacred and whose life story is told as a model and source of
inspiration (see Gokhale-Turner 1981: 38–39). Beyond Ambedkar, the Dalit
movement’s other primary frame of reference and source of symbols, images,
and metaphors is “the world revolutionary movement” and figures such as Karl
Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, and
Malcolm X.
29. Vincentnathan also notes that many of the ‘untouchables’ she interviewed had
alternate versions of Nanda~år’s story in which he either does not enter the fire
(before entering the temple) or does not emerge from it as a Brahmin. In all of these
versions, a central motif is that the Brahmins are trying to capture and kill Nanda~år.
30. It is important to note that several scholars working on and involved in con-
temporary Dalit movements have maintained bhakti and the bhakti poet-saints as
important and exemplary sources for radical social change today. In particular, see
the works of Jayant Lele and Gail Omvedt. Gokhale-Turner herself states that
“within its own historical context, the poet-saint movement was fully as revolu-
tionary as the dalit movement is today. In their own way, and given the limitations
of the period, the saints rebelled against the varna order even though they were by
no means effective in overthrowing it” (1981: 33). Indeed, Dalits and others looking
for bhakti to work as an agent of social change are likely asking it to serve (post-)
modern purposes that its original authors and propagators never had in mind. Along
the same lines, however, scholars such as Lele have suggested that it was the pre-
modern context of bhakti that made it unsuccessful at social reform and that it could
in fact be socially liberating in a contemporary context (O’Connell 1993: 9).
31. Ramanujan states further that “Bhakti as anti-structure begins by denying and
defying such an establishment; but in course of time, the heretics are canonized;
temples are erected to them…[and] an elaborate theology assimilating various ‘great
tradition’ elements may grow around them” (1973: 36).
32. In my view, Guha’s subaltern analysis of bhakti is, for the most part, off the
mark (see my concluding comments), but this particular remark proves well-justified
in the vast majority of cases.
33. See Buhler’s translation (1988: 25–26).
34. I am grateful to Arti Dhand for bringing this passage to my attention via her
public communication with Steve Rosen on the RISA-L email listserv on February
8, 2007. All quotations from this Mahåbhårata story are taken from J. A. B. van
Buitenen’s translation (1975: 561–67).
35. All translations of the Råmcaritmånas come from Hess (1985: 245–46).
36. There are two separate Sanskrit texts with this title; one attributed (doubtfully)
to the first-century Buddhist scholar A‚vagho‚a, and the other (often entitled the
Vajras¨cy Upani‚ad) even more doubtfully attributed to Çakara.
37. In Richman (1991a), see especially Ramanujan’s “Three Hundred Råmåya~as:
Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation,” which provides an introduction
to the vast number of radically different—sometimes vernacular, sometimes hetero-
dox—tellings of the “basic” narrative of the Råmåya~a; Rao’s “A Råmåya~a of
Their Own: Women’s Oral Tradition in Telugu,” which presents songs which Telugu
women created and supplemented to Vålmiki’s telling in order to speak to their own
experiences and perspectives, while also pointing out the differences in content and
attitude in songs created by Brahmins and those added on by low-caste women;
Richman’s own “E.V. Ramasami’s Reading of the Råmåya~a,” which examines a
radical and influential re-interpretation of the Råmåya~a narrative—as a thinly
veiled history of Brahmin-led Åryan subjugation of Dravidians in the South—

articulated in the interests of Tamil/Dravidian nationalism in the late 1920s; and
Lamb’s “Personalizing the Råmåya~: RåmnåmNs and Their Use of the Råmcarit-
månas,” which describes how the low-caste RåmnåmN community of Chattisgarh in
Madhya Pradesh, in their highly-revered version of TulsN’s Råmcaritmånas, actually
removed sections of the text that affirmed caste hierarchy and Bråhma~ical purity
beliefs, reasoning that these sections could not possibly have been in the original text
and must have been the later interpolations of Brahmins.
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PATTON BURCHETT is a doctoral candidate in South Asian religious history

and culture at Columbia University. <[email protected]>

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Bhakti Rhetoric in the Hagiography of ‘Untouchable’ Saints:

Discerning Bhakti’s Ambivalence on Caste and Brahminhood

International Journal of Hindu Studies 13, 2: 115–41

aspirations, emphasizing devotion and love, not knowledge, as a means of salvation”

Çiva commanded the temple Brahmins to prepare the fire and

the ‘untouchable’ camår community of leatherworkers whose traditional occupation

restrictions—or are they guilty of not recognizing that Raidås is in actuality a

Cokhåme¬a lived in Pandharpur, home of the temple of Vi†hobhå located on the

‘Untouchable” Bhaktas and the Dalit Movement

In an important article about bhakti and contemporary Dalit movements, Gokhale-

Jijnasu’s book—written in 1956, the same year that Ambedkar converted to

Untangling Social Brahminhood and Spiritual Brahminhood

Our foregoing analysis of bhakti hagiography leads me to concur with Ranajit

Yudhi‚†hira says: “He is known as a Brahmin, King of Snakes, in who truthful-

meaning, my dear sir, as long as no conduct is evident.”

hierarchical and egalitarian prescriptions sometimes directly follow one another. A

I am never pleased with an enemy of Brahmans;

Listen, lady, to my words. I recognize

These verses illustrate, in characteristic fashion, bhakti’s ambivalent message

Authorial Intention in Bhakti Hagiography

13. Alvarkal Vaibhåvam, vv. 12–18. See Narayanan (2005: 58).

25. Gokhale-Turner elaborates on this position in a separate piece, stating that

veiled history of Brahmin-led Åryan subjugation of Dravidians in the South—

Ours, 139–64. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

New York: Oxford University Press.

PATTON BURCHETT is a doctoral candidate in South Asian religious history

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