Person · Dalit reformer & sect founder · India
Sant Parashurām (Rāmnāmī)
Also known as Sant Parasuram, Parashuram Ramnami
Sant Parashurām (c. 1860-1935), a Dalit cultivator from the Satnāmī community of the Chhattisgarh plains, who recovered from leprosy after what he described as a vision of Rām and in the 1890s founded the Rāmnāmī Samāj as a way for his community to reach Rām directly, without mediation by Brāhmin priests or caste-barred temples. He prescribed the tattooing of Rām-nām across the skin, the wearing of ochre shawls printed with the name, and the annual Bhajan Melā around the Jaitkhambh victory pillar. Not to be confused with the Puranic axe-wielding avatar Paraśurāma; the two carry the same name but are different figures across a millennium and a half.
- Periods
- late colonial
- Function
- Social reform & movement
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (1)
- Founder ofRāmnāmī Samāj
Sant Parashurām recovered from leprosy after what he described as a vision of Rām and in the 1890s founded the Rāmnāmī Samāj in the Mahanadi villages of Janjgir-Champa district. The movement he began — direct Rām-devotion without priest or temple, with the name tattooed on the skin as the only credential — is still carried a century and a quarter later by 100,000-200,000 Rāmnāmīs across the Chhattisgarh plain.
Sources
Standard reference; Wikipedia Ramnami Samaj.
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