Chhudani, 1717
Garibdas, 1717 to 1778, of Chhudani in Jhajjar district, Haryana.
Where he came from
A Jat farming family, his father Balram and his mother Rani, in a village on the plain west of Delhi, in a region that produced grain, soldiers and very little literature.
Which is worth stating.
Haryana is not a place with a large medieval devotional corpus. It has no Kabir, no Tulsidas, no Surdas, no Mira. Its literary production in that period is thin, its language was not a written literary language, and its religious life ran through pilgrimage sites, sect establishments and the surrounding traditions of Braj, Rajasthan and Punjab rather than through anything of its own.
Garibdas is the exception.
He is the largest body of sant verse Haryana produced, in Haryanvi inflected Hindi, by a Jat cultivator's son who herded cattle, and the Garibdasi panth that formed around him is one of the very few indigenous Haryanvi religious traditions.
What happened in the field
The account is that he was about ten years old and grazing cattle outside the village, at a place remembered as Nalla, when Kabir appeared to him.
Not a book of Kabir. Not a teacher of the Kabir Panth. Kabir.
Who had died around two hundred and fifty years earlier.
The tradition says the encounter gave him the teaching directly, and that everything he subsequently wrote came out of it.
How to hold that claim
The Charandas entry earlier in this batch sets out the pattern and it applies here exactly.
Lineages claim a non human or long dead guru most often in precisely the situation where there is no human teacher to name.
And the Kabir appearance is the single most common form of it in northern India. Several sant lines have their founder receiving initiation from Kabir after his death, and it does a specific job: it connects an unaffiliated village figure directly to the most authoritative name in the nirguna tradition, without requiring a chain of intermediate teachers that nobody can supply.
Which is a pattern rather than an accusation.
And, as with Charandas, the alternative reading is not damaging.
A boy in a Haryana village with no teacher, no education and no institution behind him produced twenty thousand verses. That is a more remarkable thing than being handed them, and the tradition's need for a source does not have to be a reader's.
What he did afterwards
He stayed.
No wandering years, no pilgrimage circuit, no shifting from patron to patron. He remained at Chhudani, farmed, married, had a family, and wrote.
Which puts him with Bhoja Bhagat in the Gujarat batch and against most of the figures in this one: a working agriculturist with a household, producing a very large body of work in the hours around it.
He died in 1778, and his samadhi is at Chhudani, where a large annual mela is held.
The panth
The Garibdasi panth has hundreds of establishments, principally in Haryana, with others in Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab, and it is a substantial living tradition in that region even though it is barely known outside it.
Its content is standard nirguna: satguru, satnam, no image worship, strict vegetarianism, no intoxicants, ahimsa, and Kabir as the reference point throughout.
The Sat Granth
What he wrote
The Sat Granth, also circulated as the Garib Das ji ki Granth Sahib and in some editions as the Ratnasagar.
And it is very large.
The traditional count is around twenty four thousand verses, arranged in angs, limbs or chapters, of which the standard organisation gives around twenty four, each on a subject.
Which makes it one of the largest single sant compositions in Hindi, comparable in bulk to the major collected Kabir corpora, produced by one man in one village.
The language
Hindi with heavy Haryanvi inflection, with the vocabulary of a farming region: cattle, wells, fields, grain, the plough, weights, the road, the market at the district town.
And the register is spoken. These are verses meant to be said aloud by people who did not read, which is the whole northern sant method and which is why they were memorised across Haryana by people who never saw the book.
What is in it
The standard nirguna subjects, at unusual length and with his own emphases.
One. The satguru.
Heavily, and this is the first thing a reader will notice. The teacher as the one who does the actual work, the debt owed to them, and the impossibility of the thing without them.
Which is Sahjo Bai's subject two entries ago, and the same caution applies and is set out there: that material is about gratitude and it is not a licence for anybody, and a teacher who breaks a code has left the category being praised.
Two. Satnam and the name.
Three. The attack on ritual.
Pilgrimage, bathing, image worship, fasting for results, priests, and the whole apparatus, in the register Kabir established and which Garibdas carries with a farmer's directness.
Four. Caste.
Rejected, in the standard nirguna terms.
Five. Diet and conduct.
Strict vegetarianism and no intoxicants, argued rather than assumed, and this is one of the strongest strands in the Garibdasi tradition.
Six. The inner cosmology.
And this is where he is most distinctive and most difficult.
A very large part of the Sat Granth describes regions, levels and realms: what lies above what, what is reached in what order, which power governs which level, and where the soul is actually going.
It is dense, technical, allusive material, it is the part later movements have made most use of, and it is very hard to read without a tradition to read it with.
How to approach the book
Not by starting at the beginning and going through.
Twenty four thousand verses is not a book you read. It is a body of material that a tradition uses.
A reader coming to it fresh should take a selection, of which there are several in Hindi, read the material on the name and on ritual and on conduct, which is direct and immediately usable, and leave the cosmological angs alone unless they are actually inside the tradition, because those sections are the part that means very little on their own and the part most easily bent by somebody with an interest.
Which the next section is about.
Who Is Using Him Now
This section is the reason a reader searching Garibdas needs a devotional site to be straight with them.
What you will find if you search
Not, mostly, the Garibdasi panth of Haryana.
You will find an enormous volume of material from one modern organisation, which quotes the Sat Granth constantly, builds its entire doctrinal case on Garibdas's cosmological verses, and presents its own founder as the figure Garibdas was pointing at.
The organisation is the one built around Rampal, formerly of the Satlok Ashram at Barwala in Hisar district, Haryana.
What is a matter of public record
And this is stated as court record rather than as opinion.
In November 2014 there was a prolonged standoff at the Barwala ashram, arising from his failure to appear before the High Court in a contempt matter connected to an earlier clash. The police operation to execute the warrant ended with the deaths of five women and an infant.
In October 2018 he was convicted of murder in two cases arising from those deaths and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is in prison.
That is the position and it is not disputed reporting.
Why this belongs in an entry about an eighteenth century sant
Because the search results are the search results.
A person who becomes interested in Garibdas after reading a line of his, and goes looking, will land in that material, and a great deal of it does not announce what it is. It presents itself simply as Garibdas's teaching, with the Sat Granth verses foregrounded and the organisation's own claims arriving gradually.
And the honest thing for this site to do is say so before that happens.
What this entry is and is not saying
It is not saying that Garibdas is discredited. He wrote in the eighteenth century and has no responsibility for anything done in the twenty first.
It is not saying that the Garibdasi panth of Haryana is that organisation. It is not. The panth is an older, larger and separate tradition with hundreds of establishments, centred at Chhudani, and it does not accept the claim.
It is saying that a corpus can be captured, that this one substantially has been in the search results, and that a reader should know which door they are walking through.
The general pattern, because it is not unique
A long dead sant with a large, technical, difficult corpus is exactly the raw material a modern organisation needs.
Four features make a body of work capturable.
One. The author is dead and cannot object.
Two. The corpus is enormous, so that a selective quotation can be assembled to support almost anything and no ordinary reader will check it against the whole.
Three. The difficult sections are unfalsifiable. Cosmological material about levels and realms cannot be verified by a reader, so an organisation that claims to be the authorised interpreter of it cannot be contradicted from the text.
Four. There is a gap the organisation can put itself into. A verse about a coming teacher, or about the one who will reveal the true name, is an empty slot, and the whole enterprise consists of claiming it.
The tests, which this series has now given several times
- What does this organisation want from you: money, obedience, distance from your family, property, labour, silence, sexual access
- What happens if you leave, since in a legitimate arrangement the answer is nothing
- Can the teacher be questioned, directly, and what happens to the conversation when you do
- Who is not allowed to speak, because every such organisation has people who left and an explanation for ignoring them
- And check the court record, which is public, free and searchable, and takes ten minutes
Police 112. Cybercrime 1930 for money taken online. Women's helpline 181. Childline 1098. Free legal aid 15100.
How to read Garibdas instead
Go to the source and to the older tradition.
Read a printed Hindi selection of the Sat Granth rather than an organisation's compilation, and prefer editions from Haryana publishers and from the panth itself.
Read the verses on the name, on conduct, on ritual and on caste, which are direct, checkable against the rest of the nirguna tradition, and immediately usable.
And treat the cosmological angs as what they are: technical material inside a tradition, not a code to be decrypted, and not evidence for anybody's claim about themselves.
Where to go
- Chhudani, Jhajjar district, Haryana, where his samadhi is and where the annual mela is held
- Garibdasi establishments across Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab
- Jhajjar and Rohtak, for the surrounding country
A daily practice from this entry
- Satnam, or whatever name your household uses
- A few verses of the Sat Granth on conduct, which is the part of him that needs no interpreter
- And the search habit this entry exists to teach: when a name leads you to one organisation's website, go and find who else has written about that name
The Short Version
Who: Garibdas, 1717 to 1778, of Chhudani in Jhajjar district, Haryana, born into a Jat farming family, his father Balram and mother Rani, in a village on the plain west of Delhi. That region is not a place with a large medieval devotional corpus: it has no Kabir, no Tulsidas, no Surdas and no Mira, its literary production in that period is thin, its language was not a written literary language, and its religious life ran through pilgrimage sites and the surrounding traditions of Braj, Rajasthan and Punjab rather than anything of its own. Garibdas is the exception, the largest body of sant verse Haryana produced, in Haryanvi inflected Hindi, by a cultivator's son who herded cattle, and the Garibdasi panth is one of the very few indigenous Haryanvi religious traditions.
The vision: the account is that he was about ten and grazing cattle outside the village when Kabir appeared to him, not a book of Kabir or a teacher of the Kabir Panth but Kabir, who had died around two hundred and fifty years earlier, and that the encounter gave him the teaching directly. The pattern is the one the Charandas entry sets out: lineages claim a non human or long dead guru most often in precisely the situation where there is no human teacher to name, and the Kabir appearance is the single most common form of it in northern India, since it connects an unaffiliated village figure directly to the most authoritative name in the tradition without requiring a chain nobody can supply. That is a pattern rather than an accusation, and the alternative reading is not damaging: a boy in a Haryana village with no teacher, no education and no institution behind him producing twenty thousand verses is more remarkable than being handed them.
What he did: he stayed. No wandering years, no pilgrimage circuit, no shifting between patrons: he remained at Chhudani, farmed, married, had a family and wrote, which puts him with Bhoja Bhagat as a working agriculturist with a household producing a very large body of work in the hours around it. He died in 1778 and his samadhi is at Chhudani, where a large annual mela is held, and the Garibdasi panth has hundreds of establishments principally in Haryana with others in Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab.
The Sat Granth: also circulated as the Garib Das ji ki Granth Sahib and in some editions as the Ratnasagar, traditionally around twenty four thousand verses arranged in angs, of which the standard organisation gives around twenty four, which makes it one of the largest single sant compositions in Hindi. The language is Hindi with heavy Haryanvi inflection and the vocabulary of a farming region, and the register is spoken, since these are verses meant to be said aloud by people who did not read, which is why they were memorised across Haryana by people who never saw the book. Its contents are the standard nirguna subjects at unusual length: the satguru, heavily, which is Sahjo Bai's subject and carries the same caution that such material is about gratitude and is not a licence; satnam and the name; the attack on ritual, pilgrimage, bathing, image worship, fasting for results and priests; caste, rejected; strict vegetarianism and no intoxicants, argued rather than assumed; and the inner cosmology, which is where he is most distinctive and most difficult, describing regions, levels and realms in dense, technical, allusive material that is very hard to read without a tradition to read it with.
How to approach it: not by starting at the beginning, since twenty four thousand verses is not a book you read but a body of material a tradition uses. Take a printed Hindi selection, read the material on the name, conduct, ritual and caste, which is direct and immediately usable, and leave the cosmological angs alone unless you are actually inside the tradition, because those sections mean very little on their own and are the part most easily bent by somebody with an interest.
Who is using him now: search his name and you will mostly not find the Garibdasi panth of Haryana but an enormous volume of material from one modern organisation, built around Rampal, formerly of the Satlok Ashram at Barwala in Hisar district, which quotes the Sat Granth constantly and presents its own founder as the figure Garibdas was pointing at. As a matter of public court record: in November 2014 there was a prolonged standoff at the Barwala ashram arising from his failure to appear before the High Court in a contempt matter, the police operation to execute the warrant ended with the deaths of five women and an infant, and in October 2018 he was convicted of murder in two cases arising from those deaths and sentenced to life imprisonment. This entry is not saying Garibdas is discredited, since he wrote in the eighteenth century and has no responsibility for the twenty first, and it is not saying the Garibdasi panth is that organisation, since it is not. It is saying a corpus can be captured, that this one substantially has been in the search results, and that a reader should know which door they are walking through.
Why corpora get captured: four features make a body of work capturable. The author is dead and cannot object. The corpus is enormous, so selective quotation can support almost anything and no ordinary reader will check it against the whole. The difficult sections are unfalsifiable, since cosmological material about levels and realms cannot be verified by a reader, so a self declared authorised interpreter cannot be contradicted from the text. And there is a gap the organisation can put itself into, since a verse about a coming teacher or about the one who will reveal the true name is an empty slot and the whole enterprise consists of claiming it. The tests are the ones this series repeats: what does the organisation want from you, what happens if you leave, can the teacher be questioned, who is not allowed to speak, and check the court record, which is public, free, searchable and takes ten minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Garibdas of Chhudani?+
A Haryanvi nirguna sant of 1717 to 1778, born into a Jat farming family at Chhudani in Jhajjar district, who wrote the Sat Granth, traditionally around twenty four thousand verses in Haryanvi inflected Hindi, which is one of the largest single sant compositions in the language. He matters regionally because Haryana has no large medieval devotional corpus of its own, no Kabir, Tulsidas, Surdas or Mira, so Garibdas is the exception and the Garibdasi panth that formed around him is one of the very few indigenous Haryanvi religious traditions, with hundreds of establishments principally in Haryana and others in Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab. He never left: he remained at Chhudani, farmed, married, had a family and wrote, and his samadhi is there, where a large annual mela is held.
Did Kabir really appear to Garibdas?+
That is what the tradition says: that he was about ten years old and grazing cattle outside Chhudani when Kabir appeared to him and gave him the teaching directly, and that everything he subsequently wrote came out of that encounter. Kabir had died around two hundred and fifty years earlier. The pattern is the one set out in the Charandas entry: lineages claim a non human or long dead guru most often in precisely the situation where there is no human teacher to name, and the appearance of Kabir after his death is the single most common form of it in northern India, because it connects an unaffiliated village figure directly to the most authoritative name in the nirguna tradition without requiring a chain of intermediate teachers that nobody can supply. That is a pattern rather than an accusation, and the alternative reading does not damage him: a boy in a Haryana village with no teacher, no education and no institution behind him producing twenty thousand verses is a more remarkable thing than being handed them.
What is the Sat Granth and how should I read it?+
Garibdas's collected work, also circulated as the Garib Das ji ki Granth Sahib and in some editions as the Ratnasagar, traditionally around twenty four thousand verses arranged in angs or chapters, of which the standard organisation gives around twenty four. Its contents are the standard nirguna subjects at unusual length: the satguru, satnam and the name, the attack on ritual and pilgrimage and image worship and priests, the rejection of caste, strict vegetarianism and abstinence argued rather than assumed, and a very large body of inner cosmology describing regions, levels and realms, which is dense, technical and allusive. Do not start at the beginning and go through, because twenty four thousand verses is not a book you read but a body of material a tradition uses. Take a printed Hindi selection, read the material on the name, on conduct, on ritual and on caste, which is direct and immediately usable, and leave the cosmological angs alone unless you are actually inside the tradition, since those sections mean very little on their own and are the part most easily bent by somebody with an interest.
Why do search results for Garibdas lead to one organisation?+
Because one modern organisation has produced an enormous volume of material quoting the Sat Granth, building its entire doctrinal case on Garibdas's cosmological verses and presenting its own founder as the figure Garibdas was pointing at. It is the organisation built around Rampal, formerly of the Satlok Ashram at Barwala in Hisar district, Haryana. As a matter of public court record: in November 2014 there was a prolonged standoff at the Barwala ashram arising from his failure to appear before the High Court in a contempt matter connected to an earlier clash, the police operation to execute the warrant ended with the deaths of five women and an infant, and in October 2018 he was convicted of murder in two cases arising from those deaths and sentenced to life imprisonment. This entry is not saying Garibdas is discredited, since he wrote in the eighteenth century and has no responsibility for anything done in the twenty first, and it is not saying the Garibdasi panth of Haryana is that organisation, since it is a separate, older and larger tradition centred at Chhudani which does not accept the claim. It is saying that a corpus can be captured, that this one substantially has been in the search results, and that a reader should know which door they are walking through.
What makes an old sant's work easy to take over?+
Four features. The author is dead and cannot object. The corpus is enormous, so that a selective quotation can be assembled to support almost anything and no ordinary reader will check it against the whole. The difficult sections are unfalsifiable, since cosmological material about levels and realms cannot be verified by a reader, so an organisation that claims to be the authorised interpreter of it cannot be contradicted from the text. And there is a gap the organisation can put itself into, since a verse about a coming teacher, or about the one who will reveal the true name, is an empty slot, and the whole enterprise consists of claiming it. The tests this series repeats apply: what does the organisation want from you, meaning money, obedience, distance from your family, property, labour, silence or sexual access; what happens if you leave, since in a legitimate arrangement the answer is nothing; can the teacher be questioned directly and what happens to the conversation when you do; who is not allowed to speak, since every such organisation has people who left and an explanation for ignoring them; and check the court record, which is public, free, searchable and takes ten minutes.
How should I read Garibdas instead?+
Go to the source and to the older tradition. Read a printed Hindi selection of the Sat Granth rather than an organisation's compilation, and prefer editions from Haryana publishers and from the panth itself. Read the verses on the name, on conduct, on ritual and on caste, which are direct, checkable against the rest of the nirguna tradition and immediately usable. Treat the cosmological angs as what they are: technical material inside a tradition, not a code to be decrypted and not evidence for anybody's claim about themselves. Visit Chhudani in Jhajjar district, where his samadhi is and where the annual mela is held, and the Garibdasi establishments across Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab. And take the search habit this entry exists to teach: when a name leads you to one organisation's website, go and find who else has written about that name.
About the author
Pandit Ravindra Sharma · Vedic Rituals & Bhakti, 22+ years
Pandit Ravindra is the Vandnaa editorial team's resident specialist on aarti, chalisa, and daily devotion. He has performed home and temple pujas across Varanasi and Delhi for over two decades and contributes the bhakti-focused articles on this site.
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