4. Subsequent history of the Satnāmis.
The creed enunciated by their prophet was of a creditable simplicity and purity, of too elevated a nature for the Chamārs of Chhattīsgarh. The crude myths which are now associated with the story of Ghāsi Dās and the obscenity which distinguishes the ritual of the sect furnish a good instance of the way in which a religion, originally of a high order of morality, will be rapidly degraded to their own level when adopted by a people who are incapable of living up to it. It is related that one day his son brought Ghāsi Dās a fish to eat. He was about to consume it when the fish spoke and forbade him to do so. Ghāsi Dās then refrained, but his wife and two sons insisted on eating the fish and shortly afterwards they died.[8] Overcome with grief Ghāsi Dās tried to commit suicide by throwing himself down from a tree in the forest, but the boughs of the tree bent with him and he could not fall. Finally the deity appeared, bringing his two sons, and commended Ghāsi Dās for his piety, at the same time bidding him go and proclaim the Satnāmi doctrine to the world. Ghāsi Dās thereupon went and dug up the body of his wife, who arose saying ‘Satnām.’ Ghāsi Dās lived till he was eighty years old and died in 1850, the number of his disciples being then more than a quarter of a million. He was succeeded in the office of high priest by his eldest son Bālak Dās. This man soon outraged the feelings of the Hindus by assuming the sacred thread and parading it ostentatiously on public occasions. So bitter was the hostility aroused by him, that he was finally assassinated at night by a party of Rājpūts at the rest-house of Amābāndha as he was travelling to Raipur. The murder was committed in 1860 and its perpetrators were never discovered. Bālak Dās had fallen in love with the daughter of a Chitāri (painter) and married her, proclaiming a revelation to the effect that the next Chamār Guru should be the offspring of a Chitāri girl. Accordingly his son by her, Sāhib Dās, succeeded to the office, but the real power remained in the hands of Agar Dās, brother of Bālak Dās, who married his Chitāri widow. By her Agar Dās had a son Ajab Dās; but he also had another son Agarman Dās by a legitimate wife, and both claimed the succession. They became joint high priests, and the property has been partitioned between them. The chief guru formerly obtained a large income by the contributions of the Chamārs on his tours, as he received a rupee from each household in the villages which he visited on tour. He had a deputy, known as Bhandār, in many villages, who brought the commission of social offences to his notice, when fines were imposed. He built a house in the village of Bhandār of the Raipur District, having golden pinnacles, and also owned the village. But he has been extravagant and become involved in debt, and both house and village have been foreclosed by his creditor, though it is believed that a wealthy disciple has repurchased the house for him. The golden pinnacles were recently stolen. The contributions have also greatly fallen off.
Formerly an annual fair was held at Bhandār to which all the Satnāmis went and drank the water in which the guru had dipped his big toe. Each man gave him not less than a rupee and sometimes as much as fifty rupees. But the fair is no longer held and now the Satnāmis only give the guru a cocoanut when he goes on tour. The Satnāmis also have a fair in Ratanpur, a sacred place of the Hindus, where they assemble and bathe in a tank of their own, as they are not allowed to bathe in the Hindu tanks.