The City With No Sorrow In It

He worked leather, and he went on working it.

Ravidas was born at Sir Gobardhanpur, outside Varanasi, into a family of the Chamar community, whose hereditary trade was hides and shoes. He married Lona Devi, and had a son, Vijay Dass, and he made and repaired footwear for a living.

He did not stop when he became known. That detail is in the earliest accounts, and it is the fixed point of his life.

A man with a growing reputation, sought out by people who wanted teaching. Sitting in the same place, doing the same work, with an awl in his hand.

What he actually wrote

Here it is worth being careful, because the reliable material and the famous material are not the same thing.

The oldest attested source for Ravidas is the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture, which carries forty-one of his hymns. Further verses survive in the Dadupanthi Panchvani. Those are the texts scholars can work with.

The hagiographies came much later. The Premambodha dates to 1693. More than a century and a half after his death.