Farmer and devotee of Rajasthan; three hymns in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji
Bhagat Dhanna
A farmer from Dhuan in the Tonk district of Rajasthan, remembered as a devotee who began by copying his neighbour's image worship and came to devotion to the formless God. Three of his hymns are in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. The stories told of him come from tradition, and his dates are uncertain.
Life, as tradition tells it
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born at Dhuan to a farmer who often welcomed sadhus. Macauliffe tells the best-known story. As a boy, he saw a priest at worship, asked for an image of his own and was given a small black stone. He offered it food and refused to eat until it accepted. The story belongs to tradition.
Nabhadas, in the Bhaktamal, lists him among twelve disciples of Ramanand, but the Encyclopaedia doubts whether all twelve lived at one time. His name does not occur in the verse of Bhagat Kabir or Bhagat Ravidas. The earliest mention the Encyclopaedia knows of is a song of Mira Bai, which says he grew corn without sowing.[EoS][Macauliffe][EoS]
Hymns in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji
Three hymns carry his signature: two in Raag Asa at angs 487 and 488, and one in Raag Dhanasari at ang 695. The first Asa hymn tells of many lives lost to greed before a Guru's teaching brought contentment. The Dhanasari hymn asks God plainly for what a household needs: grain, a cow and buffalo in milk, and a good wife.[DB][EoS][Macauliffe]
What the sources disagree on
- The hymn at angs 487 and 488
The Encyclopaedia's entry on Bhagat Dhanna reads the hymn beginning with Bhagat Namdev's devotion as his own account of how he was drawn to God. In BaniDB's text the hymn is headed Mahala 5, which marks it as a composition of Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji, and the Encyclopaedia's entry on Bhagat Sain also gives it to Guru Ji. It is not counted among his three hymns here.[EoS][EoS][DB]
- Date and teacher
Macauliffe's birth year of 1415 cannot be confirmed. The Encyclopaedia's entry on Ramanand gives dates ending in 1410 and calls the discipleship of Bhagat Dhanna chronologically impossible.[Macauliffe][EoS][EoS]