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Ramananda was a famous bhakti saint and social reformer of northern India. He was a disciple of the well-known Vaishnava teacher Ramanuja.
But while Ramanuja taught a path of love and devotion only to Brahmins, his disciple Ramananda took the more radical approach of teaching to all castes, and even to Muslims, declaring, "Let no one ask a man's caste or with whom eats. If a man is devoted to Hari, he becomes Hari's own." In doing so, Ramananda played an important role in opening up the spiritual pathway to all people, no matter what their social station in life.
Ramananda was born in Allahabad but to a family with roots in southern India. It is said that he went on pilgrimage to southern India and, on his return, his fellow disciples refused to interact with him because they could not be sure if he had maintained ritual purity in food or proper separation from lower castes. This attitude so shocked Ramananda that he left the group and began to practice solitary austerities along the Ganges River in Varanasi (Benares), and at the same time cultivating a more inclusive sense of spirituality.
Many of Ramananda's disciples became revered saints and poets in their own right, including Ravidas, Pipa, Sadhna, Sain -- and most famously, Kabir.
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