On 14th Sept Srichand Navmi.The Birthday of Udaseen Acharya Baba Sri Chand who lived for 150 years. Remembering Baba Sri Chand Satish K. Kapoor (Author is Principal of Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar City.) The Udasi (Udasin) is the one who is indifferent to wordly affairs. Baba Sri Chand was the historical founder of the Udasi sect said to have begun with Muni Sanat Kumar. A son of Guru Nanak Dev and Mata Sulakhani Devi, Sri Chand was born on “Bhadrpada Shukla Navami” at Sultanpur Lodhi (Punjab). The infant had matted hair, three horizontal marks on his forehead, rings in his right ear and holy ash all over his body. His birth chart showed that he would be a man of deep learning, have extraordinary qualities and would remain a celibate. When Sri Chand was about seven years, Guru Nanak Dev went on his first spiritual tour (Udasi). After two years he was invested with the sacred thread (yajnopavita) and formally initiated into the Vedic literature by Pandit Hardayal. At 11 he went to the “gurukul” of Acharya Purushottam Kaul in Srinagar for a comprehensive study of the holy texts and subsequently received initiation from Avinashi Muni. Sri Chand loved the solitude of forests where he meditated for hours without any fear of carnivores. Miracles came naturally to him. At Sankheshvara (near Dvarika, Gujarat) he made a spring flow by just blowing his conch and burying it in the ground. While in Kashmir, he buried a burning piece of wood from his “dhuna” and materialised green leaves on it in the presence of representatives of Yakub Khan who had come to arrest him. The place, known as “Sri Chandra Chinar”, exists to this day and is in the occupation of Udasis. At Chamba, on the banks of the Ravi, he made a large stone move like a boat to provide spiritual light to a boatman who had refused to ferry him across. Sri Chand went as far as Sindh, Baluchistan, Kabul and Kandhar delineating the principles of true dharma and spreading the message of love and peace. He also visited Kailash in Tibet, Mansarovar, Nepal and Bhutan, besides Assam (Kamarupa) and Puri in the east and Somnath in the west. Sri Chand built a humble memorial to his father by salvaging the urn containing his ashes (from the fury of flood at Kartarpur) and burying it at a place which developed into a town known as Dera Baba Nanak. The successors of Guru Nanak Dev held him in deep reverence. Before his death he is said to have nominated Baba Gurditta, the eldest son of sixth Sikh Guru Hargobind as his successor, who, in turn, established four monastic orders (“dhunas”) under Phula Shah, Gonda and Balu Hasna. While the records of Bhattas (bards) say that Sri Chand died at Kiratpur, (January 13, 1629), the Udasis believe that he vanished into the forest of Chamba after giving his last sermon to Brahmaketu, his ardent disciple from Bhutan. Sri Chand’s god was both “saguna” (with attributes) and “nirguna” (without attributes). He synthesised “jnana marg” (way of knowledge) and “bhakti marg”, the idea of one god and of His divine descent on the earth in various forms, and of “dev puja” and “guru puja”. He believed both in the ultimate oneness of everything and in one’s cherished and chosen deity (“ishta devata”). While, on one hand, he tried to bring about a rapprochement between Hindus and Muslims and stemmed the tide of converts to Islam, on the other, he popularised the “panchayatana puja” of the “smarta” brahminical tradition involving the simultaneous worship of the five deities - Ganesha, Surya, Vishnu, Shiva and Shakti - to dilute sectarian differences among the Hindus. Sri Chand believed in the eternal principle of cause and effect (“karma siddhanta”), in the efficacy of the holy name for spiritual realisation, in “varnashrama dharma” and in transmigration. He loved Sanskrit and is said to have evolved a system of Sanskrit grammar (Chandra vyakarna) which is taught in Sanskrit mahavidyalayas of Udasis. Sri Chand remained a celibate throughout his life. Among the works attributed to him are: “Arta” (in Sanskrit arti) Sri Guru Nanak Dev comprising 10 “padas” in honour of his father; “Guru Gayatri” meant for recitation; “Sahasranama” (lit. thousand names) in praise of the supreme being; “Panchadevashatakam” in praise of the five deities and “Matravani” comprising 39 “dvipadas” and is a succinct presentation of the Udasi philosophy. Sri Chand is also said to have written commentaries on the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Vedanta Sutras of Veda Vyasa. A small shrine having the statue of Baba Sri Chand lies at Pakhoke Randhave, near an old “tahli” tree (“sheesham”), mythologically linked to the Udasi preceptor.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 21:58:15 +0000