Guru Ravidas

Subject – Personalities in News

Context – EC reschedules Punjab poll to enable devotees participate in Guru RavidasJayanti at Varanasi

Concept –

Guru Ravidas was an Indian mystic poet-sant of the Bhakti movement and founder of Ravidassia religion during the 15th to 16th century CE.
Venerated as a guru (teacher) in the region of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and mainly Punjab and Haryana.
Guru Ravidas was a 14th century saint and reformer of the Bhakti movement in North India.
He was a poet-saint, social reformer and a spiritual figure.
The life details of Guru Ravidas are uncertain and contested. Scholars believe he was born in 1450 CE.
Ravidas’s devotional Verses were included in the Sikh scriptures known as Guru Granth Sahib.
The Panch Vani text of the Dadupanthi tradition within Hinduism also includes numerous poems of Guru Ravidas.
He taught removal of social divisions of caste and gender, and promoted unity in the pursuit of personal spiritual freedom.
He is believed to be a disciple of the bhakti saint-poet Ramananda and a contemporary of the bhakti saint-poet Kabir.
One of his famous disciples was the saint, Mirabai.
Among Ravidas’s moral and intellectual achievements were the conception of “Begampura”, a city that knows no sorrow; and a society where caste and class have ceased to matter.

Literary works

The AdiGranth of Sikhs, and Panchvani of the Hindu warrior-ascetic group Dadupanthis are the two oldest attested sources of the literary works of Guru Ravidas.

Guru RavidasJayanti

RavidasJayanti is celebrated on Magh Purnima, the full moon day in the month of Magh according to the Hindu lunar calendar.
It is believed that he was born in Varanasi in a cobbler’s family.