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Table of Contents

1. The founder.

Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect.1—This, one of the most modern Vaishnava sects, was founded by Sahajānand Swāmi, a Sarwaria Brāhman, born near Ajodhia in the United Provinces in A.D. 1780. At an early age he became a religious mendicant, and wandered all over India, visiting the principal shrines. When twenty years old he was made a Sādhu of the Rāmānandi order, and soon nominated as his successor by the head of the order. He preached with great success in Gujarāt, and though his tenets do not seem to have differed much from the Rāmānandi creed, his personal influence was such that his followers founded a new sect and called it after him. He proclaimed the worship of one sole deity, Krishna or Nārāyana, whom he identified with the sun, and apparently his followers held, and he inclined to believe himself, that he was a fresh incarnation of Vishnu. It is said that he displayed miraculous powers before his disciples, entrancing whomsoever he cast his eyes upon, and causing them in this mesmeric state (Samādhi) to imagine they saw Sahajānand as Krishna with yellow robes, weapons of war, and other characteristics of the God, and to behold him seated as chief in an assembly of divine beings.

2. Tenets of the sect.

His creed prohibited the destruction of animal life; the use of animal food and intoxicating liquors or drugs on any occasion; promiscuous intercourse with the other sex; suicide, theft and robbery, and false accusations. Much good was done, the Collector testified, by his preaching among the wild Kolis of Gujarāt;2 his morality was said to be far better than any which could be learned from the Shāstras; he condemned theft and bloodshed; and those villages and Districts which had received him, from being among the worst, were now among the best and most orderly in the Province of Bombay. His success was great among the lower castes, as the Kolis, Bhīls and Kāthis. He was regarded by his disciples as the surety of sinners, his position in this respect resembling that of the Founder of Christianity. To Bishop Heber he said that while he permitted members of different castes to eat separately here below, in the future life there would be no distinction of castes.3 His rules for the conduct of the sexes towards each other were especially severe. No Sādhu of the Swāmi-Nārāyan sect might ever touch a woman, even the accidental touching of any woman other than a mother having to be expiated by a whole-day fast. Similarly, should a widow-disciple touch even a boy who was not her son, she had to undergo the same penalty. There were separate passages for women in their large temples, and separate reading and preaching halls for women, attended by wives of the Achāryas or heads of the sect. These could apparently be married, but other members of the priestly order must remain single; while the lay followers lived among their fellows, pursuing their ordinary lives and avocations. The strictness of the Swāmi on sexual matters was directed against the licentious practices of the Mahārāj or Vallabhachārya order. He boldly denounced the irregularities they had introduced into their forms of worship, and exposed the vices which characterised the lives of their clergy. This attitude, as well as the prohibition of the worship of idols, earned for him the hostility of the Peshwa and the Marātha Brāhmans, and he was subjected to a considerable degree of persecution; his followers were taught the Christian doctrine of suffering injury without retaliation, and the devotees of hostile sects took advantage of this to beat them unmercifully, some being even put to death.

3. Meeting with Bishop Heber.

In order to protect the Swāmi, his followers constituted from themselves an armed guard, as shown by Bishop Heber’s account of their meeting: “About eleven o’clock I had the expected visit from Swāmi-Nārāyan. He came in a somewhat different guise from all which I expected, having with him near 200 horsemen, mostly well-armed with matchlocks and swords, and several of them with coats of mail and spears. Besides them he had a large rabble on foot with bows and arrows, and when I considered that I had myself an escort of more than fifty horses and fifty muskets and bayonets, I could not help smiling, though my sensations were in some degree painful and humiliating, at the idea of two religious teachers meeting at the head of little armies, and filling the city which was the scene of their interview with the rattling of gunners, the clash of shields and the tramp of the war-horse. Had our troops been opposed to each other, mine, though less numerous, would have been doubtless far more effective from the superiority of arms and discipline. But in moral grandeur what a difference was there between his troop and mine. Mine neither knew me nor cared for me; they escorted me faithfully and would have defended me bravely, because they were ordered by their superiors to do so. The guards of Swāmi-Nārāyan were his own disciples and enthusiastic admirers, men who had voluntarily repaired to hear his lessons, who now took a pride in doing him honour, and would cheerfully fight to the last drop of blood rather than suffer a fringe of his garment to be handled roughly. … The holy man himself was a middle-aged, thin and plain-looking person, about my own age, with a mild expression of countenance, but nothing about him indicative of any extraordinary talent. I seated him on a chair at my right hand and offered two more to the Thākur and his son, of which, however, they did not avail themselves without first placing their hands under the feet of their spiritual guide and then pressing them reverently to their foreheads.”

4. Meeting with Governor of Bombay.

Owing, apparently, to the high moral character of his preaching and his success in reducing to order and tranquillity the turbulent Kolis and Bhīls who accepted his doctrines, Swāmi-Nārāyan enjoyed a large measure of esteem and regard from the officers of Government. This will be evidenced from the following account of his meeting with the Governor of Bombay:4 “On the receipt of the above two letters, Swāmi-Nārāyan Mahārāj proceeded to Rājkote to visit the Right Honourable the Governor, and on the 26th February 1830 was escorted as a mark of honourable reception by a party of troops and military foot-soldiers to the Political Agent’s bungalow, when His Excellency the Governor, the Secretary, Mr. Thomas Williamson, six other European gentlemen, and the Political Agent, Mr. Blane, having come out of the bungalow to meet the Swāmi-Nārāyan, His Excellency conducted the Swāmi, hand in hand, to a hall in the bungalow and made him sit on a chair. His Excellency afterwards with pleasure enquired about the principles of his religion, which were communicated accordingly. His Excellency also made a present to Swāmi-Nārāyan of a pair of shawls and other piece-goods. Swāmi-Nārāyan was asked by the Governor whether he and his disciples have had any harm under British rule; and His Excellency was informed in reply that there was nothing of the sort, but that on the contrary every protection was given them by all the officers in authority. His Excellency then asked for a code of the religion of Swāmi-Nārāyan, and the book called the Shiksapatri was presented to him accordingly. Thus after a visit extending to an hour Swāmi-Nārāyan asked permission to depart, when he was sent back with the same honours with which he had been received, all the European officers accompanying him out of the door from the bungalow.”

5. Conclusion.

The author of the above account is not given, and it apparently emanates from a follower of the saint, but there seems little reason to doubt its substantial accuracy, and it certainly demonstrates the high estimation in which he was held. After his death his disciples erected Chauras or resthouses and monuments to his memory in all the villages and beneath all the trees where he had at any time made any stay in Gujarāt; and here he is worshipped by the sect. In 1901 the sect had about 300,000 adherents in Gujarāt. In the Central Provinces a number of persons belong to it in Nimār, principally of the Teli caste. The Telis of Nimār are anxious to improve their social position, which is very low, and have probably joined the sect on account of its liberal principles on the question of caste.

Images of Rāma, Lachman and Sīta, with attendants

1 Based on the account of the sect in the volume, Hindus of Gujarāt, of the Bombay Gazetteer, and The Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect pamphlet, printed at the Education Society’s Press, Bombay, 1887.

2 Bishop Heber’s Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces, pp. 143, 153.

3 The Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect, pp. 4, 22. The above details are given, because in the Bombay Gazetteer the Swāmi is said to have prohibited the taking of food with low-caste people, and caste pollution; and this appears incorrect.

4 The Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect, p. 25.