The Sâdhu.
The Sâdhu is a saint who is regarded as “the great power of God,” the name meaning “he that is eminent in virtue.” He is a visible manifestation of the divine energy acquired by his piety and self-devotion. We shall meet later on instances of deified holy men of this class. Meanwhile, it may be noted, we see around us the constant development of the cultus in all its successive stages. Thus, in Berâr at Askot the saint is still alive; at Wadnera he died nearly a century ago, and his descendants live on the offerings made by the pious; at Jalgânw a crazy vagabond was canonized on grounds which strict people consider quite insufficient. There is, of course, among the disciples and descendants of these local saints a constant competition going on for the honour of canonization, which once secured, the shrine may become a very valuable source of income and reputation. But the indiscriminate and ill-regulated deification of mortals is one of the main causes of the weakness of modern Hinduism, because, by a process of abscission, the formation of multitudinous sects, which take their titles and special forms of belief from the saint whose disciples they profess to be, is promoted and encouraged. Thus, as has been well remarked, Hinduism lies in urgent need of a Pope or acknowledged orthodox head, “to control its wonderful elasticity and receptivity, to keep up the standard of deities and saints, and generally to prevent superstitions running wild into a tangled jungle of polytheism.”[16]
It would be out of place to give here any of the details of the numerous sects which have been founded in this way to commemorate the life and teaching of some eminent saint. The remarkable point about this movement is that the leaders of these sects are not always or even constantly drawn from the priestly classes. Thus the Charandâsis, who are Krishna worshippers, take their name from Charan Dâs, a Dhûsar, who are usually classed as Banyas, but claim to be Brâhmans; Jhambajî, the founder of the Bishnois, was a Râjput; Kabîr, whoever he may have been, was brought up by a family of Muhammadan weavers at Benares; Nâmdeo was a cotton carder; Râê Dâs is said to have been a Chamâr; Dâdu was a cotton cleaner; many of them are half Muhammadans, as the Chhaju-panthis and Shamsis. It is difficult to estimate highly enough the result of this feeling of toleration and catholicism on the progress of modern Hinduism.