“It was this Sant tradition which provided the basis of Guru Nanak’s thoughts and inheritance, which like Kabir, he re-interpreted in the light of his own personality and experience.” (W.H. McLeod)
The essence of religion for the vast majority of Nanak’s contemporaries, both Hindus and Muslims, consisted in external authority and conventional ceremony. In case of the Hindus, this authority was generally accorded to the priestly classes and through them to the Vedas and the Puranas. The existence required consisted in the performance of a host of conventional rites and customs appropriate to a man’s status within the caste-structure of the society. In case of the Muslims, religion was likely to an objective authority namely Tura and exercise of this authority was the acknowledged function of the Qazis.
However, by the time of Nanak, this conventional pattern of religion both of the Hindus as well as Muslims had ceased to command universal acceptance. In fact, for quite some time past, these conventional patterns had received and were still receiving challenges and there were coming into existence a number of dissenting movements. Of these, the following were particularly to be noted :
(i) First was the tradition of Vaishnava Bhakti, which had spread to Northern India from the South, and whose representative in North India was Ramanand. For the Vaishnava Bhakti, the essential religious response was devotion and this devotion was directed to one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu.
(ii) The second movement was the ancient tradition of tantrik yoga, expressed in Northern India during the period of our study by a host of recluses, popularly known as Nath Yogis or Kanfata Sadhus. This was, in itself, sub-divided into various seb-sects, claiming allegiance to the semi-legendary Gorakh Nath. All of them essentially followed the Hatha-Yoga.
(iii) The third of these movements is symbolized by the numbers of the Sufi order, numerically lower than the followers of the other two movements. Yet these Sufis exercised greater influence on both the Hindus and the Muslims.
A close examination of these three movements would reveal that there was a cognizable continuity within each one of these, but none was completely insulated. All the three were to some extent influenced by one or more of others and hence underwent necessary modifications. However, in one case, this reciprocal exchange did not simply result in the modification of an existing tradition, but in the emergence of a remarkable synthesis, a new pattern which in various respects strongly resembled the other existing patterns but which in its wholeness correspond to none of them. This was the Sant tradition of Northern India.
The new movement was by no means the dominant religious tradition during this period, but it was certainly the most fertile and understanding of this Sant tradition.
The Sant tradition was essentially a synthesis of the three principal dissenting movements, a compound of elements drawn mainly from Vaishnava Bhakti and the Hatha Yoga, with a marginal contribution from Sufism. The essential religious response from the Sants and the Vaishnava Bhakts being love, the two have sometimes been confused by the writers who considered the Sant tradition just as an aspect of Vaishnava Bhakti.
But a close scrutiny would reveal that despite apparent similarities, the two -- namely the Sant tradition and the Vaishnava Bhakti-- differed widely from each other. These differences are of fundamental importance. To give one example, the love of the Vaishnava Bhaktas was directed to an Avatar or incarnation of God, whereas in the Sant tradition, it was directed to the Supreme Being Himself, there being no place for the intermediaries, such as incarnations. Further, whereas in case of Vaishnava Bhaktas, this love for incarnation was expressed through the media of images, that of the Sants was to involve oneself in meditation and devotion. In the Sant tradition, the stress was on a method which involved, if not intense sufferings, at least, some appreciable difficulties. It was definitely different from the Sahaj Bhakti (Easy Path) suggested by the Vaishnava Bhaktas.
Despite these differences, it were the Bhakti elements which provided the principal contribution to the Sant synthesis particularly in its early years. Traces of Nath influence are, no doubt, there in the earlier stages as well, but they became more pronounced during the later stages. In fact, it is at the time of Kabir that the Nath concepts assume a significant role. In the thought of Kabir, such concepts are more prominent and integral and it is at this point that the synthesis is fully developed. The Nath influence emerges in much of the basic terminology used by Kabir, and later on by Nanak, in a rejection of all exterior forms, ceremonies, caste-distinction, sacred language and scriptures in a strong emphasis upon unity as opposed to duality.
It is, therefore, not without significance that the common of all the terms used by both Nanak and Kabir to express their experience of Union as Sahaj -- a term which at once takes us back to the Nath theory and still earlier to the Tantrik Buddhism.
The Sants were monotheists. But God, with whom they sought the union was not an anthromorphic God. He was manifested through his immense in His Creation. As such, the love of these Sants was to express through meditation on the Divine Name and not on the worship of of any external idol or exercise of practices like visit to the places of pilgrimage, or taking bath in so-called Holy waters of a tank. Like the bhaktas, the stress was made on efficacy and the need of a Spritual Guru, and this Guru might or might not be a human being, but the Inner Voice of God.
Another notable distinction of the Sants is that they expressed their beliefs not in the traditional Sanskrit, but in a language which was closely related to that of the common people to whom these teachings were addressed in various parts of the country. In its ultimate form, it aimed to be called Sadhukari (Sant language) having in its elements drawn from old Rajasthani, Apabhramsa and Persian with Khari Boli.
The first great Sant was Namdev, who lived in Maharashtra and is closely associated with the Varkari sect -- a sect within the Bhakti tradition in which the worship is centered on the famous idol of Lord Vithal, an incarnation of Lord Krishna. Elements of traditional Vaishnava Bhakti is evident in Namdeva’s work, but his main emphasis is in accord with the Sant concepts.
The second important Sant was Ravi Das, an outcaste leather-worker of Benaras. He belongs to the earlier stage of the Sant movement and rejects the concept of Divine Avatar, as also all external aids which are aids to worship. In his works the stress is on the imminence of God in external phenomena. Ravi Das makes the characteristic Sant emphasis with an evident stress upon the irrelevancy of the caste-system.
With Kabir, the Sant tradition moves into a more complicated phase. The compositions attributed to Kabir are indeed innumerable, of which two famous are Kabir Granthavali and the rigid Bijak.
The basis of Kabir’s religious belief was Tantrik Yoga. Though his Muslim name would suggest the Islamic influence, this Tantrik Yoga as the basis of his religious belief should not take us to believe that he was a Nath Yogi. To this background of Tantrik Yoga, Kabir clearly added the elements from Vaishnava hakti, and to some extent even Sufism. That he is indebted to the ‘Bhaktas’ is evident in the primacy he attaches to love, but his concept of love as a way of suffering is derived from Sufism. It is with these and other elements from the same sources that Kabir compounded his own mystical nature and brought about a synthesis which is the distinctive religion of Kabir. It is a religion which in true Sant style renounces all, i.e. external; affirming that God may by Grace reveal Himself within a man’s soul. But the revelation comes to him only who has prepared himself to see Him. The preparation is the path of Love, a love addressed directly to the Supreme Being, who is both transcendent and immanent, and a love which will inevitably involve long periods in the anguish of separation. The point at which this revelation occurs cannot be foreseen. It comes at the point of Divine initiative and all of a sudden. God, through the True Guru (Satguru), discharges the arrow of Word (Shabad) and man is slain, that in Death he may find True Life. This life is to be found in mystical Union and ineffable experience of dissolution in the Divine.
It must not be forgotten that there is much in Kabir’s attempts which remain obscure and cannot be explained fully. The works of Kabir show that he is certainly influenced by monotheistic concepts, but it is his own understanding of the nature of God that is important and on this account his thought must be regarded as monotheistic. In the works of Kabir, we find a representation of the highly personal ray of an individual experience. But they never place him within the famous Sant beliefs.
It was this Sant tradition which provided the basis of Guru Nanak’s thoughts, and inheritance which like Kabir, he re-interpreted in the light of his own personality and experience. This again should not mean that Nanak was, in any real term, a disciple of Kabir.Sant tradition was by far the most important element in all that Nanak inherited from his past or absorbed from his contemporaries.
Still the question persists regarding the antecedants of Nanak’s thought -- that indirect influences created upon his Sant traditions in an independent way. The dominant issue in this case is to assess the extent of his deterness to Islamic sources for whatever influence the Nath beliefs may have exercised upon Nanak’s religious thoughts came through the indirect channel of Sant inheritance and the Nath concepts when congregated through Sant channels and underwent a great deal of transformation in their meanings.
