The modern monastic Santmat movement of Bihar: building bridges between Sanātana Dharma and Sant-Mat
Howard International Journal of Dharma Studies
The modern monastic Santmat movement of Bihar: building bridges between Sanātana Dharma and Sant-Mat
Veena R. Howard
This article analyzes how the modern movement of Santmat, literally “the views of sants,” primarily popular in the rural areas of northern India, uniquely situates itself within the context of “Vedic Dharma.” Through the monastic leadership's redefinition of the categories of Vedic Dharma and Sanātana Dharma, the Santmat tradition creates a space where vernacular Hindu practices and mystical Vedic paths can co-exist. Thus, it stands apart from other contemporary Sant Mat traditions that reject Vedic Dharma. In this article, I pair an examination and analysis of the Santmat movement's historical development and methods, in which Vedic wisdom coheres with the sants' spiritual insights, with an ethnographic analysis of how this movement enacts a creative integration of vernacular traditions. I suggest that this particular Santmat's “bricolage,” to borrow a term from Claude Levi-Strauss, illustrates a distinctive example of experimental dharmas in the context of vernacular sant traditions in contemporary North India. Santmat's skillful integration of local religious vernaculars gives expression to its engagement with lived devotional traditions. Such mixing of practices, which illustrate the processes of hybridity and syncretism, has helped to make the esoteric practices more meaningful and relevant to the everyday lives of the masses, including the tribal and rural people of Bihar and Nepal, populations often marginalized in orthodox Hindu practices. I examine the experimentation occurring within the Santmat tradition and argue that Bihar's Santmat movement may be termed “Vernacular Vedic Dharma.” Furthermore, I address how within the 21st-century rise of extremism, Santmat shows that Vedic Dharma, within its manifold strands of practices and philosophies, encourages an adherence to the harmonizing esoteric spiritual path as well as a universal ethical framework.
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this way, Santmat embraces the wisdom of the tradition while simultaneously rejecting
the concepts, such as discrimination based on caste and gender, as well as Hindu
practices. Importantly, the Santmat tradition does not represent Vedic Dharma or Sanātana
Dharma simply as Hinduism, but rather as systems of divine knowledge. In this article,
I pair an historical examination of the Santmat movement’s development and methods
which suggest coherence between Vedic wisdom and sants’ spiritual insights with an
ethnographic analysis of the creative integration of vernacular traditions enacted by this
movement. I contend that this particular Santmat’s “bricolage,” to borrow a term from
the anthropologist
Levi-Strauss (1966)
, illustrates a distinctive example of experimental
dharmas in the context of sant traditions in contemporary North India.4 I draw on the
Sanskrit term prayoga for the current use of “experimental.” Prayoga literally means
“application,” and is generally translated as “experiment.” It implies an integral
connection with “investigation into truth” and “living the truth,” as was used by Mahatma
Gandhi
(see: Howard 2013, 39)
. Santmat tradition emphasizes the path of inner journey
to the realization of truth as well the practice of ethical codes of abstaining from lying,
stealing, intoxicating substances, etc.
The Santmat tradition’s skillful incorporation of local religious vernacular languages
and practices gives expression to its engaging lived devotional traditions with which to
reimagine its conceptual boundaries in a transnational age of plurality, heightened
selfcritique, and rapid social change. Blending regional religiosity in connection with
rituals—such as offering flowers to the Guru, touching the Guru’s feet, worshiping the
image of the Guru, singing songs in vernacular languages (i.e., Bihari and other regional
dialects of rural communities), and big carnival and cavalcade-like ceremonies—with a
focus on esoteric meditation that I further suggest has no parallel in any other SantMat
traditions that emerged in northern India since the early 19th century. I contend that
such mixing of practices, which illustrate the processes of hybridity and syncretism,
which the other contributors to this volume spotlight as defining characteristics of
experimental religion as lived in the current global milieu of the 21st century, has helped
to make the esoteric practices more meaningful and relevant to the everyday lives of
the masses, including tribal and rural people of Bihar and Nepal, who are normally
marginalized in orthodox (Brahmanical) Hindu practices
(cf. McGuire 2008)
.
Experimenting with the religious boundaries of Santmat to include typically underprivileged
caste and ethnic groups, and by implication their local religiosities, makes it possible
for this Santmat movement to widen its appeal and meet the challenges of modernity.
On the basis of the experime (...truncated)