Nagari Das was a renounced Vaishnava of the Nimbarki sampradaya who lived in the first half of the 18th century (b. 1699, d. 1765).
Nagari Das is the Vaishnava name of Raja Sawanta Singh of Kishangarh (Ajmer, Rajasthan). This kingdom was closely related to those in Ajmer and Jaipur, etc. The kings of Kishangarh were supporters of the Nimbarka sampradaya and were connected to the nearby Salemabad seat (Nimbarka Pith) of the Nimbarka sampradaya. This seat was founded by Parashuram, one of Hari Vyasa’s 12 principal disciples and is accepted as being the most important site for Nimbarkis outside of Vrindavan.
It seems that Sawanta Singh also got involved in his own sampradaya’s politics around 1741 when the Salemabad gaddi was about to be vacated with the approaching demise of Vrindavan Devacharya. Though many disciples were qualified, one individual, Jairam Sesh, was favored by the Jaipur king, Jai Singh, as well as by the princely rulers of Udaipur, Kota, Karauli, Shyopur and Barauda, etc.
Maharaja Jai Singh had come to the conclusion that all renounced sadhus and acharyas everywhere should become householders. [I assume he had good reason, but nothing here is mentioned.] Sesh had been a householder before taking vairagya and this is why the king favored him. On the other hand, the Vaishnavas and general populace did not agree with his ideas and held fast to the rule that only lifelong celibates should sit on the gaddi.
When Vrindavan Devacharya died, the plans of the kings came to nought when the sants and vairagis’ candidate, Govinda Devacharya, was placed at the head of the math. However, there was a schism as Jai Singh gave Seshji shelter and put him in charge of all Nimbarki ashrams and temples in his jurisdiction. Many of the other kings, including Sawant Singh’s father Raja Singh in Kishangarh did the same.
Bad feeling between the Salemabad pith and the royal families grew and other Vaishnava sampradayas tried to take advantage to fill the void. However, good sense returned to the king of Jaipur and subsequently to the kings of Kishangarh and Rupanagar. They went to Govinda Devacharya and asked his forgiveness. All, that is, except for Sawant Singh’s younger brother Bahadur Singh.
Bahadur Singh even gathered an army and tried to take Rupanagar, and an army of 500 Vaishnava nagas was sent to counter him. Somewhere during this time, Bahadur Singh broke with the family tradition and took initiation from the Vallabha Goswamis. So vehement was he in his rejection of the Nimbarkis that he insisted everyone in the court follow his example. Instead of the Nimbarki tilak, they had to wear the Vallabhi vermilion colors.
The story is told that one courtier, Mahonota Hathasingh, came in the next day with his gopi chandan urdhva-pundra and was immediately taken to task by the king. Mahonota’s response was to uncover his belly and point to the red tilak on it, saying, “Your Highness, I have given my head to my guru. But since you own my belly, I have put the Vallabhi tilak on it!”
Jai Singh died in 1745, which helped to calm the Salemabad controversy. The king of Jodhpur intervened with Sawant Singh and encouraged him to appease Bahadur Singh by giving him 13 villages. This calmed things between the two brothers for a time. Sawant Singh went to live in Delhi with the Mughal emperor, Mohammad Shah, but he died in 1748, followed two days later by the death of Raja Singh. Sawant Singh was made king, even though he was still in Delhi.
Bahadur Singh took the opportunity to make a play for the kingdom and in 1749 attacked both Rupanagar and Kishangarh. Sawant Singh came with a force to meet him, but decided that it would be improper to incur the loss of any life to pay for this worldly struggle and turned to Vrindavan.
He went to Govardhan and did a parikrama with his entire retinue, accompanied by the beating of drums and blowing of bugles. He came to Radha Kund where he camped at Shrinivas’s baithak and enjoyed kirtan (Shrinivas was a direct disciple of Nimbarka who wrote an expanded commentary on the Vedanta).
There is a verse that Nagari Das wrote when he arrived in Vrindavan. When the Vaishnavas heard that Sawant Singh Raja had come, nobody came to see him. By this time, the songs of Nagari Das had already become famous enough when it was announced that Nagari Das had come, then everyone flocked to see him, even though it was the same person.
suni vyavahārika nāma mo, ṭhāḍe dūri udāsa
dauri mile bhari naina puni, sunata nāgarī dāsa
On hearing my worldly name, everyone stayed away, indifferent. But when they heard the name Nagari Das, they came running to meet me and fill their eyes.
Mughal rule in India was weakening at this time and the Marathas were on the rise. Sawant Singh decided to ally himself with them. But he was told by one saint Haridasji to retire from his royal duties and go live in Braj, so he decided to follow this advice and sent the reinforcements taken from the Marathas to his other brother Sardar Singh. Sardar Singh immediately attacked Kishangarh and a vicious battle took place in which many men were killed. Bahadur Singh came to his senses and pleaded for a truce. The kingdom was split and Bahadur Singh took Kishnagarh, while Sardar Singh took Rupanagar on behalf of his older brother. This was now 1757.
In order that peace be maintained between the brothers, Sawant Singh and Bahadur Singh went to Salemabad to receive Govinda Devacharya’s blessings. With that, Nagari Das returned to Vrindavan and became a complete tyagi and engaged in bhajan until he died in 1765.
Now, what makes this interesting is that after his death, a controversy arose about whether Nagari Das was a Nimbarki or a Vallabhi saint. Sharan Bihari Goswami says that though “his poetry bears the imprint of the Haridasi and Radhavallabhi sects, even though he was initiated in the Vallabha sect.” (Bhakti Kavya Mem Sakhi Bhava, 688)
Vrajavallabh Sharanji argues against this mistaken idea, and indeed the above account shows that it was most unlikely. What is quite shocking is that there seems to have been a systematic attempt to erase all references to Nimbarki gurus, etc., from Nagari Das’s writings and wherever possible to credit the authorship of others to Vallabhi saints and gosais. I will not present all the arguments, which are based as much on historical records from the royal houses as on manuscripts that have not been so altered. Furthermore, Sawant Singh was also an artist and he drew portraits of many of the Vaishnavas including the Salemabad Peethacharya . [He is know for his patronage of these arts as well.]
Vrajavallabha Sharan dryly suggests that the family feud was not all that peaceful and that Bahadur Singh still bore a grudge against his older brother and the Nimbarka sect, with that grudge playing out in the above fashion.
Some things that Vrajavallabhaji points out that are of interest are that Nagari Das was a strong supporter of the Chari Sampradaya idea. In one work, Bhakti-mārga-dīpikā, he translates the famous verse, samprādaya-vihīnā ye, into Brijbhasha.
cāra sampradā meṁ guru kariye
aurana ke mata meṁ nahiṁ pariye
vishnuswami nimbādita āraja
rāmānuja aura madhvācāraja
vishnuswami ke guru tripurārī
nimbādita sanakādika cārī
hai ju ramā tahāṁ śrī rāmānuja
vidhi sikha madhvā parma dharma dhuja
ina cāraṇa bina guru mati ṭhānoṁ
aura ke mantra aphala kari mānoṁ
That is pretty clear, I think. What is interesting is that these lines were cut out of the Vallabhi revision of the text and replaced by a single couplet:
prasiddha sampradā meṁ guru kariye
mana kalpita mata meṁ nahiṁ pariye
Instead of saying that one should take initiation in any one of the four sampradayas, it says that one should take initiation in a “prasiddha” sampradaya and not follow any “invented” doctrines.
Vrajavallabha Sharanji points out here that the Vallabha sampradāya only grudgingly accepted affiliation with the Vishnuswami sampradāya, and in fact many people still (as with the Gaudiyas and Madhva) do not recognize this connection at all.
That is not very hard to understand if you look at this quote from Vallabhacharya’s own Bhagavata commentary:
trividho bhakti-yoga uktaḥ. te ca sāmprataṁ viṣṇusvāmy-anusāriṇaḥ,
tattva-vādinaḥ, rāmānujāś ceti tamo-rajaḥ-sattvair bhinnāḥ.
asmat-pratipāditas tu nairguṇyaḥ.
Three kinds of bhakti-yoga have been spoken of here, namely that in the modes of ignorance, passion and goodness. These are represented nowadays respectively by the followers of Vishnuswami, the Tattvavadis, and the Ramanuja sampradaya. The doctrine we are setting forth, however, is beyond the modes of material nature. (Subodhini to 3.29.37)
This quote reveals two principal facts. One is that Vallabha did not identify himself as a follower of Vishnuswami. Nor, did he even recognize the existence of four sampradayas. Furthermore, he did not know or give any importance to Nimbarka. I cannot think of a quote that is more likely to scupper any attempt to argue that the four sampradaya idea existed at the time of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his contemporary Vallabhacharya.
Another interesting little tidbit I picked up is that the Nimbarki tilak is based on the idea that the two lines represent a Hari mandir. The black dot symbolizes Sarveshwar Hari. The Vallabhi interpretation of the tilak is that the two lines represent Shiva and Brahma and the empty space in between (akasha) is Vishnu.
It is interesting to note that this sectarian feud, the origins of what are not really known at all (Why were the kings insisting that only householders should be gurus?) and which led to loss of life (though surely Bahadur Singh’s motives could not have been entirely motivated by moral outrage or sectarian piety), shows that Hindus and Vaishnavas have some blemishes of this kind on their history, too.
Nagari Das wrote the following song:
hameṁ shastra kī samajha na parihai
nahiṁ samajhe abahū nahiṁ samajhe
jina samajhe tina kahyo sukari haiṁ
parama dharma vettā ācāraja
cyārani hī ke mata anusāri haiṁ
haṁsa vāhinī haṭha salitā meṁ
būḍaka laiṁke nāṁhi uchari haiṁ
braja rasa keli sudhā piya kaiṁ
phira vidyā-vādani nāṁhi jhagari haiṁ
nāgari dāsa vāsa vṛindāvana
nita vihāra taiṁ kabahuṁ na ṭarihaiṁ
We are unable to understand shastra. We don’t understand, we still don’t understand. One who does understand can explain it simply. The four acharyas are the knowers of the supreme dharma and we follow their doctrines. [Something about being in stream of the Nimbarka sampradaya, which is also said to be descended from Hamsa avatar.] We drink the rasa of Braja nectarean pastimes and don’t waste our time in arguments about doctrines. Nagari Das lives in Vrindavan and never gives up singing of the Nitya Vihara.
References above are to Nāgarī dāsa kī vāṇī (ed. Vrajavallabha Sharan, Vrindavan: Sri Sarvesvara Press, 1966). This article originally published in somewhat different form here.
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