01The saint of the desert
Ramdev was born to Ajmal ji Tanwar, chief of Pokaran, and his devotees hold him to be Krishna come again in answer to his father’s prayer at Dwarka. He lived among the poorest of the Marwar desert, ate with the Meghwals and others whom the villages kept apart, and taught a plain bhakti open to all. Dalibai, a Meghwal woman, was his devoted follower, and her samadhi lies beside his. Hindus of every community come, and many Muslims too, who call him Ramshah Pir. He took samadhi at Runicha, the village he founded, at a young age; the date is given variously.
02The Bhadrapada mela
From the second to the eleventh of the bright half of Bhadrapada, the roads of western Rajasthan fill with jatris on foot, many from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, carrying white and coloured flags and little cloth horses, the saint’s own mount, as offerings. Roadside camps feed them for free all the way. At Ramdevra the queue for the samadhi runs for kilometres; nearby are the Ram Sarovar tank, held to have been dug by the saint, and the Parcha Baori stepwell. Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner built the present temple over the samadhi in 1931.
The life of this place
- 1931Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner builds the present temple over the samadhi.
Ramdevra is 12 km north of Pokaran and has its own railway station on the Jodhpur–Jaisalmer line.
