Sant Mat
Sant Mat is actually a name usually given to a network of loosely connected or associated group of gurus or teachers. This Mat was very much prominent mostly in the northern part of the Indian peninsula. This came into existence in the early 13th century.
However, the teachings of the gurus were different in many respects, be it devotion to a divine figure, their ideology, the qualitative distinctions usually based on either over caste systems or the religionist views.
The Sant Mat can be seen as a combination of two major groups as in northern sants comprising sants from the Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and those from down South. Both these sects basically differed only in the language which they used to express their views. The northern belt Sants used Hindi or Sanskrit versus as their preaching language whereas, their southern counterparts were basically more inclined towards Marathi or Tamil.
The point of view of Sant is what Sant Mat literally means. The word ‘Sant’ is derived from a Sanskrit expression which has its pronunciation as ‘sad’, which means being true and honest to the gray matter which is right. The Sants are considered to be the people who have a vision to see the ultimate reality and visualize right or wrong, not common for a normal human being.
However, during the medieval period great poets were often referred to as ‘Sants’.
The movement started on by the Sant mat was not homogeneous in the nature as it consisted Sants’ of their own Socio-religious sects and was based on bhakti as was described in Bhagwad gita. They shared a few conventions with each other along with their respective followers, however diverse they might be in reality for both what they preach and what they had belief in, had a spiritual root which was common to help them move together.
They were not divided on the basis of sects and also didn’t follow the concepts of caste traditions prevalent in our nation then. These sants who were poets, often expressed in vernacular verses addressing the common people in hindi or Marathi or any other regional language. They were critical of the religious rituals performed, as no value acts. They always believed God was an internal phenomenon which an individual should try to connect with.
These northern Sants can be presumed to be starting with Namdev and Ramananda followed by Kabir, Ravi Das, Nanak, Mira Bai, Surdas, Tulsidas and Tukaram. These Sants had it in their blood to be close to marginalized sects in the society including the untouchables and both women then.
