Someone who has
discovered or is on the lookout for the truth.
The term comes from the Sanskrit word sat, which means
"truth." It refers to two primary groups of devotional (bhakti)
poet-saints in general.
Saints from the Varkari Panth community such as Namdev,
Tukaram, Chokamela, and Eknath were part of one group centered on the Vithoba
temple in Pandharpur, Maharashtra.
Later poet saints from different parts of northern India,
including Kabir, Ravidas, Dadu, and Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh sect,
made up the second group.
Rather of an explicit body of teaching, the sants as a
community shared some basic inclinations.
Sant religion tended to emphasize an individualized,
internal religion that led to a per sonal experience of the divine above
membership in established cults.
One of the most prominent sant themes was their scorn for
outward ritual, as well as their rejection of any kind of worship that relied
on pictures.
The most adamant proponents of nirguna devotion, in which
the divine is seen as beyond comprehension, are the northern Indian sants;
however, even among the Pandharpur devotees (bhakta), the emphasis was on
devotion to the god Vithoba, rather than actual worship.
The sants emphasized the heavenly Name's strength and
capacity to overcome all barriers.
They were unconcerned with caste divisions, seeing them as
an artificial barrier separating the human community.
Instead, they emphasized the importance of satsang and the
transformative benefits that such "excellent company" may have.
Satsang, as an alternative to the hierarchical society
established by birth, created an egalitarian community via mutual links of
faith and devotion.
Because many of the sants were from relatively low caste
groups, it is frequently believed that all of these themes may be linked back
to their socioeconomic backgrounds.
It is true that low-status devotees would not have been
permitted to enter temples, let alone worship the images within them, and thus
a religious path emphasizing the Name and interior religious experience, which
are accessible to all, might have seemed a more viable option.
Similarly, the idea of an alternative, egalitarian community
might appeal greatly to the socially oppressed.
However, reducing the sant tradition to a simple reaction by
marginal social groups does not explain why Eknath, a brahmin, is one of its
most important figures.
Such reductionist analyses ignore the true thrust of the
sant movement, which was a passionate search for the divine that allowed no
compromises or excuses.
For more information, see Karine Schomer and W. H. McLeod's
1985 book The Sants.
