Gems of Gurbani

Guru Granth Sahib

Sidha Gosht   1

A dialogue with Sidhas

A word about Yogis and Sidhas: In his first sermon after the enlightenment Gautama Buddha asked his disciples to guise as Bhikshu or beggars, go door to door, seek alms and in that process spread the message of peace, equality of all human beings by doing away with the Brahmanical caste system and appropriation of superiority for Brahmin. These Bhikhshus were asked to live away from the civilization and main routes of communications but remain close near villages to seek alms and spread the message of Gautama the Buddha. These Bhikshus found many such places where large number of villages clustered away from main centers of civilization like towns and cities or political interference. This evidence is available all over India if we look at the main centers for Buddhist development like 2200 year old caves with Buddha viharas known as Karla- Bhaje caves in rock cut architecture near Pune, Mumbai and Ajanta-Ellora near Aurangabad. The Monks who traveled with these Bhikhshus found refuge in mountains where natural water resources were available and plenty of well to do villages for alms. In the course of time the word of Buddha was spread and patronage of wealthy people became available. With money flowing in the Monks started making Viharas around their habitats with ornamental rock cut architecture and build beautiful and mighty structures that helped them to spread their mission away from the political interference of Kings and their powerful patronage of Brahmins who looked into the matter of state as administrators. The word of Buddha was spread like a silent revolution because soon Buddhism acquired State patronage and many Kings converted to Buddhism and influence of Brahmin was lost. In those times the religion of Kings was the state religion so the conversion process for commoners was not necessary. This way Buddhism stayed as main stream religion of India for many centuries, right up to third century. But the Brahman made his come back and Hindu renaissance took place and to make Hinduism interesting again lot of Buddhist ways were adopted some of them are – temples in rock cut architecture, storytelling and iconology that is making idols of Gods and goddesses and establishing them in temples. Lot of mythological stories was written in form of Puranas, Mahabharata and Ramayana. The most significant development that took place in this Hindu renaissance was development of many cults prominent among them were- Shivaites, Vaishnavas, Yogis and Siddhas. The offshoot of Shivaism was a sect of Jogis that replaced Buddhist Monks in disguise and took up begging or alms seeking as their profession.

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