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I felt greatly blessed when I was requested by Dr. Punshi to write a
foreword to the biography of Saint Kanwarram which he has written on the
occasion of the Birth Centenary Year of this greatest of the saints of
the Sindhi community of the present century. Dr. Punshi has done well in
writing and publishing this short biography of this Divine Soul who
toiled for the secular and spiritual upliftment of the people around him
and whose message inspired the minds of his followers to stick up to
path of righteousness and devotion to God while living a worldly life of
a mortal being and to achieve perfect state of worldly and secular
happiness.
Saints are honored and worshipped by all people belonging to different
sects and religious. In ancient days and during the medieval period the
Saints were honored and revered by the kings also who wielded the
secular authority in an absolute form. Those absolute kings and rulers
who too worshipped the Saints have not disappeared with passage of time
and with the dawn and emergence of Democratic Ideology. But that has not
made any change in the reverence that the people have in their heart for
the Saints and religious preceptors. These Saints and religious
preceptors are still worshipped and respected by all. The question
therefore arises as to why the people worship and adore the Saints in
high esteem and why they have so much respect even now in the eyes of a
common man. The answer is quite clear and simple.
True Saints are regarded as the prototype of God himself. They are
regarded as the direct descendents of God on this earth, who spread the
message of love, compassion and peace and who guide the people about the
way in which men should try to achieve the other worldly pleasure while
performing their duties of the mundane world. All Saints propagate
highest type of morality since morality ultimately results in the true
realization of Soul what is morally wrong can never be politically right
just, socially correct and spiritually excellent. In the context of an
individual, morality in the ultimate analysis consists in the
disinterested performance of self-imposed duties and the faithful
performance of the functions attached to one's "Station" in life. This
is a message of the 'Bhagwat-Geeta' and the scriptures of all religious
of the world, by and large, give the same message. The Saints, May they
be of any religion, may they be of any country, propagate this very
message and extol this and ask their followers to attain 'Paramartha'
through the dutiful performance of the functions attached to what we
call as 'Sansar'. All Saints who draw their inspiration from
'Bhagwat-Geeta' preach this. In Maharashtra all Saints, right from
Dnyaneshwar down to Tukaram, Ramdas, Gadge Baba and Tukdoji Maharaja
prorogated the same view and asked their disciples and followers to seek
'Paramartha' by not going to jungles but by fulfilling one's worldly
duties of a true 'Grihasti' and called 'Sansar' as a training school of
'Paramartha'. So men should first mind their home rather than worship
God. One who fails to achieve success in 'Sansar' would equally fail in
attaining 'Paramartha'. The Saints never asked their followers to ignore
and neglect 'Sansar' as such. It is worthwhile to note here that Saint
Kanwarram himself served his family by running his small Kirana shop. We
should feel intensely that all should be happy. Saint Kanwarram gave the
same message to the contemporary Indians.
The medium, Saint Kanwarram used for giving this message was that of
Bhajans, which he recited and sung, in his sweet melodious voice. He
used to go from place to place and propagate his views through Bhajans
and songs. He served the humanity in a selfless manner for he gave away
all he got by way of offerings from the people to him to the poor and
needy persons. He had in his ashram crippled disabled and blind persons
whom he gave shelter and protection. He helped the poor families for the
marriage of their daughters. He propagated widow marriages and thus was
advocating the same reforms in the society, which Maharashtrian social
reformers like Jyotiba Fulay and G.G. Agarkar advocated in Maharashtra.
Saint Kanwarram did not believe in the system of untouchability which
was a scourge of Hindu society. This evident from the incident that he
embraced a Harijan (an untouchable) who had gone to for his darshan.
Thus Saint Kanwarram not only preached social reforms but he practiced
it and himself acted accordingly in his life time and had always taken a
progressive and a reformist stand for the upliftment of the community.
Above all Saint Kanwarram was a champion of Hindu- Muslim unity for he
believed that all men are God's creation and are equal in the eyes of
God. He in a way did a pioneering work in the abolition of
untouchability, use of Swadeshi goods and advocacy of Hindu-Muslim
unity, which later on became a part and parcel of the a program of
Indian freedom movement launched under the able leadership of Mahatma
Gandhi.
Saint Kanwarram was thus a Saint who would preach everything good for
the good of humanity and that makes for him a place of permanence in
Galaxy of Hindu Saints. All these things about this great Saint have
been very beautiful and lucidly brought out by Dr. Punshi in this book
in a very arresting style and manner and it may rightly be said to be
his literary worship of the great Saint. In a way this is a national
service rendered by Dr. Punshi since he writes this book in English.
This would introduce to the English knowing readers the doyen of the
Indian Saints of the early years of the dawn of the present century. The
modern India is the result of the advocacy and the preaching’s of the
Saints like Saint Kanwarram and his like and the nation is heavily
indebted to them for all that they did in the formative years of the
development of Indian nationalism.
I congratulate Dr. Punshi for bringing all these things before the new
generation of India by writing a biography of Saint of the stature of
Saint Kanwarram and commend this book to the readers.
(P.S.Kane)
Principal
Vidarbha Mahavidyalaya,
Amravati
5th April 1985
"Hanuman Jayanti"
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