Cite
MLA
“Baba Ramdevji.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/devata/ramdevji/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Baba Ramdevji. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/devata/ramdevji/
A rider on a white horse in a white jama and turban, holding a lance; in village shrines he is represented by a pair of footprints, pagliya, on a small platform, with white or multi-coloured flags flying above.
01The son Ajmal asked for
Ajmal, a Tanwar chief of the Pokaran country, and his queen Minal De had no son. Ajmal went to Dwarka and prayed to Dwarkadhish, and the katha says Shri Krishna himself granted that he would be born as Ajmal’s son. So Ramdev was born, and his devotees hold him an avatar of Krishna. The dates are not settled. One widely printed reckoning gives his birth as Chaitra Shukla Panchami of Samvat 1409, that is 1352 CE, and his samadhi as Bhadrapada Shukla Ekadashi of Samvat 1442, 1385 CE, at the age of thirty-three; other devotional calendars give later years. Historians have little to go on beyond his samadhi and the songs, and treat him as a historical saint around whom a great body of katha grew.
02Dali Bai and the five pirs
Ramdevji is remembered for refusing the walls of caste. He took as his sister and disciple Dali Bai, a Meghwal girl, and her samadhi lies beside his at Ramdevra; the Meghwal community worships him as its ishta devata, and his bhajans are sung most of all in Meghwal and other working homes. Muslims of the desert honour him too, as Ramsa Pir. The katha says five pirs came from Mecca to test him and would not eat, since they ate only from their own bowls left behind in Mecca; Ramdevji stretched out his hand and the bowls arrived through the air, and the pirs bowed and called him pir of pirs. Their five tombs stand within the samadhi complex. His sayings, the banis, were gathered by his follower Swami Gokuldas as the Chaubis Praman.
03The Bhadrapada walk to Ramdevra
Ramdevra lies about ten kilometres from Pokaran in Jaisalmer district. Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner built the present temple over the samadhi in 1931; beside it is the Parcha Baori, a stepwell whose water devotees carry home for healing. Every Bhadrapada, from the bright Dooj to Ekadashi, the fair fills the desert town, and for weeks before it the roads of Rajasthan and Gujarat carry walkers with flags on their shoulders, served by roadside camps that give them food and rest. At the temple, women of the Kamad community perform the terah taali, playing thirteen small brass cymbals tied to their arms and legs as they sing his bhajans. There is even a Ramapir temple at Tando Allahyar in Sindh, Pakistan, with its own fair in Bhadrapada.
In the texts
- Chaubis Praman (banis of Ramdevji, compiled by Swami Gokuldas)
- Ramdevji ra bhajan and parcha songs (Rajasthani)
