The Krishna Pranami ( Nijanand) sampraday is a non-caste Hindu sect which has so far hardly been studied. This religious movement, which originated in Gujarat in the 17th century, is now sparsely distributed in western and northern India, as well as in Nepal. It clearly derives from nirguna (“without attributes”) bhakti and north Indianmedieval sant tradition. Like the religious movements founded by Kabir (1440-1518)and then by Nanak (1469-1539), the Pranami sect arose at a time when Islamic rulewas enforced on Hindus.
The founder of the movement, Dev Chandra (1581-1655),was born in Sindh, to a rich merchant family (Mehta). The central figure of the Pranamis, however, is Dev Chandra’s disciple: Prannath (1618-1694), born in Saurashtra to an affluent Thakur family (Kshatriya) which fulfilled diwan ministry function. This saint propagated an eclectic religious doctrine intended to transcend Hinduism and Islam.
In the same manner as Kabir and Nanak, Prannath strongly rejected the caste system and denounced Brahman’s ritualism. The devotees of the sect (called sundersath) often recall that Gandhiji’s mother belonged to this sect. It is likely that the Mahatma’s ideas related to religious tolerance and ahimsa non-violence were influenced in one way or another by the Pranamis’ religious discourse. Very few people, however, know that this sect has spread over the course of history in Nepal, especially in the Kathmandu Valley and the eastern regions of the country, as well as in the eastern Himalayas. Even fewer know that the present Maharaj of the sect, who spends most of his time in the religious centre of the sampraday (Jamnagar, Gujarat), is originally from Nepal (Ilam district).
The founder of the movement, Dev Chandra (1581-1655),was born in Sindh, to a rich merchant family (Mehta). The central figure of the Pranamis, however, is Dev Chandra’s disciple: Prannath (1618-1694), born in Saurashtra to an affluent Thakur family (Kshatriya) which fulfilled diwan ministry function. This saint propagated an eclectic religious doctrine intended to transcend Hinduism and Islam.
In the same manner as Kabir and Nanak, Prannath strongly rejected the caste system and denounced Brahman’s ritualism. The devotees of the sect (called sundersath) often recall that Gandhiji’s mother belonged to this sect. It is likely that the Mahatma’s ideas related to religious tolerance and ahimsa non-violence were influenced in one way or another by the Pranamis’ religious discourse. Very few people, however, know that this sect has spread over the course of history in Nepal, especially in the Kathmandu Valley and the eastern regions of the country, as well as in the eastern Himalayas. Even fewer know that the present Maharaj of the sect, who spends most of his time in the religious centre of the sampraday (Jamnagar, Gujarat), is originally from Nepal (Ilam district).
This paper focuses on the politics and the anthropology of the movement both in the past and the present. Three issues will be addressed. First: the origins of the movement, its universalistic message, beyond the Muslim and Hindu faiths, and its evolution over time towards a more aligned Hindu movement. Secondly: the difficulty the sect had in integrating the orthodox and authoritarian Hindu kingdom of Nepal from the end of the 18th century until 1950. The sampradaya encounters the same difficulties as the Arya Samaj, another reformist movement, introduced much latter in Nepal, in being accepted in the Himalayan kingdom. Pranamis were particularly suspected by the Ranas of clandestinely propagating the religion of the Koran. The third aspect to be discussed is the impact of being a Pranami in the present ethnic and religious identity context. How can one at the same time be a vegetarian, teetotaller, and belong to the Newar ethnic group? How can one be a sacred book-worshipper, rejecting any veneration of deity images and a number of Hindu rituals, and belong to an upper Hindu Parbatiya caste? These various circles of belonging, which have to be studied in relation to each other, and at different periods in history, define the position of the individual in termsof shifting and negotiated identities.
