Ramdevjiरामदेवजी

Ramdevji (रामदेवजी) is the most widely followed of Rajasthan's folk deities, a Tanwar Rajput of the Pokhran region whom tradition places in the fourteenth century. Hindu devotees regard him as an incarnation of Krishna; Muslim followers have long venerated the same figure as Ramshah Pir. His cult, centred on the village of Ramdevra (Runicha) near Pokhran, spread through Marwar into Gujarat, Sindh and Malwa, and it remains one of the clearest examples in western India of a shrine tradition shared across religious lines.

The tradition

The songs and legends of Ramdevji present him as a ruler who set himself against caste exclusion. He is remembered as a protector of the poor and of communities held to be untouchable, and his closest disciple in the tradition is Dali Bai, a woman of the Meghwal community, whose shrine stands beside his own at Ramdevra. His devotional music is carried above all by hereditary singer communities, and the terahtali, a seated dance performed with small cymbals tied to the body, is closely associated with his worship.

Ramdevra

Tradition holds that Ramdevji took living samadhi at Runicha, and his tomb-shrine there is the heart of the cult. The great fair in the month of Bhadrapada (August–September) draws pilgrims in the hundreds of thousands, many walking long distances carrying the neja, a five-coloured banner raised at the shrine. His emblems are characteristically humble: pagliya, carved footprints, stand in for the deity in countless village shrines, and devotees offer small cloth horses recalling his mount. Hindu and Muslim pilgrims alike attend, each addressing him by their own name.