Baul - Simon Zakaria

Among the rural creative sages of Bangladesh and West Bengal in India, the Baul community is extremely renowned. This community practises body-centred sadhana, and it is through song that they express and spread the tale of that sadhana. The depth of feeling in the Bauls' songs, the sweetness of their melodies and the universal human appeal of their words call the whole world to the mantra of the great union.

Hence, in 2008 UNESCO included the Baul songs of Bengal in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Even before that, from the forties and fifties of the twentieth century, various kinds of research activities on Baul songs and the Bauls' methods of practice had begun at universities in different countries of Europe and America. Alongside, the Baul sage-artistes of the villages who perform Bengal's Baul songs travelled through many countries. However, the interest in the Bauls' sadhana and songs at the national and international level began at the primary stage through the efforts of Kangal Harinath Majumdar, Nabokanta Chattopadhyay, Sarala Devi and Indira Devi; later Rabindranath Tagore drew the world's attention especially to the Bauls of Bengal and the Bauls — he even adopted the ideals of the Baul songs as the treasure of feeling of his own works. The tune of Bangladesh's national anthem, composed by Rabindranath Tagore, was taken from a song of the Baul Gagan Harkara.

The history of Baul sadhana and its method of practice: A direct likeness can be seen between body-centred Baul sadhana and the ancient Indian Samkhya, Yoga and Tantra. But Baul sadhana is essentially opposed to Vedic or Brahminical ritual, and inclined to erotic, raga-based practice. A kinship is found between Baul sadhana and the body-sadhana of the ancient Buddhist Sahajiya and the Nath religion. In many verses of the Charyapada, composed roughly between 650 and 1200 AD and the surviving monument of the literature and culture of the ancient Buddhist Sahajiyas, the echo of the body-sadhana of Bengal's Bauls is heard. For example, in the very first verse of the Charya, Luipa speaks of body-sadhana: ‘The body is a tree with five good branches. / Into it enters the restless mind. / Make firm the measure of the great bliss. / Luisa says: ask the guru and know.’ That is, the human body has five senses like the branches of a tree, and because of their restlessness death draws near. But if they can be controlled, one meets the great bliss. Luisa says: only from the guru can the method of attaining the great bliss in that body-sadhana be known. Through such words comes the instruction that for body-sadhana the guru is necessary. Bengal's Bauls still take refuge in that same guru described in the Charya for their body-sadhana. But as the period of the full rise and growth of Baul sadhana, the time of the present Chaitanya Deva, from 1486 to 1534 AD, is generally identified. It is said that, following Chaitanya Deva's erotic method of practice, Aul Chand's disciple Madhab Bidhi founded the Baul doctrine, and through the efforts of Birbhadra, disciple of Madhab Bibi, this doctrine spread. About the origin and growth of the Baul doctrine, Dr. Ahmed Sharif said,

“Those secret Buddhists who accepted Islam, and those secret Buddhists who entered Hindu society and remained engaged in the religious practices of their forefathers — they in time came to belong to the Baul community. Because there was the general carry-over of the Buddhist tradition, the Baul doctrine could take shape in the union of Hindu and Muslim.”

Since various religious doctrines have influenced Baul sadhana, in Baul songs, under Hindu influence, Radha-Krishna, Shiva-Shibani, Maya-Brahma, Vishnu-Lakshmi and the like are used as symbols of purusha and prakriti; likewise, under Muslim influence, symbolic metaphors such as muqam, manzil, lataif, Siraj-Munira, Allah, Kader, Goni, Rasul, Ruh, Anal Haq, Adam-Hawa, Muhammad-Khadija, Ali-Fatema and the like have been adopted. Again, the Buddhist Nath and Niranjan have not been abandoned either. To these have been added the mythical similes and the various allusions of the words of the Quran and the Hadith [such as barzakh]. Of course, in Baul compositions these words and terms have gained meanings of their own doctrine — that is, new connotations. There is a fundamental difference between the Baul doctrine and Vaishnava and Sufi sadhana. To make meaningful and lasting the field of union they created, shunning all sectarian feelings of difference, they created a universal term even in the name of the supreme soul or the worshipped one. In their language, the “paramatattva”, Parameshwar or Sachchidananda is man — the immovable man, the simple man, the unattainable man, the man of rasa, the man of bhava, Alak Sai, the unknown bird, Monura and the like — the complete form of the supreme soul itself. In the Baul view, when the soul dwelling in the body, or the human body possessing the soul, is called “man”, there is no bar to calling the complete or undivided soul, the paramatman, man too. From a consideration of this nature of Baul sadhana, according to Dr. Upendranath Bhattacharya it is learned that the Baul doctrine arose from the middle of the seventeenth century AD. Guru, maithuna and yoga — all three carry equal weight in the Baul doctrine. So in Baul songs there is much talk of the guru, of bindu-dharana and of dom, the breath. Without initiation from the true guru it is impossible to attain perfection in sadhana, and the capacity for bindu-dharana is the clearest sign of perfection. In the Baul doctrine the soul and the supreme soul are one. This soul dwelling in the body is man — the man of the heart, the man of rasa, Alak Sai. The Baul “rasaswarupa” is the endeavour to realise in its true form the formless, blissful soul within the formed body. This is atmatattva. Through it, in the desire for the formless one, one dives into the sea of forms — a passage from svabhava to bhava. The Sahajiyas’ “sahaj” is the simple man. At the time of bindu-dharana and its upward movement through maithuna, the triveni (confluence) must be brought about in the Saraswati (sushumna), flowing along the Ganga (ida) and the Jamuna (pingala). And when the bindu falls from there into the sahasrara (the thousand-petalled lotus in the head), then the mahabhava or the sahaja state is created. The Bauls essentially attain that mahabhava in their sadhana.

Various people hold various opinions about the Bauls of Bengal, the Baul doctrine and Baul music, that is, Baul song. At the centre of this divergence of opinion stands the word “Baul”. In fact, researchers have so far been able to give no definite conclusion about the meaning, significance and origin of the word “Baul”, nor have they been able to give any definite idea of the character and features of the “Baul doctrine”. With the various opinions of various people, the inconclusive discussion about the “Baul doctrine” is going on, and we believe it will continue.

Discussing the Baul doctrine and its origin, some researchers have said that the word Baul originated from the Sanskrit “vayu”. In their view, the Sanskrit vayu = the Bangla “bai”, “bau”, with the suffix “la” joined, gave rise to the word Baul. According to the researchers of this opinion, those people of Bengal who try to gain spiritual power through the practice of breath — “vayu”, that is, respiration — are the Bauls.

Some researchers have again said that the word Baul originated from the Sanskrit “batul”. According to Prakrit grammar, the consonant lying between two vowels (here “a” and “u”) — here “t” — drops out; in fact it is by this rule that the word “batul” became “Baul”. In the researchers' view, those who are truly mad, who obey no social or religious restriction, are the Bauls. On the question of determining the character of the Baul doctrine, another group of researchers says that the word “Baul” originated from the Prakrit word “baur”; “baur” means confused, disorderly, mad. According to the researchers of this group, a group of disorderly thinkers like the Bauls of Bengal can be seen in north India, and they belong to one lineage from the direction of Baul thought of Bengal. So the north Indian Prakrit word “baur” would have become the word “Baul” in Bangladesh, because in the folk society, in respect of pronunciation and sound, “r” and “l” are alike, and in many cases these two letters take each other's form.

According to the verdict of yet another class of researchers, the word “Baul” is regarded as a repeated corrupted form of the word “aul”. But they do not hold that the word “aul” originated from the Sanskrit “akul”; rather, they hold that it originated from the Arabic “auliya”, the plural of “oli” in the sense of a Muslim sage, with the fall of the suffix “iya”. In their view, those people of Bengal who, like the Muslim dervishes, wear the long alkhella and, steadfast in their words and beliefs, wander from country to country, are the Bauls. For that reason, it is said, the Baul ascetics are called “fakir”.

Quoting the above verdicts on the origin and meaning of the word “Baul”, researcher Muhammad Enamul Haq has clearly stated that, “The Bauls themselves did not adopt the name of the Baul community. Relying simply on the general characteristics of the Bauls, the people of the country gave them this name.”

It would not be inconsistent to add to this statement of Muhammad Enamul Haq that, since the Bauls themselves did not give themselves the name Baul, various opinions prevail about the origin and explanation of the word “Baul”; but it is an extremely difficult matter to grasp the essence of the Baul doctrine definitively.