216. caste
tearing open his chest to reveal their images ensconced within. See K. C. Aryan and Su-
bhashini Aryan, Hanuman in Art and Mythology (Delhi: Rekha Prakashan, n.d.), 78, pls.
31, 111, 112.
- DhannuRam et al., interview,FriGovardhanpur, August 13, 1985. Versions of
this story appear in Bakhsidas,RavidasRamayana,51–52, and Mifra,RaidasRamayana,
57–60; and the temple to Ravidas now being built in memory of Jagjivan RamatRajghat
in Benares (see further text discussion) is said to mark the spot where this miracle occurred. - Ghera,Samksipt Itihas,1. Gherareports (p. 3) that it was not Ravidas who sought
instruction from Ramanand, in fact, but precisely the other way around. In other Ravidas
communities it is not disputed that Ramanand was Ravidas’s teacher, but it may be pointed
out that Ravidas substantially changed the nature of what he was taught. This view has
been expressed by Mahadeo Prashad Kureel (interview, Lucknow, November 28, 1986). - See Priyadas’s commentary in Nabhadas, Bhaktamal,471–72.
- In “signing” his poems, he refers to himself inAG3, 4, 5, 9, and 19 as “Ravidas the
leatherworker”(ravidas camar, ravidas camara)and as “Ravidas the slave”(ravidasdas,
ravidas...dasa).Or he may speak of his low birth directly, as inAG2, 30, 38, and 39. - B. R. Ghera, All India Adi Dharm Mission (New Delhi: All India Adi Dharm
Mission, n.d.), 5–6. - Juergensmeyer, Religion as Social Vision, 33–155.
- B. R. Ghera, personal communication, December 9, 1983. Cf. Juergensmeyer,
Religion as Social Vision, 254. - Some traditions also attribute dohas—couplets—to Ravidas, but only one of
these is found in the Adi Granth. - Poem no. 2 in the Guru Ravidas Granth (handwritten in Devanagari on the basis
of a published original in Gurmukhi) as transcribed for Virendra Singh. I am grateful
to Virendra Singh for permission to make use of this copy. - B. R. Ghera, personal communication, December 9, 1983. Another anthology
of Ravidas’s poems in current use is that of Candrikaprasad Jijñasu, Sant Pravar Raidas
Sahab. It contains 102pads (poems) and 18 sakhis (couplets). - PrakafMahi, Bijendra Kumar Pradhan, and Sant Aughad Nath Kavi, inter-
views, FriGovardhanpur, November 11, 2003. - Jagjivan Ram, “Appeal: Nirmanadhin Guru Ravidas Mandir, Kafi” [1985].
- Ram Lakhan, interview, Varanasi, August 19, 1985.
- On Sarvan Das and his deraat Ballan, see Juergensmeyer, Religion as Social Vi-
sion, 84–85, 260–61, 264, and the sixth unnumbered plate. - Other figures included in that genealogy are LoniDevi, the goddess of “the
original inhabitants” (adivasis) of India, whose power is in effect from the beginning of
time; Fambuk, belonging to the third world age (tretayug), counting back from present
time; Sudarfan, belonging to the second (dvapar yug); and Dhanaand Cetain our own
era, the kali yug.