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The Religious Aspect of the Bāul Songs of Bengal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Rajeshwari Datta
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Extract

The socio-religious songs composed in village Bengal by the adherents of the mystical sect known as the Bāuls are of great interest to students of folk music and poetry, but they are of no less interest to a student of the history of the religions of Bengal. In his songs, the Bāul expresses his religious beliefs and experience, his view of life and of the world, his thoughts and emotions. They are his only form of worship; there is no treatise embodying the doctrines and practices of this sect. It is only in his songs that we can get a glimpse of what a Bāul is and what he believes in. Famous for their spontaneity of expression and charm of melody, their rustic language and imagery, these songs clearly bring out the various themes that together form the general body of Bāul thought. And there are threads of many religious traditions: tantric; Sahajiyā—both Buddhist and Vaiṣṇava; and Ṣūfī.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , May 1978 , pp. 445 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1978

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References

1 Bhaṭṭacarya, Upendranāth, Bāngldr haul o bāul gāna (Bengali Bāuls and Bāul songs) (Calcutta: Orient Book Co., 1957), Pt. I, p. 289. All songs quoted below are from this work, Pt. 11, hereafter simply BBBG.Google Scholar

2 See discussion in Dimock, Edward C., The Place of the Hidden Moon (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 254.Google Scholar

3 However, there are some Bāuls who are householders, earning their livings by cultivating land or doing other manual work.

4 BBBG, pp. 60f., song 69; also Dāś, Matilāl & Mahāpatra, Pīyūṣkānti (eds.), Lālan-gītikā, (Calcutta: Univ. of Calcutta, 1958) [hereafter LG], p. 317, song 460.Google Scholar

5 BBBG, pp. 158f., song 195 (anonymous).

6 Six passions: lust, anger, greed, ignorance, pride, envy.

7 BBBG, pp. 155f., song 191.

8 Ṣūfī term for guru.

9 BBBG, p. 159, song 196 (anonymous).

10 BBBG, p. 128, song 161, by Padmalocana or Podo.

11 BBBG, pp. 236f., song 290.

12 BBBG, p. 176, song 211.

13 BBBG, p. 69, song 82; also LG, p. 5, song 4.

14 BBBG, p. 48, song 50; also LG, pp. 3f., song

15 Milk and water, an inseparable blend, could here be symbolic of the inseparable relationship of the two aspects of God—the enjoyer and the enjoyed as Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, or puruṣ and prakṛti.

16 BBBG, p. 195, song 233, by Fakir Panj Shah.

17 Cf. “There is no birth like unto the human birth. … For the jīva [living being,] the human body is of all the bodies the most difficult to come by. For this it is said that human birth is attained with great difficulty.… Human birth is the stepping stone to the path of liberation.” (Viśvasāra Tantra, quoted in Pandit, M. P., Studies in the Tantras and the Vedas, Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1964, p. 8.)Google Scholar

18 BBBG, p. 15, song I; also LG, p. 286, song 413

19 BBBG, pp. 50f., song 55; also LG, pp. 28f., song 41.

20 Action or. deed.

21 The six senses—i.e., including the mind (manas).

22 Fourteen quarter-measures (caudo poyā) equal 3 Ɖ times the length of a man's forearm—a common way of indicating the approximate height of a man or woman.

23 BBBG, pp. 325f., song 385.

24 The mūlādhāra presides over pṛthivī (matter in its gross physical state). The other cakras, in ascending order, are: svādhiṣṭbāna, manipur, anāhata, and viśuddha—which, respectively, have 6, 10, 12, and 16 petals and preside over apas (the water), agni (the fire), uāyu (the air), and ājnā (the ethereal) states of matter; ājnā (rwo-petaled lotus) presiding over manas, the mind proper; and last of all, the sahasrāra, “the highest centre of manifestation of consciousness in the body.” M. P. Pandit, , Lights on the Tantras (Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1957), pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

25 Mahāyoga refers to a process of transforming kāma into prema through a particular three-day sexo-yogic ritual of a Bāul with a sādhikā (female devotee), for attainment of the sahaja state.

26 BBBG, pp. 445f., song 505.

27 See Dasgupta, Shashibhusan, Obscure Religious Cults as a Background to Bengali Literature (Calcutta: Univ. of Calcutta, 1946), p. 189Google Scholar.

28 BBBG, p. 83, song 103; also LG, pp. 313f., song 455.