Ramananda

Jagadguru Swami Ramananda (IAST: Rāmānanda) or Ramanandacharya was an Indian 14th-century Hindu Vaishnava devotional poet saint, who lived in the Gangetic basin of northern India. The Hindu tradition recognizes him as the founder of the Ramanandi Sampradaya, the largest monastic Hindu renunciant community in modern times.

Born in a Kanyakubja Brahmin family, Ramananda for the most part of his life lived in the holy city of Varanasi. His date of birth is December 30, while his date of death is uncertain, but historical evidence suggests he was one of the earliest saints and a pioneering figure of the Bhakti movement as it rapidly grew in North India, sometime between the 14th and mid-15th century during its Islamic rule period. Tradition asserts that Ramananda developed his philosophy and devotional themes inspired by the south Indian Vedanta philosopher Ramanuja, however, evidence also suggests that Ramananda was influenced by Nathpanthi ascetics of the Yoga school of Hindu philosophy.

An early social reformer, Ramananda accepted disciples without discriminating against anyone by gender, class or caste. Traditional scholarship holds that his disciples included later Bhakti movement poet-sants such as Kabir, Ravidas, Bhagat Pipa and others, however, some postmodern scholars have questioned some of this spiritual lineage while others have supported this lineage with historical evidence. His verse is mentioned in the Sikh holy scripture Guru Granth Sahib.

Ramananda was known for composing his works and discussing spiritual themes in vernacular Hindi, stating that this makes knowledge accessible to the masses.

Little is known with certainty about the life of Ramananda, including year of birth and death The Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature give dates of 1366–1467 for his lifespan. His biography has been derived from mentions of him in secondary literature and inconsistent hagiographies.

The most accepted version holds that Ramananda was born in a Kanyakubja Brahmin family, about mid 14th-century, and died about mid 15th-century. Although few people hold him to be of southern origin, there's no evidence to support such a claim. In fact, all genuinely Indian sources agree in stating that Ramananda was born at Prayaga (Allahabad).

"Not one word is said as to his southern origin, and the fact that he was stated to be a Kanyakubja Brahmin is decisively against such a theory" –George A. Greirson (1920).

According to the medieval era Bhaktamala text by Nabhadas, Ramananda studied under Raghavananda, a guru (teacher) in Vedanta-based Vatakalai (northern, Rama-avatar) school of Vaishnavism.