Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

Medieval India seems to have been at the confluence of various grassroots religious/spiritual traditions. One of the important texts in this regard is Dasavatar credited to have been written Pir Sadr-ud-din, the founder of the Khoja Ismaili sect in the 15th century, in Sindh. The Dasavatar renames Kalki of Puranic literature as Nikalanak – the last messiah who is to come at the end of this era; acknowledges Vishnu, and also names Buddha as one of the avatars. Apart from the said text, this paper would also look at Nizarpanthis, a Hindu sect of Rajasthan; and Nizari Ismailis and their syncretic values. In the 19th century, a Nizari Ismaili Gujarati writer, Nanjiani, made an interesting discovery about the Hindu Nizarpanthis – that their practices incorporated various tenets from Ismaili Nizari’ism. In the Ginans – hymns of Khojas, and both the Nizari sects, one can hear echoes of a syncretic culture that was passive political resistance, grassroots and pervasive. How pervasive these movements were - can be gauged from one of the Ginans of Sadr-ud-din: “We have explained in thirty-six languages and forty-two melodies and yet, the deaf would not listen, oh my brother!”