Dadupanth

Religious organization founded by the
sant poet-saint Dadu (1554–1603). The
Dadupanth is strongest in Rajasthan,
the desert state in which Dadu is
believed to have lived. The Dadupanth
stresses religious themes common to
the sant poet-saints: the rejection of ritual and image worship in favor of an
internal search for a formless deity,
stress on the power of the divine Name,
and a belief in the relative unimportance of conventional caste distinctions. It also emphasizes certain points
that were particularly important to
Dadu himself, among them nonviolence (ahimsa), vegetarianism, and the
religious value of work. The Dadupanth
has always been a numerically small
organization, but they are historically
important because of their manuscript
collections. These collections are
known as the “five voices” (panchvani),
because they contain the works of five
different devotional (bhakti) poets:
Dadu, Kabir, Namdev, Ravidas, and
Hardas. Rajasthan’s desert climate has
helped to preserve these manuscripts,
some of which date from the early seventeenth century. The Panchvani manuscripts are among the earliest sources
for all of these poets, which makes them
an important resource for the historical
study of northern Indian devotional
poetry. For further information on the
literary resources of the Dadupanth, see
Winand Callewaert (trans.), The
Sarvangi of the Dadupanthi Rajab, 1978;
and The Sarvangi of Gopaldas, 1993.