arayana. Ramanand,
who addressed himself to all classes and not merely to the Brahman
aristocracy, selected as the divine name Rama. It was more human than
Narayana, less sensuous than Krishna. Every Hindu was familiar with
the poetry which sings of Rama as a chivalrous and godlike hero. But
he was not, like Krishna, the lover of the soul, and when Ramaism
was divested of mythology by successive reformers it became a
monotheism in which Hindu and Moslim elements could blend. Ramanand
had twelve disciples, among whom were Kabir, a Raja called Pipa, Rai
Das, a leather-seller (and therefore an outcast according to Hindu
ideas) as well as Brahmans. The Ramats, as his followers were called,
are a numerous and respectable body in north India, using the same
sectarian mark as the Vadagalais from whom they do not differ
materially, although a Hindu might consider that their small regard
for caste is a vital distinction. They often call themselves
Avadhutas, that is, those who have shaken off worldly restrictions,
and the more devout among them belong to an order divided into four
classes of which only the highest is reserved to Brahmans and the
others are open to all castes. They own numerous and wealthy maths,
but it is said that in some of these celibacy is not required and that
monks and nuns live openly as man and wife.[607]

An important aspect of the Ramat movement is its effect on the popular
literature of Hindustan which in the fifteenth and even more in the
sixteenth century blossoms into flowers of religious poetry. Many of
these writings possess real merit and are still a moral and spiritual
force. European scholars are only beginning to pay sufficient
attention to this mighty flood of hymns which gushed forth in nearly
all the vernaculars of India[608] and appealed directly to the people.
The phenomenon was not really new. The psalms of the Buddhists and
even the hymns of the Rig Veda were vernacular literature in their
day, and in the south the songs of the Devaram and Nalayiram are of
some antiquity. But in the north, though some Prakrit literature has
been preserved, Sanskrit was long considered the only proper language
for religion. We can hardly doubt that vernacular hymns existed, but
they did not receive the imprimatur of any teacher, and have not
survived. But about 1400 all this changes. Though Ramanand was not
much of a writer he gave his authority to the use of the vernacular:
he did not, like Ramanuja,