Gulaab Dasi people?

[muqawwee123]

Re: Gulaab Dasi people?

@StrangeOne

Is this culture anything like the travelling communities of Pakistan? They are pretty free spirited, recite and sing poetry, not particularly restricted by any religion.

I think they are different from gypsies and nomadic people. They were settled people as per article in post 2.

And now a little about Gulab Das, who is the other inhabitant of this grave and became in Kasur the spiritual guru of Piro. This is the man after whom the Ghulab Dasi sect is named. He was a Hindu sadhu born at a small village called Ratool in Amritsar in 1809. He imbibed the lessons of Hinduism and Sikhism from another Hindu sadhu of Kasur called Heera Das. Eventually he formed his own sect. He rejected the custom of idol worship and promoted the worship of one god. His understanding of one god, however, was mystical and monistic, i.e. all is god and god is all. His followers also had liberal views on the kinds of physical relationships that were possible between men and women. They still believe that with mutual consent a couple can elope, and they strongly disapprove of the use of force. This is related to their belief that one’s impulse is a manifestation of god’s will and is therefore binding. (They do make allowances for reality, of course: while asserting that one is free to do anything in the word, they maintain that one should remain within the legal framework of the host country!) They have no concept of haram or halal foods and have no restrictions on the consumption of liquor. (This was noted by Mufti Ghulam Muhammad Sarwar, the writer of Tehrikh Makhzane Punjab.) Finally, it is because of these unconventional beliefs and customs that the Gulab Dasis were abhorred by both Muslim and Hindu priests.

The Gulab Dasis’ religious book is called Obdesh Vilas and contains Punjabi poetry from many different contributors. The sect’s followers were until recently found mainly in Punjab and Sindh. After Partition, the Gulab Dasis of Punjab migrated to India; in Sindh a few are still present. But they no longer make the pilgrimage to Chatiyan Wala, the village of Ghulab Das, as they once did. (According to Iqbal Qaiser, Gulab Dasis from all over Sindh used to take a steamer to Multan, from where they would walk to Kasur. Now this second stretch is a distance of more than 300 kilometers, and on the way the pilgrims would beg for food in the villages they passed, treating it as a part of their spiritual exercise.)