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FIRST PILGRIMAGE

After the death of his wife, Suryavati, Sankaradeva was thinking of going on a pilgrimage but could not do so due to his little daughter. When Manu was married to Hari-jovai, Sankaradeva became free from domestic life and handed over the charge of the Siromani Bhuyanship to his grand-uncles, Jayanta and Madhava Dalai. The Guru then started on a long and extensive pilgrimage in 1481 A.D. accompanished by some of his disciples. Althouhh different biographers provide variant list of pilgrims, it is held that the group consisted of seventeen members. Dvarika, who gives a detailed account of the places they visited, records of the following fifteen members: Ramarama, Vyasakalai, Mahendra Kandali, Sarvabhauma, Ananta Kandali, Parmananda, Rudradhara, Kalki, Kalpataru, Jagannatha, Dharadhara, Manpur, Nandanatha, Kanmu and Govarddhana.
It is held by all the biographers that the Guru spent twelve years in different holy places like Vrndavana, Mathura, Kurukshetra, Haridvar, Badarikasrama, and Jaganatha, etc. But as some biographers relate it is nit certain whether Sankaradeva visited all the places of pilgrimage in India. It is further stated that after
Visiting Vrndavana Mathura, most of the members returned home and only two, Paramananda and Sarvabhauma and Mathura and then went to Haridvar and Badrikasrama. Thereafter, Sankaradeva came to Jagannathaksetra at Puri where he stayed for a long time. During the period Sankaradeva met scholars and teachers of various schools and had discussions with them.

SECOND PILGRIMAGE

In 1550 A.D. Sankaradeva set out on a pilgrimage accompanied by one hundred and twenty bhaktas. This time he visited Puri and came into contact withholy men from different parts of the country. The Katha-guru-charita and some other works provide account of this journey event in its minutest detail. This time Madhavadeva was also with him and served the Master all through his travel. In course of their journey, the ocassion for composing many songs and lyrics by the two Gurus are fully described. On his way back to Puri, Sankaradeva is said to have visited the abode of Kabir. Some biographers hold that Sankaradeva also met Caitanya at Puri; but from the historical point of view such a meeting was not possible and the narration cannot be accepted at authentic, and may, therefore, be treated as the ‘pious imagination’of the biographers. Sankaradeva is also said to have met Ramananda and Harivyasa and some mythological persons, as also a nephew of Rupa and Sanatana. However, the party intended to visit Vrndavana, but as Madhavadeva was unwilling to go, Sankaradeva had to cancel the programme. At, Puri they stayed for a few months and then returned to Patbausi. The journey is said to have covered six months only.

Sankardeva, the Scholar…….

It is said that as per request of the priests of Jagarnnatha, Sankara rendered into Assamese verse the ‘Udesa-Varnana’, glorifying Lord Jagannatha. This version was later on included in his ‘Kirttana-ghosa’. The Guruji stayed at Puri for a long time. At Jagarnnatha-ksetra Sankaradeva ‘received his illumination of Jnana-bhakti and came in contact with people of various shades of religious option’. For, like Guru Nanak, Sankaradeva too, had no early Guru. This he himself proclaim in the following way:

Hrdayara parama isvara mora guru
Prabhu bhagavanta bhakatara Kalpataru
( O Supreme Lord of my heart, Thou art my guru,
the redeemer of the bhakats-just like the wish- fulfilling tree).

by scholars and all now negard the song ‘mana meri Rama caranhilagu’ as the first composition of this types of lyrics. The English rendering of this bar-gita goes like the following:
Rest my mind, resi on the feet of Rama seest thou not the great end approaching ? my mind, every moment life is shortening, just heed, any moment it might flee off. My mind, the serpent of time is swallowing: knowest thou that death is creeping on by inches.
My mind surely this body would drop down, so break through illusion and resort to Rama, oh mind, thou art blind; thou seest this vanity of things, yet thou seest not.
What are thou, o mind, slumbering at ease? Awake and think of Govinda.
O mind Sankara knows it and says, except thou Rama, there is no hope.

BACKGROUND OF THE MOVEMENT

The period preceeding the movement of Sankaradeva may be styled as the darkest one in history in point of all- round deterioration. Morality of the people of India in general was at its lowest ebb, irreligion was rampant and in place of the worship of one God, several jarring cults and creeds reigned in the frontier states of Asama, Kamarupa and Behar. Superstitions and meaningless ritualism became the practice of the day. Injustice, tyranny, selfishness and indulgence in immoral pursuits in the name of religion were in vogue everywhere. The age of the Guru Sankaradeva was an age of great religious upheaval all over the world which produced many great men of revolutionary views. Saints, seer, mystics and scholars like Kabir (1440-1580 A.D.) and Guru Nanak (1469-1538 A.D.) in India and Martin Luther (1483-1546 A.D.). Erasmus (1466-1536 A.D.) and St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556 A.D.) in the West flourished in the same period. A host of saints and mystics appeared in different parts of the country in the same age. In India, great confusion and doubt prevailed in the domain of religion. Caste division and priestly oligarchy had become a source of socially irritation and a means of a popular exploitation. There was no spirit of piety and the whole atmosphere was surcharged with irreligious and immoral doings. Naturally, there was a reaction against the priest-ridden ritualism of various types and such other social and moral evils. It was at this juncture that a number of religious leaders and social reformers like Ramananda, Kabir, Nanak, Ekanath, Namdev, Tukarar, Caitanya, Dadu, Ravidas, etc., came on the scene. To combat these moral and social evils, there was great revival of the cult of devotion or bhakti in the 15th and 16th centuries and many saints seem to have taught similar doctrines all over India. They introduced an era of evolution in the history of India as a whole and in Assam, the same was initiated by Guru Sri Sankaradeva, who gave it a new impetus to the people and various aspects. These saints resembled one another in their doctrinal fervour, their compassion for all creatures and their spiritual vision. Owing to their love of humanity they did their best to democratize and vernaculatise Vedanta to bring it down from heaven to earth. Madhavadeva, the apostolic successor of Sankaradeva, has rithtly expressed in his following Nam-ghusa:

Vaikuntha prakase hari-nama-rase
Prema amrtara nadi
Srimanta Sankare bhangi dita
Vahe brahmandaka bhedi

[‘Formerly the stream of the nectar of love flowed only within the confines of Vaikuntha, until Sankaradeva came and breached the embankment, and lo! Now it flows tumultuous through all the world.’]

At the period, the vast majority of Hindus were divided into the Vaisnava and Siva sects, worshipspers of Visnu and Siva respectively. Sankaradeva discarded the caste system and protested against the authority of the Brahman priesthood. Thus the bhakti dharma, which was give a new interpretation and a define shape in Assam by the great Guru, acquired a new dimension and took the form of mass movement for the realization of its ideals. So, the bhakti movement in Assam found an expression different from that in other parts of the country. Sankardeva’s doctrine of universal equality and fraternity were irresistibly attractive ad drew adherents in great numbers. Persons of all cases and occupations were admitted into this new- found faith. The Guru brought about a new consciousness and a new awaking, shaking all the old foundationof time-worn society. It was a big step for any one in those days to accept an equal broyher instead of the deep-rooted caste system, the right of bhakti for even women and the minimizing of the value of all traditional rituals and ceremonies. He declared in a bold way:

Tri sudre kare yadi amata bhakati
Tahato kahiba ito jnana mahamati
(Kirttana-ghosa: Vaikuntha-prayana)