INTRODUCTION

Kabirpanth is an influential devotional sect in

Mithila in north Bihar. Kabirpanth, formed after the name

of sant Kabir, began to extend its base in Mithila from

the seventeenth century onwards. It had been a strong

centre -of Brahmanism. Yet Kabirpanth could achieve modest

success in creating an ecclesiastical order and a social

'base for itself among the intermediate and some lower

castes. It also constructed a corpus of myth and rituals

which distinguished Kabirpanth from other religious sects

active in this region. Further, Kabirpanth received a

fresh momentum from the activities of modern socio-

religious reform organizations such as the Brahmo Samaj

and the Arya Samaj, and some of the agrarian and

administrative changes introduced by the colonial

government in the nineteenth century.

BACKGROUND

Presently, Mithila comprises more than- a dozen

districts in north Bihar covering an area of 21,400 sq.

Krns. To demarcate its cultural boundary, I have made use

of Grierson's linguistic survey of 1881 1• Three of its

districts are presently under the Tirhut cormnissionary"".

The number of districts has been going up following

repeated revisions of the state's administrative units·. At

present,

Katihar 1

these districts are:

Khagaria 1 Lakhisarai, 1

Begusarai, Darbhanga,

Madhepura, Madhubani 1

Muzaffarpur, Purnea, Samastipur, Saharsa, Shekhpura,

Si tamarhi and Vaishali. Besides these, the south-eastern

part of Nepal4 also comes within the cultural territory of

Mithila.

Almost all the scholars on Kabirpanth agree that

Kabir did not· found any sect. Kabirpanth was initiated by

Kabir's immediate disciples. In this connection the names

of four disciples are mentioned respectfully: Bhagodas,

Jagudas, Surati Gopal and Dharamdas5• After the death of

Kabir, Bhagodas and Jagudas took the lead in spreading the

teachings of Kabir in Mi thila and its surrounding areas.

Surati Gopal and Dharamdas founded Kabirpanthi maths at

Kashi and Bandogarh in present Uttar Pradesh and. Madhya

Pradesh respectively.

All the four disciples established maths for the

panth.One of the earliest maths founded by Bhagodas was at

Dhanauti located on the fringe of Mithila in present Saran

district of north Bihar. The earliest maths founded by

Jagudas were at Andharatharhi and Basantpur in present

Madhubani and Samastipur districts. While Bhagodas spent

the rest of his life at Dhanauti math, Jagudas deputed his

trusted disciples to look after the maths founded by him

and left for Cuttack. At Cuttack, he founded another math

where he stayed till his death'·. Surati Gopal extablished a

math called Kabir-Chaura at Kashi; Dharamdas founded

another at Bandogarh.

2

The maths founded at Kashi, Bandogarh, Dhanauti and

Cuttack emerged as the centres of the four main branches

(Mul shakha) 7 of Kabirpanth in north India. However,the

headquarters of the Jagudasi branch at Cuttack later

shifted to Bidupur in Mithila. These maths prospered and

increased their following while maths founded at

Andharatharhi and Basantpur eventually lost their former

importance. Later, a number of maths came to in existence

at several other places in north India including Mithila.

They are affiliated to one or the other branch of

Kabirpanth. Some of them gained in importance and attained

the status of Acharya Gaddi (the seat of Acharya) 8 • Each

branch in kabirpanth designated one of its earliest maths

as the Acharya Gaddi for the maths belonging to that

branch.

In Mithila, Kabirpanth has four Acharya Gaddis

situated at three places: Satmalpur math, Bagicha math,

and Mahadeo math are located at Satmalpur, and Rosara in

present Samastipur district and Bidupur math in Vaishali

district. Satmalpur math is the Acharya Gaddi of all the

maths associated with the Kabir-Chaura branch; Bagicha

math is the Acharya Gaddi of the Vansha-Dori maths of the

Dharmdasi branch; Bidupur and Mahadeo maths are the head­

quarters of the Jagudas.i branch and the Vachan Vanshi

branch. Bidupur math and Mahadeo math are the

headquarters of all the sub-branches affiliated with the

3

~

Jagudasi and Krishna Karakhi Vachan Vanshi branches in

other parts of India. Thus, for each main branch of

Kabirpanth, there are separate Acharya Gaddis in Mithila.

Except Mahadeo math, all these Acharya Gaddis have been ih

operation tor almost 300 years. Vachan Vanshi Mahadeo math

ini tiiated a new branch in the early nineteenth century.

Under the supervision of the Acharya Mahants of these

Acharya Gaddis, the number of affiliated maths and

disciples have steadily increased, creating an organized

network for the Kabirpanthi religious community in

Mithila.

Mi thila h~s been one of the most popular cen~res of

Brahminism in north India9• Many historians10have described

Mithila as one of the traditional strongholds of

Brahminism. During ., the ancient period, Buddhism and

Jainism drew in a sizable following and created a

tradition of heterodoxy in this region11 but Brahrnin~ism

maintained its dominance. Buddhist challenge to

Brahminism began to lose its force in Mithila from the

thirteenth century. However, it left behind a legacy of

dissent to Brahmanism which later found expression in the

popularity of such unorthodox sects as the Tantrics and

the Nathpanthis, and eventually paved the way for the

acceptance of Kabirpanth. Mithila subsequently came under

the political suzerainty of the Delhi Sultanate:~. Despite

that, the cultural autonomy of the region remained intact.

It received a formal sanction from Akbar, the Mughal

Emperor, who appointed Mahesh Thakur1 ', a Br.ahmin, as the

4

raj a of Tirhut. Tirhut became the formal administrative

name of the larger part of Mithila. Under the successors

of Mahesh Thakur, Tirhut broke into several units.

Darbhanga Raj was one of these, which later emerged as one

of the richest estates in Bihar14• Its rulers continued to

extend patronage to Brahminism.

In the colonial period,

such as the Darbhanga raj,

Brahminism. 15 Colonial rulers

a number of native states

lent their support to

by and large did not

interfere in the socio-cultural life of the people. It,

however, introduced some changes in the administrative and

agrarian structures in the region, which had some bearings

on the life of the people including Kabirpanthis. Tirhut

became the name of a district which had its headquarters

at Muzaffarpur in 178616• Darbhanga raj was initially

included within this district. Later Darbhanga town, its

headquarters, became the centre of Darbhanga district from

186717• In independent India, Brahmanism continued to

enjoy pre-eminence in this region. The emerging new groups

in the political sphere have, however, begun to pose

challenge to the Brahminical predominance in recent years.

The basic hypothesis of this study is that the

oppressed social groups in Mithila became attracted to the

teachings of Kabir because these contain a strong element

of dissent against the hierarchical caste society.

Primarily the intermediate castes and some lower castes

and even some Muslims, became members of the panth, which

5

flourished under the guidance of its institutional base­

the maths. As a result, the Brahmins and other upper

castes stayed away from Kabirpanth.

PRIMARY SOURCES

My study is primarily based on oral tradition

collected during field-study among the disciples of

Kabirpanth in Mithila. Oral testimony is recently gaining

importance as a valid 'source in historical writings. One

may recall the studies of Bernard S. Cohnl 8 on a depressed

caste in Uttar Pradesh, Bipan Chandra 1q on the Indian

freedom struggle; and Saurabh Dube~( on Satnampanth who

have relied on oral data for their studies.

Bernard S. Cohn is one of the earliest scholars who

relied largely on oral data to study the complex process

of upward mobility among the Chamars in Madhopur, a

village in Uttar Pradesh. He conducted field- work among

the Chamars of this village almost for a year between

September 1952 to August 1953. Bipan Chandra, for his

ongoing project on the history of Indian national

movement, is making use of interviews taken from 1500

freedom fighters to supplement the evidence obtainable

from the traditional sources, such as archival materials.

Some of these interviews have already been used 1n

published papers- 1• Saurabh Dube, who has written his

doctoral thesis on the Satnamis of Chattisgarh region, has

conducted extensive field work among the followers of the

6

sect. He locates Satnamis within the changing relations of

power in the region and traces their efforts to regulate

the internally. differentiated community primarily on the

basis of oral data 22

The study of Kabirpanth has to be based on oral

testimony as the panth has not preserved written records

necessary for a historical study. The panth has a large

number of devotional texts which have been used by

scholars of various disciplines23 to discuss the socio­

religious teachings of the panth. For the historians,

however, these religious texts are not of much use.

Kabirpanth was never close to the political authority

which.may partially explain the paucity of written records

on its activities.

However, some of the old maths have preserved a

particular kind of documents called Sanads {land

certificates) . These are invariably written in Persian

language24• A few Mahants 25 have got parts of some Sanads

translated into Hindi. A Sanad tells us the name of the

donor of the land and the donee maths and Mahants. It also

·contains the area of the donated land and the date on

which the 5anads were issued. I have used Sanads as the

evidence for the existence of the concerned math during

the period when these were issued. The information given

in the Sanads could then be verified with the Guru-Pranali

(the genealogy of Mahants) "1' of a math. Some scholars ~·-:

have examined the Guru-Pranalis of a few maths situated

in other parts of north India. On the basis of these, they _, I

have estimated that 25 years was the average tenure of a

Kabirpanthi Mahant,which, in turn, has helped to calculate

the number of years a math has been in existence. During

my field trip, I also noted that members of the panth

consider 25 years to be the average tenure of a Mahant.

On checking some of the Guru-Pranalis28, I also

arrived at the same conclusion.It suggests that if a Guru­

Pranali has had ten Mahants in its list, the concerned

math has been in existence for at least 250 years. A well­

documented Guru-Pranali gives us a number of other

information~such as the name of the founder Mahant and his

guru, the location of the first math etc. I have placed

the maths having ten and more Mahants in the category of

the earliest maths in Mithila. This way, Sanads and Guru­

Pranal~ supplement each other and offer us a fair idea on

the antiquity of Kabirpanthi maths and thus help us in

reconstructing their history.

Among the source which enables to delineate the

spread of Kabirpanth, the lists of sub-branches preserved

at some of the Acharya Gaddis29 are valuable. Such lists

are invariably hand- written. When such a list is not

available, 30 the current Acharya dictated the names of

maths affiliated to his branch.

I have also relied on a manuscript 31 called Panji

Panth Prakash, written sometime in the nineteenth century.

I got a copy of the manuscript from the Mahant of the

' 8

earliest math at Kurthaiya,

Si tamar hi district. During the

a village in the present

later stage of my field

trip, I came to know that a version of the manuscript was

also published which I obtained from Raj Narayan Das, the

Acharya Mahant at Mahadeo math, Rosara. On perusal, I

noted some differences in the contents of the manuscript

and those of the published version. Panji Panth Prakash

helped me to study the earliest phase of the Krishna

Karakhi Vachan Vanshi branch in Mithila.

Apart from these, I have also used some of the

didactic texts of the panth32 to suplement the description

of myths I got from my informants. These texts have been

in circulation in published form in Mithila since the late

nineteenth century.

I have also used a xeroxed copy of a j udgemenr-'-'

delivered in 1928 on a dispute between two groups of

Kabirpanthi maths in the region.

I conducted field- study in four rounds. 34 In the

first two rounds of my field-study, I collected whatever

information Kabirpanthis could offer. Some of these

information had already been used in the scholarly works

on Kabirpanth. Rest of the data directly related to the

origin and spread of the panth in Mi thila, its

organisational base, its beliefs and practices, and its

involvement in politics. I soon realized that a more

organized field- work was required. In my subsequent

9

field-trips, I tried to supplement the gaps in my

information on these four themes.

Field work proved to be of tremendous value for this

work. I could attempt to understand the process of

interaction between the followers of the panth and the

mainstream on the basis of disciples' memory. I also noted

that the growth of Kabirpanth had passed through different

phases. My description of the pattern and the process is of

involved in the expansion~Kabirpanth is entirely based on

the responses of desciples. They also recalled how caste

and family relationships played a significant role in its

growth. The internal differences and resulting feuds

within the panth also come to my knowledge through these

interviews.

Oral tradition in Kabirpanth is evidently important

and its reliability can be judged from the manner in which

the disciples recounted the events. It seemed as if the

information has been passed ctown from one generation to

another. However, I verified these information from

different people spread over many villages. Thus, I have

accepted only those oral traditions which could be

verified from more than one source.

Apart from field materials, information on Kabirpanth

has been obtained from the writings of the British

officials who conducted surveys in north Bihar in the

nineteenth century. For instance, Buchanan's <' survey

contains copious information on several aspects of north

10

Indian society in the early decades of the nineteenth

century including on the general condition of Kabirpanth

in north-eastern Mi thila. Buchanan 1 s survey'6 is a first­

hand account which helps us to reconstruct the history of

Kabirpanth during this period. Buchanan noted that almost

100 maths were active in Purnea district alone, which

gives us a idea of the extent of spread of the panth, and

that too in a region which was far away from any of the

Acharya Gaddis. He observed that these maths were of

"recent origin" 37, which indicates that Kabirpanth had

begun to expand its base in that area by the turn of

nineteenth century.

The census reports, prepared by the colonial

government from the late nineteenth century, do not tell

us much about the., condition of the Hindu sects. The

unrealistically small number of Kabirpanthis, given in the

first census38 of the then Bengal province, does not seem

to be accurate in view of Buchanan's description of Purnea

district alone in the early nineteenth century. This

miscalculation was perhaps due to the fact that the census

officials'n considered only those Kabirpanthis, or for that

matter the followers of any other sect, as members of

those sects who entered the name of their respective sects

as his/her 'religion' in the given column of the

enumeration form provided by the census department. It

seems that the followers of different Hindu sects entered

-Hindu 1 , instead of the name of the sect to whi cb be

belonged, in the enumeration

census of India conducted

11

form.

Jn

However, in the first

1872, Kabirpanth was

significantly recognized as a sect which did not admit of

caste differentiation40• Political insignificance of these

sects was the main reason why the census surveyors

excluded the Hindu sects from enumeration after 1872.

Interestingly, the religious groups of the Muslims found

enumeration in the following censuses. The statistical

survey of W. W. Hunter41, conducted

some information on Kabirpanth,

relied on the first census.

in 1874,

although

SECONDARY SOURCES

also contain

he primarily

Anthr/opological and sociological works have helped

me to deal with the symbolic order of Kabirpanth.

Histories of this region have enabled me to locate the

growth of Kabirpanth in the prevailing socio-religious

condition of Mithila during the seventeenth and the

following centuries. Historical works on the political

inclinations of religious organizations in the modern

period have been of assistance in understanding the

political involvement of the Kabirpanthis.

Some of the secondary sources directly relate to the

history of Kabirpanth. The earliest reference to

Kabirpanth occurs in the ethnographic work of vLW .Wilson4 ~,

written in the early nineteenth century. Considering

Kabirpanth as a Hindu religious sect, Wilson commented on

its social composition, organizational form, myths and

rituals. He has based his account on his personal

12

interviews and some of the religious texts of the panth.

Some Indian scholars also provide us with some idea

about Kabirpanth in the late nineteenth century. Among

them, Pramatha Nath Bose and J.N. Bhattacharya are

foremost. Pramatha Nath Bose43, in his history of the

socio-religious groups active in late nineteenth century

Bengal and United Provinces, noted that Kabirpanth had a

siz:able following, mostly belonging to the low castes. He

believed that the Kabirpanthis were not Hindus as they had

broken away from the parent religion, just as the

Buddhists and the Sikhs had done before them. J.N.

Bhattacharya44also noted that the Kabirpanthis believed in

monotheism which distinguished them from the other Hindus.

In the early 20th century, two exclusive works on

Kabirpanth were written by G.H. Westcott and F.E.Keay.

G.H.Westcott45 was a Bishop and also a fellow of Allahabad

University. His Christian affiliation is reflected in his

estimation of Kabirpanth. He has largely relied on his own

observation to describe the history of two of the maths in

north India 46• He also consulted Wilson 1 s description of

the panth. His account is based on his ten years study of

the religious scriptures of the panth and his personal

observation of the Kabir-Chaura and the Dharmadasi Q,.'\'\ll

branches at Kashi "'Bandogarh. He felt that the religious

practices of Kabirpanth were influenced by Christianity4-;.

F. E. Keay 1 s study4R is even more useful for me as he

described the origin of Dhanauti and Bidupur maths, which

13

are closely related to my study.

Parashuram Chaturvedi' s study of sant tradition in

north India49 deals largely with Kabirpanth. He relied

mainly on . the religious scriptures of the panth and the

unpublished research of Kedarnath Dvi vedi on

Kabirpanth. We have a detailed account of the premier

maths in Bihar in these two studies. Kedarnath Dvi vedi 50

has conducted extensive field-work to delineate the spread

of Kabirnath. In his work, oral tradition has been given

primacy over religious texts. The antiquity of a math is

judged on the basis of the Guru Pranali.

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend

to study Kabirpanth on the basis of oral data. Bidyananth

Saraswati's paper51 on the social and religious aspects of

the panth, Mohd. Shahabuddiri5

',;: unpublished Ph.D. thesis

. ~ ,\3 on Kab1rpanth- and R.L. Khandelwal study of the social

composition of Kabirpanth in north India are some

prominent examples. The three papers of David N. Lorenzen 5 4

on religious developments within Kabirpanth in north India

deserve special mention. He has supplemented his field

observations with available materials in printed sources.

He has also worked on the political involvement of the

Kabirpanthi sadhus and Mahants of some popular maths.

Apart from these works, two scholars have focussed

exclusively on the myths of the panth. David scott','• has

collected some of these myths and has attempted to situate

14

them in the socio-religious conditions prevailing at the

time of Kabir. Uma Thakural' s 56 article on Kabirpanthi

myths is also valuable.

Most of these works have relied on oral evidence,

primarily due to the absence of written records related to

the panth. Lack of written documents has perhaps dissuaded

scholars from studying j<p.birpanth in historical

perspective. At best, some of these studies have attempted

to present the traditional belief on the formation of its

main branches. There is no attempt on their part to

describe the spread of the sub-branches of a particular

region in a chronological sequence. There is not much

discussion of the organizational form and the manner of

functioning of the panth in the existing historiography.

However these works offer an overview on the early

history of Kabirpanth as preserved in popular memory.

These make it clear that Kabirpanth has drawn its

following predominantly ·from the intermediate and lower

castes wherever 2± has spread its influence. They also

mention that there exists considerable similariiy in the

myths:-: rituals, organizational netw;ork, the status of the

Mahant, and even the pattern of internal feuds in

Kabirpanth all over north India.

My work is an attempt to trace the history of

Kabirpanth at the regional level. I have tried to describe

its growth in a chronological sequence as indicated in the

15

available sources. Despite the paucity of written

evidence, I have tried to understand the evolution of a

religious order in historical perspective. The

organizational arrangement and the mode of functioning of

a religious sect have been of the most neglected themes in

religious studies in India. My emphasis throughout the

work has been on these aspects of Kabirpanth. These are

some of the gaps in the existing historiography on the

panth that I have attempted to fill up. I have also

focussed on the Kabirpanthi symbolic order to understand

the idiom in which the Kabirpanthi's have contested the

hegemonic tradition and the manner in which they have

constructed their worldview. Their di~tincti ve practices,

as perceived by the pract.lt.~ners, suggest that these were

designed to consolidate the Kabirpanthi community.

Ultimately, it is the construction of the community

identity of the Kabirpanth that has been at the centre of

my study, even though I have never specifically raised the

question of identity formation.

16

Notes:

1. George A. Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. I, pt.l, Motilal Banarasidas, Delhi, 1967, p. 4.

2. During my field-trips, I gathered the impression that many of the intermediate and lower castes tended to consider themselves as Tirhutiyas. Their identification with Tirhut leads us to speculate that some of these sub-castes came into existence when Tirhut became prominent. A.'!: though an administrati ~e unit, Tirhut did not constitute a specific cultural reg1on, it continued as an admini_sJ:.r:.aJ;j ve uni-t till the present times. In the post-independence per~od, Trihut has been the name of the commissionary compr1sing present Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Sifamarhi, Samastipur and Begusarai districts. After

\ .

·1973, Darbhanga has been separated out of Tirhut commissionary.

3. In the post-independence period of India, Bihar government has made repeated changes in the administrative divisions, such as in 1954, 1973, 1986 and in 1993. For details, see, Francine R. Frankel, p. 69.

4. Cultural proximity of Mithila with Nepal and the spread of Kabirpanth in this part of Nepal made it necessary for me to conduct field-trips in some parts of Nepal as well.

5. In the religious scriptures of Kabirpanth, there does not seem to be any difference of opinion on the names of Kabir' s irrunediate disciples. Almost all my informants were unanimous on this point. So is the case with the scholarly works on Kabirpanth. However, in some of the works, the contemporaneity of Dharamdas with Kabir is contested. For instance, see, Parashuram Chaturvedi, Uttari Bharat Ki Sant Parampara, (Hindi), Bharati Bhandar, Allahabad, 1972 (1959), p.306.

6. Jagudas 1 s tradi t. ionally bel1eved to have born in Orissa. From there, he came to north Bihar and founded these maths. On his return to Orissa, he is said to have founded another math near Cuttack.

17

7. There is no disagreement among scholars on this point. Kabir-Chaura math at Kashi requires further investigation, e:.s Kabir is said to - have spent the major part of his life in this math. After the death of Kabir, Maharaja Chait Singh of Benaras became one of its most prominent patrons. He granted to the math a fixed monthly allowance. He even tried to make an estim~te of the members of the sect by organising a mela {fair) near Benaras. In this mela, no less than 35, 000 Kabirpanthis gathered from different parts of north India. For a detailed account, see H.H.· Wilson.!... Religious Sects of the Hindus (ed. Ernst R. Rost), Indological Book House, Varanasi, 1972 (1862), p. 54.

8. The account of Acharya Gaddis is entirely based on my field-study.

9. The short survey of the history of Mithila is based on the following works:

Radhakrishna Chaudhary, History of Muslim Rule in Tirhut, Motilal Banarasidas, Varanasi, 1970.

Upendra Thakur, History of Mithila (C 3000 B. C. 1556 A.D.), Mithila Institute, Darbhanga, 1956.

Yogendra Misra, An Early History of Vaishali (From the Earliest Times to the fall of thi:· Vajjian Republic, Circa 484 B. C.), Motilal Banarasidas, Delhi, 1962.

Shyam Narayan Singh, History of Tirhut, Cosmos Publication, Delhi, 1976 (1922).

Jaydev Mishra, A History of Buddhist Iconography in Bihar, A.D. 600-1200, Prabhavati Prakashan, Patna, 1992.

10. Almost all the historians noted above described Mithila as a strong centre of Brahmanical religion. This is also noted in Romila Thapar, A Hi story of India, Penguin, New Delhi, 1990(1966)J p. 315.

11. During the heyday of Buddhism, a sizeable section of Brahmins converted to Buddhism, and these converted Budhists came to occupy dominant position in the rank and file of the Buddhist monasteries (Vihara.s). However, towards the close of the twelfth century, when Buddhism._clwas on decline, they opted to rejoin

lt "1'" .... their original~ Their return to Hinduism was accepted

18

'f~t.f CCU/..f1

only on condition thatta lower~rank than that of the Brahmins in caste hierarchy. Anticipating the decline of the Buddhist order, the former accepted the lower position offered for them and came to be known a!? Bhumihars. However, ~any of them continue~ remain the chief oJ _ _J::he ~13tJ,ddhi_sj; __ monasteries which later got transformed into Hindu centres of worship called _Thakurwardis. For details, see L. s. s. O'Malley, Bengal_District Gazetteers, Darbhanga, 1906, pp. 35-36. Francine R. Frankel, 'Caste, Land and Dominance in Bihar: Breakdown of Brahminical Order', in F.R. Frankel and M.S.A. Rao (eds.), Dominance and state Power in Modern Inida, Decline of a Social Order, Vol. I, OUP, Delhi, 1989, p. 57.

12. The first Islamic ruler who could successfully establish his control over a large part of Mi thila was Ghiyasuddin Tughlak. He seperated Bihar from Bengal and made Tirhut a separate province. He made Darbhanga the capital of Tirhut under the. name of Tughlakpur in early fourteenth century. For details, see, Upendra Thakur, op.cit., pp. 405-410.

13. Almost all the historians on Mithila consider the legend of the grant of Mithila to Mahesh Thakur, an erudite pandit,· by Akbar, as true. See, Radhkrishna Chaudhary, History of Bihar, Motilal Banarasidas, Patna, 1958, p. 23 and his other work, op.cit., 1976, pp. 289-92.

14. Radhakrishna Chaudhary,op.cit, 1958, p. 25.

15. Several Ramanandi maths, which are the centres of this Sagun devotional sect, have received land donations from Darbhanga Raj. We have no evidence that the Darbhanga Raj hQ.s shown any such favour to Kabirpanth. Stephen Henningham has discussed the religious policy of Darbhanga Raj, See J Stephen Henningham, A Great Estate and its Landlords in Colonial India: Darbhanga 1860-1942, OUP, Delhi, 1990, p. 231.

16. W.W. Hunter, A Statical Account of Bengal, Tirhut and Champaran, Vol. XIII, Cosmos Publishing, Delhi, 1976 (1877) 1 P• 10.

17 • ibid • 1 P • 108 •

19

18. Bernard S. Cohn, 'The Changing Status of a Depressed Caste', i.n An Anr.hropologist Among the Historians and other Essays, OUP, Delhi, 1994 (1987), pp. 255-283.

19. Bipan Chandra (ed.), India's Struggle tor Independence, Penguin,Delhi,1992.

20. Saurabh Dube' s thesis still awaits publication. However,some of his findings are available in Saurabh Dube, ""Myths, Symbols and Community: Satnampanth of Chhatisgarh' in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey (eds.), Subaltern Studies, Writings on South Asian History and Society, Vol. VII, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1992, pp. 121-158;and his Caste and Sect in Village Life, Satanamis of Chhatisgarh 1900-1950, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, 1993.

21. For the use of oral evidence in historical narratives see, Mridula Mukherjee, 'Peasant Movements and Nationalism in the 1920s'; Bipan Chandra, 'Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen and the Terrorists'; Adi tya Mukherjee,' Civil Disobidence, 1930-31', etc. in Bipan Chandrat~p.cit., pp. 197-209, 247-259,and 270-283.

22. Saurabh Dube has delineated his approach to the study Satnampanth in his paper in Gyan Pandey and Partha Chatterjee (eds.), op.cit., pp. 121-122.

23. Exhaustive lists of devotional texts belonging to Kabirpanth are given 1n F.E. Keay, Kabir and His Followers, 1\.ssociation Press, Calcutta, 1937; Abhilash Das, Kabir Dar shan, (Hindi) , Parakh Prakashak Kabir Sansthan, Allahbad, 1982; and W.W. Wilson, op.cit. Many of these texts have been used in. the works of Parashuram Chaturvedi, op.cit.j Charlotte Vaudeville., Kabir, vol. I, Clarendon Press, oxford, 1980; Linda Hess and Sukhdev Singh, The Bijak of Kabi r, Motilal Banarasi Das, New Delhi, 1986; P.D.Barthwal, The Nirgun School of Hindi Poetry; An Exposition of Medieval Indian Santa Mysticism, Indian Book Shop, Benares, 1936.

24. 'n. .

I have refer,.ed to these Sanads 1n the next chapter. I could have collected copies of more Sanads if the

20

MahanLs of Kabirpanthi maths did not apprehend government interference in their math's landed property. In fact, during my last field-trip, Laloo Pd. Yadav, the then Chief Minister of Bihar, had announced that the land ceiling act would be rigourously implemented with regard to the religious organisations in particular, as many of these had managed to evade it earlier. In the circumsances, at several places, Mahants and their disciples mistook me for a government official, deputed to find out the actual amount of land possessed by these maths. On my repeated requests, some Mahants showed me the Sanads they have preserved. Among them, only the Mahant of Satmalpur math permitted me to get one Sanad xeroxed. He sent one of his most trusted disciples with me to Samastipur where the disciple got the Sanad xeroxed and gave me a copy of it.

25. I saw two Sanads at Bidupur and· Banni maths. The Mahants declined to give me the Sanads for xeroxing because of their poor state of preservation.

2 6.

27.

The Guru-Pranalis of Dhanauti, Mahadeo math,and Satmalpur maths are printed as parts of Bijak, Panji Panth Prakash and Bavan Kasani Ka Janjira

·respectively. Several other maths have Guru-Pranalis in manuscript form.

G.H. Westcott has examined the Guru Parnalis of Kabir-Chaura and Bandogarh maths. He found the traditional belief of the Kabirpanthis that the average tenure of a Mahant is approximately 25 years to be correct. Parashuram Chaturvedi and Kedarnath Dvivedi also checked the Guru-Pranalis of a number of maths. They have used the average tenure of a Mahant to assess the antiquity of a math.

28. The above Guru-Pranalis contain much fuller information than most maths. These are available at some of the oldest maths in Mithila.

29. I found a ·record of this type with the Mahant of Seodha math,at Mahadeo math, and at Satmalpur math. I have been told that in Dhanauti math this information is inscribed on a single page in the form of a diagram which shows the direction and the location of maths associated with the Bhagodasi branch. Unfortunately I could not see this J.oc.~,,nnc."'t personally. '1"\-\tSI.S

21 D) .52_, \)\\q~: I ( 6)j tJS'

30. The Mahant of Bagicha math claimed that he had a list of sub-branches affiliated vJith it, but declined to to show it to me. Instead, he dicta ted the names of the sub-branches.He also refused to discuss the resources of his math.

31. I got a copy of this manuscript,transliterated into Devana.gari, from Mahant Pramod Narayan Das at Kurthaiya. Raj Narayan Das showed me another hand­writen copy of this manuscript; he, however, declined to give it to me. Instead, he asked me look up the published Panji Panth Prakash.

32. I have referred to these texts in chapter-3.

33. F.charya Raj Narayan Das of Mahadeo math procured- a copy of this judgement for me.

34. I conducted field-trips between October 1993 and January l994;Septernber 1994 and January 1995;0ctober 1995 and January 1996 and lastly November 1996 and February 1997. Altogether!! spent over a year in the field. During this period, I had the opportunity to visit several maths and observe some of the Kabirpanthi rituals~ which I will discuss in the subsequent ch?pters.

35. Francis Buchanan conducted an official survey between 1809-1912.His survey covered parts of Purnea besides several other parts of then Bengal Province. Before he could survey districts other than Purnea in Tirhut,he died.Harnilton was added to Buchanan's name later in his life, being the name of his father. M. Martin's edition of Buchanan's survey is presently available in five volumes; see M. Martin (ed.), Hisotry, Antiquities, Topography and Statistics of Eastern India, Vols. I-V, Cosmos Publication, Delhi, 1976 (1838).

36. Buchanan observed the presence of Kabirpanthis in the districts of Bihar( Patna)~ Gorakhpur, and Purnea.

37. Buchanan, op.cit., Vol. IV, p. 373.

38. Census of British India, Report on the Census of Bengal, Vol. I, 1872, p. 152j I also consulted the Census reports of 1882, 1892 and 1902.

22

39. ibid., 1872, p. 11. One can see the details of the method of the religious sects by the colonial officials in pp. 143-145.

40. ibid., p. 78.

41. W.W. Hunter, op.cit.

42. H. H. Wilson had published his articles in 1828 and 1834 in Asiatic Researches, which were later compiled in the book form. He noted that, "There is no doubt that the Kabir Panthis, both clerical and lay, are very numerous in all the provinces of upper and central India, except, perhaps, in Bengal itself. .. ", op. cit. , p. 54 .

43. Pramatha Nath Bose, A History of Hindu Civilization During British Rule: Socio-Religious Condition Social Condition Industrial Condition, Vol. I, Asian Publication Services, New Delhi, 1975 {1894).

44. J.N. Bhattachrya, Hindu Castes and Sects: An Exposition of ·the Origin of the Hindu Caste System and the Bearing of the Sects towards Each Other and towards Other Religious Systems, Editions Indian, Calcutta, 1968 {1886), pp. 216-218.

45. G.H. Westcott, kabir and the Kabir Panth, Bharatiya Publishing House, Delhi, 1974(1907}.

4 6. Westcott describes these sources in the preface of his work, ibid., p. vii.

47. ibid., p. 106.

48. F.E. Keay, Kabir and His Followers, Association Press, Calcutta, 1931.

49. Parashuram Chaturvedi, op.cit, p.309

50. Kedarnath Dvivedi, Kabir aur Kabirpanth, Hindi, Sahitya Sammelan, Allahbad, 1965.

51. Baidyanath Saraswati, 'Notes on Kabir: A Non-1 iterate

23

Intellectual', S.C. Malik (ed.), Reform in Indian Civilization, Advanced Study, Simila, 1977, pp.

Dissent, Protest and Indian Institute of 167-187.

52. Mohd. Shahabuddin, Hisotry of Kabirpanth, unpublished Ph. D. thesis, Department of History, Aligarh Muslim . University, 1975.

53. R.L. Khandelwal, 'Kabirpanth and its Social Contents', in S.P. Sen (ed.), Social Contents of Indian Religious Reform Movements in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Institute of Historical Studies, Calcutta, 1978, pp. 75-83.

54. David N. Lorenzen conducted field-study in parts of north India in the spring of 1976 and the fall of 1979. He has focussed on social and religious aspects of Kabirpanth in one of his articles, 'The Kabir Panth: Heretics to Hindus', in David N. Lorenzen (ed.), Religious Change and Cultural Domination, El. co1egio de Mexico, 1981, Mexico, pp. 151-71. I could not find a copy of this book. However, I obtained a type-script of this paper from Prof. Romila Thapar. Also see,David N. Lorenzen, 'The Kabir-Panth and Social Protest', in Karine Schomer and McLeod (eds.), The Sants, Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India, Motilal Banarasidas, Delhi, 1987, pp. 281-303; David N. Lorenzen, 'The Kabir Panth and Politics' , Political Science Review, 20:3, Jaipur, 1982, pp. 263-282.

55.

56.

David C. Scott, Kabir's Mythology, Perceptions, Doctrines and Practices Indian Sant, Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan,

Uma Thakural, 'The Avatar Doctrine in David N.Lorezen (ed.), Religion in Community Identity and Political University of New York Press, Albany, 229.

24

The Religious of a Medieval Delhi, 1985.

Kabirpanth' in North India,

Action, State 19 9 51 pp • 2 2 1 -