Comparative and Critical Study of Mantrashastra

Author(s): Mohanlal Bhagwandas Jhaveri, K V Abhayankar
Publisher: Sarabhai Manilal Nawab

Page 136

MYSTICISM OF DARVISHES: DARVISH ORDERS IN INDIA
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and body, burn their clothes, and are branded on the right shoulder. They also wear glass bracelets like those worn by women. This order is regarded as one of the orthodox fraternities which conform to the Shara' or Shari'at. . Brown states that there is a Takia at Constantinople for the wandering Darvishes of India which is called Hindilar Takiasi. He also says that the greater part of the Darvishes visiting Constantinople belong to the orders of the Naqshbandis, gādiris, Chishtis, Kubrāwis, Ne'matullāhīs, and Qalandaris. Dr. M. Hafeez Sayyid Mohamed in his Hindi article on 'Sūfi Sadhanā Mārga' in the 'Sadhanānka' of the Hindi magazine 'Kalyāņa,' mentions only the four Orders of the Naqshbandis, Qădiris, Chishtīs and Suhrawardis probably because they are the major Orders in India. Even in Bombay over and above the said four Orders of Darvishes there are the orders of Rifa'iya, Shāziliya and Qalandariya, the last however is not considered a distinct or regalar Order. (See p.94 'The Darvishes'). Of course the Darvishes of the four orders firstly mentioned above are in majority.
There are also Darvishes belonging to other Orders or offshoots of the main Orders of comparatively lesser importance or without regular silsilā to be found in some parts of India. There are for instance Madāriyāhs who are followers of Zindā Shah Madār of Syria whose shrine is at Makanpur in Oudh. Then there are Sa'dis Nürbakshis,* Murādīs, Shatáriās as well as Haidarīs. The writer is informed that sometimes at some places in India are found Darvishes of other Orders also, but generally they are wandering Darvishes only temporarily there.
It was through the missionaries of various Orders coming from beyond the North-Western frontier and from Iraq from time to time commencing from the close of the twelfth century of the Christian
*It is a branch of the Naqshbandis and known chiefly in Kashmir. Sayyid 'Ali Hamdāni alias Amir Kabir Ali the Second, its founder, came to Kashmir in 1380 A. D. with 700 disciples, and died about 1386 A.D. at Pakhli. He is known as the apostle of Kashmir. Nürbakshis said to be identical with Suhrawardis are different.