The World Sikh News proudly pre­sents the work of pro­lific writer, ac­tivist and self-trained an­thro­pol­o­gist Jag­mo­han Singh Gill who is tour­ing the length and breadth of East In­dia to record the for­got­ten chap­ters of Sikh his­tory. In this piece he chron­i­cles the work of the Udas­sis and de­bunks many a myth as­so­ci­ated with them. 

Dur­ing his times, peo­ple were stuck in ego, mis­ery, rit­u­al­is­tic lifestyle and greed. Guru Nanak Sahib ded­i­cated a ma­jor part of his life in preach­ing Almighty Akalpu­rakh’s mes­sage by un­der­tak­ing pi­ous trav­els around the globe. His un­par­al­leled phi­los­o­phy of life ush­ered in a new era and shed rays of en­light­en­ment on the pre­vail­ing dark­ness. Guru Nanak ini­ti­ated the path to right­eous­ness through strug­gle in life. Peo­ple of all faith and strata were brought to­gether on a com­mon plat­form to fol­low a unique and the eas­i­est most way to reach the Almighty.

The first Sikh his­to­rian, con­tem­po­rary and com­pan­ion of the Guru Sahibs, Bhai Gur­das Ji men­tions about the be­gin­ning of the fa­mous jour­neys of Guru Nanak by say­ing,

“ਬਾਬੇ ਭੇਖ ਬਣਾਇਆ ਉਦਾਸੀ ਕੀ ਰੀਤਿ ਚਲਾਈ।
baabe bhekh ba­na­iaa au­d­haasee kee reet cha­laiee|
To fur­ther un­der­stand the peo­ple, Guru Nanak donned robes in their man­ner and preached them to be de­tached (from the plea­sure and pain). Bhai Gur­das Ji Vaaran – 1”

Guru Nanak’s pi­ous trav­els were termed Udas­sis. Var­i­ous Janam Sakhis (life sketch of Guru Nanak), au­thored by dif­fer­ent schol­ars of that time, vividly de­scribe these Udas­sis, though there are con­tra­dic­tions of time and place. How­ever the con­tent re­mains the same.

The ear­li­est among these called Pu­ratan Janam Sakhi says about the first Udassi of Guru Nanak to­wards the east­ern part of our sub-con­ti­nent, “Prithme Udassi Kiti Purab Ki”. An­other renowned scholar of the nine­teenth cen­tury, Rat­tan Singh Bhangu, in his Sri Guru Panth Parkash, has de­scribed the trav­els of Guru Sahib to this re­gion as the sec­ond Udassi, “Te Babe Chit Dharyo Purab Sail Bichara. Jhuth Sach Jahin Dhapyo Dekhiai Sou Ughara.” It fur­ther states that, “there­after, Guru Nanak nursed an­other de­sire in his heart, that they should un­der­take ex­cur­sion to the east. Wher­ever false­hood has eclipsed truth­ful­ness, he must en­deav­our to ex­pose it.”

This great east­ward travel started by vis­it­ing sev­eral places of Pun­jab, then to Harid­war, Ku­ruk­shetra, Delhi, Nanakmatta, Ba­naras, Patna, Gaya, Ra­jauli, Malda, As­sam, Dhaka, Ja­gan­nath Puri, Cut­tack and many other places, mak­ing the masses aware of the virtues of fol­low­ing the path of truth and right­eous­ness. Later on, the suc­ces­sor Guru Sahibs and the holy Sikh mis­sion­ar­ies reg­u­larly main­tained con­tact with these parts toured by Guru Nanak Sahib.

Any­thing re­lated to these jour­neys are of great her­itage value for Sikhs and should be pre­served as pre­cious gems of his­tory. On these great tours Bhai Gur­das in his first Vaar has de­scribed Guru Nanak Sahib as the sav­iour of mankind through this whirl­wind holy tour and in­can­ta­tion of true name i.e. Sat­naam:

“ਬਾਬੇ ਤਾਰੇ ਚਾਰਿ ਚਕਿ ਨਉ ਖੰਡਿ ਪ੍ਰਿਥਮੀ ਸਚਾ ਢੋਆ।
baabe taare chaar chak nau kha(n)dd pi­rathamee sachaa ddoaa
Baba lib­er­ated all four di­rec­tions and nine di­vi­sions of earth.
–Bhai Gur­das Ji Vaaran – 1”.

Many mem­o­ries of Guru Nanak’s tours are re­tained as lores and folk­lores. These have been told and re­told over gen­er­a­tions.  This oral his­tory can be used as in­con­tro­vert­ible proof to es­tab­lish hid­den his­tor­i­cal facts. Dur­ing these great Udas­sis Guru Nanak met the Sid­has, the dis­cus­sion with them be­ing fa­mously known as Sidh Ghosht. In Raag Ramkali on page 939 of Guru Granth Sahib asks, 

‘ਕਿਸੁ ਕਾਰਣਿ ਗ੍ਰਿਹੁ ਤਜਿਓ ਉਦਾਸੀ॥ ਕਿਸੁ ਕਾਰਣਿ ਇਹੁ ਭੇਖੁ ਨਿਵਾਸੀ॥ ਕਿਸੁ ਵਖਰ ਕੇ ਤੁਮ ਵਣਜਾਰੇ॥ ਕਿਉ ਕਰਿ ਸਾਥੁ ਲੰਘਾਵਹੁ ਪਾਰੇ॥੧੭॥
kis kaaran gi­rahu tajio au­d­haasee || kis kaaran ih bhekh ni­vaasee || kis vakhar ke tum vana­jaare || kiau kar saath la(n)ghaavahu paare ||17||
“Why have you left your house and be­come a wan­der­ing Udaasee? Why have you adopted these re­li­gious robes? What mer­chan­dise do you trade? How will you carry oth­ers across with you?””||17||”

The Guru an­swered them in a unique man­ner,
“ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਖੋਜਤ ਭਏ ਉਦਾਸੀ॥ ਦਰਸਨ ਕੈ ਤਾਈ ਭੇਖ ਨਿਵਾਸੀ॥ ਸਾਚ ਵਖਰ ਕੇ ਹਮ ਵਣਜਾਰੇ॥ ਨਾਨਕ ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਉਤਰਸਿ ਪਾਰੇ॥੧੮॥
gu­ra­mukh kho­jat bhe au­d­haasee || dha­rasan kai taiee bhekh ni­vaasee || saach vakhar ke ham vana­jaare || naanak gu­ra­mukh au­taras paare ||18||
I be­came a wan­der­ing Udaasee, search­ing for the Gur­mukhs. I have adopted these robes seek­ing the Blessed Vi­sion of the Lord’s Dar­shan. I trade in the mer­chan­dise of Truth. O Nanak, as Gur­mukh, I carry oth­ers across. ||18||”

Thus Guru Ji says, “I left my home in search of the right­eous and the en­light­ened, and fol­low this course in or­der to evolve a new phi­los­o­phy of life. Be­ing a ped­dler of Truth, I trade in Truth. I shall ferry my as­so­ci­ates across (the Ocean of Ex­is­tence), by the grace of God and guid­ance of the Guru.”

Guru Nanak Sahib spent max­i­mum time mov­ing from one place to other for serv­ing hu­man­ity. The com­ple­tion of these tours had been nar­rated by Bhai Gur­das as,

“ਫਿਰਿ ਬਾਬਾ ਆਇਆ ਕਰਤਾਰਪੁਰਿ ਭੇਖੁ ਉਦਾਸੀ ਸਗਲ ਉਤਾਰਾ।
fir baabaa aa­iaa kar­tara­pur bhekh au­d­haasee sa­gal au­taaraa|
Then Baba (Nanak) re­turned to Kar­tarpur where he put aside his at­tire of a Recluse.”

The Gur­mat teach­ings of Guru Sahib dur­ing these Udas­sis im­pacted the peo­ple a great deal. Thus Guru Ji set­tled at Kar­tarpur. One of the leg­endary Pun­jabi po­ets, Shiv Ku­mar Batalvi, beau­ti­fully de­scribes the serene at­mos­phere cre­ated by the Gu­ru’s en­try to Kar­tarpur. He says that every place was di­vinely il­lu­mi­nated and min­strels started singing in praise of Guru Ji:

“Ghum chare chak ja­han
jad ghar murea Kar­tar,
Kar­tarpure di na­gari
jide gal Raawi da har,
jide jham-jham paani lishkde,
jidi chandi waani dhar”.
The whole town of Kar­tarpur be­came pi­ous. 

 

Ex­plor­ing Udassi et­y­mol­ogy and back­ground:
Let us fur­ther ex­plore the mean­ing of “Udassi”. Gen­er­ally the term Udassi was used for long stay away from home. It also refers to the band of fol­low­ers of Baba Sric­hand, son of Guru Nanak Sahib Ji, who en­joyed lone­li­ness and seclu­sion. The fol­low­ers of Baba Sric­hand im­parted the teach­ings of the Gu­rus and of the Guru Granth Sahib to the masses in an ex­em­plary man­ner.

The word Udassi might have come with the Aryans who mi­grated from Cen­tral Asia and the neigh­bour­ing places. This term could have come even with ex­pe­di­tion of Alexan­der in In­dia. Udassi is be­lieved to have been de­rived from Odyssey. Et­y­mo­log­i­cally, ‘Odyssey’ from Latin Odyssea, or Greek Odys­seia is the name of the an­cient Greek epic at­trib­uted to Homer and writ­ten on the Tro­jan War. Mace­don­ian word Odisi may be the root word which means, ‘to go’ or ‘to jour­ney’. Ox­ford dic­tio­nary de­fines it as, ‘a long event­ful jour­ney’. Web­ster de­fines it as ‘a long voy­age usu­ally marked by many changes of for­tune’.

The word Udassi is thus a prim­i­tive word used for thou­sands of years. We have used this word as Indo-Aryan type (apbhransa), the ad­mix­ture of San­skrit and other Aryan lan­guages. The great se­ries of ‘Jagriti Ya­tra’ of Guru Sahib was de­fined as Udassi by Sikh his­to­ri­ans in­clud­ing Bhai Gur­das. This word has been used in the Vedic pe­riod too. It is said to be cre­ated by join­ing two words, Ud (top) and Aasin (sit­ting place or asana). Here this word re­lates to Lord Brahma -the one who is oc­cu­pied in med­i­ta­tion of Brahma -the God Almighty.

Baba Srichand’s Udassi Tra­di­tion:
The ini­ti­a­tion of the great wave of Gur­mat Par­char by Guru Nanak Sahib Ji was car­ried out very ef­fi­ciently by the suc­ces­sor Gu­rus. Thus this ide­ol­ogy flour­ished every­where in spite of great hur­dles set by con­tem­po­rary rulers and peo­ple with self­ish mo­tives. Baba Sric­hand, the el­dest son of Guru Nanak was al­ways a great cham­pion to this cause and ad­mirer of other Gu­rus in his life span. He al­ways up­held the Guru Granth and the Guru Panth.

He spread the holy mes­sage of Guru Granth Sahib in every nook and cor­ner of In­dia and the outer world.  The lands where he did Par­char echoed with Guru Mantra of ‘Sat­nam Wa­he­gu­ru’. This highly ded­i­cated prop­a­ga­tion of Baba Sric­hand was noth­ing but an un­in­ter­rupted part of the great move­ment of Udassi ini­ti­ated by Guru Nanak Sahib Ji.

He along with a large num­ber of his fol­low­ers, also known as ‘Bhra­man­shil Ja­maat’ al­ways moved from one place to an­other teach­ing the prin­ci­ples of Gur­bani among the peo­ple. The holy wan­der­ings of such highly spir­i­tual peo­ple came to be known as ‘Udas­si’. These self­less and ded­i­cated San­nya­sis were called NanakShahi or Udassi pracharak.

The au­thor ad­mir­ing the build­ing of Udassi Dera Ra­j­girThe Udassi usu­ally wore at­tire of crim­son, dust, ochre or rus­set colour. There are some lores about Baba Sric­hand wear­ing only a loin­cloth. It was a sym­bol of re­nun­ci­a­tion or to dis­claim worldly plea­sure. Guru Nanak Sahib has beau­ti­fully de­scribed a true recluse or Udassi in Raag Ramkali on page 952 of Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Ji says,

“ਸੋ ਉਦਾਸੀ ਜਿ ਪਾਲੇ ਉਦਾਸੁ॥ ਅਰਧ ਉਰਧ ਕਰੇ ਨਿਰੰਜਨ ਵਾਸੁ॥
so au­d­haasee j paale au­d­haas || aradh au­radh kare nira(n)jan vaas ||  
He alone is an Udasi, a shaven-headed re­nun­ci­ate, who em­braces re­nun­ci­a­tion. He sees the Im­mac­u­late Lord dwelling in both the up­per and lower re­gions.”

From this we get a clear mean­ing of loin­cloth of Baba Sric­hand and are not to be linked to any other re­li­gious tra­di­tion as many sto­ries have been cir­cu­lated, spe­cially in the twen­ti­eth cen­tury in this re­gard. From the rea­sons dis­cussed above, it can be con­clu­sively said that this class of re­li­gious men­di­cants were termed as Udassi.

A com­pi­la­tion of Baba Srichand’s main say­ings (Mukh-Waak) in Aarta jus­ti­fies the con­crete re­la­tion­ship of Udassis with Sikhism and de­vo­tion in them for Guru Nanak  Sahib Ji. Baba Sric­hand praised Guru Nanak in a uniquely di­vine man­ner, say­ing,

“Char Kunt Jaaki Dharamshala,
San­gat Gawe Shabad Rasala,
Aarti Keeje Shah-Pat­shah Ka,
Har Har Deen Duniya Ke Sha­hen Shah Ka,
Aarti Keeje Nanak Shah Pat­shah Ka.” 

Here Baba Sric­hand de­scribes Guru Ji as Lord of lords, hav­ing Dharam­sal (house of god) in all four cor­ner of earth; he is the mas­ter, cares for the peo­ple in dis­tress and need. This is the true rea­son for the sus­tained tone of praise.

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In­stead of rub­bish­ing the spir­i­tual tone and tenor of the Udas­sis led by Baba Sric­hand, it is time to ini­ti­ate thor­ough re­search into the work of this son of Guru Nanak and the Udassi tra­di­tion started by him.