Part 10 - Research work

Gazetteers are the documents prepared by the civil servants under the order of the Government and published by the Government that is ruling the region at that time. Credit must be given to the British Government for creating a wealth of information about the region giving details gathered painstakingly by their civil servants about the history, topography, health, dynastic rulers, education, revenue, means of transport, religion, places of interest etc. It also includes detailed observations of different faiths followed by those people, the saints and seers, the people of prominence of that region.

It also gives an account of the fairs organized in honour of the deities and saints revered by the population along with their location, attendees, duration, frequencies etc. These detailed accounts are very helpful to bring out the historical information of a community and to place it within a well-defined timeline. The gazetteers can be treated as authentic records prepared by the then ruling governments. The history books of ancient and medieval India were referred to when necessary.

Coming back to the religious literary sources, the book by the name ‘Shri Amar Katha: Shri Jhulelalji’ was referred to as it is a source of vast information about the deity Jhulelal. This source is of special importance as it is stated to be written by the first disciple of Lord Jhulelal. His name is Pugar Saheb and he is the cousin brother of Lord Jhulelal and this can be treated as a primary source as it contains the teachings as told by Lord Jhulelal himself.

This book has been published by Thakur Tejbhanlal and his brethren at Ulhasnagar, Maharashtra. It is a simple translation from the Sindhi or the frontier language into the Hind language for the benefit of the devotees of Lord Jhulelal. It is primarily a dialogue between Thakur Pugar Rai and his disciple and devotee Sunderdas as is mentioned by the publishers in their dedication at the very beginning. This great literary work has been also dedicated by the publishers to the forefathers and especially his mother. The special feature exclusive to this book is the family tree of Shri Pugar Saheb featuring Udherolal (Uderolal), the deity himself. The purpose of this book as stated by the publisher is for the propagation of faith to proliferate the tradition.

The secondary sources that were studied during the course of research were various recent books which fall into the group of analytical, comparative, critical and explanatory texts which helps in the critical analysis of the subject.

Vedic deity Varuna and Lord Jhulelal, both are considered as water deities. In other mythologies like Greek, Iranian, Egyptian and Roman mythology there are prominent water deities. These were also studied by the researcher to find any commonalities amongst the various water deities in different mythologies.

Site visits of temples with the idols and images of Lord Jhulelal were done by the researcher. This also formed a part of the research. Temples of the Sindhi community where Lord Jhulelal is worshipped and his idols are placed also served as an important source to mark out the spread of iconography of Lord Jhulelal which has given actual forms to the mythological beliefs about him. They give a clear idea about the authenticity and their deep rootedness in the minds of followers.

The actual site visits also helped capture the fervent zeal of his followers during the celebration of festivals which can hardly be captured in words since it is something to be experienced.

Visiting Sadhu Vaswani Mission and at Pune, a non-profit and ethereal institution founded by Sadhu T. L. Vaswani and attending the discourse by Dada J. P. Vaswani proved beneficial to understand the Sindhi culture. Visiting Mission library and book shop helped to procure some literary sources.

For principal and secondary sources, books in various languages were utilized such as Sanskrit, Sindhi, Hindi, Gujarati and English. The spread of his faith is not restricted to the Sindh region, but as people settled in different parts of India and the world, they accordingly adopted different languages to propagate their faith. Hence the texts on Lord Jhulelal are not limited to only one language and one area.

Since the subject has not produced a huge volume of texts as expected in proportion to the magnitude of its followers and its contribution to the religious life in India, interaction with scholars was also an important source. From time to time interactions were conducted with scholars from different fields such as Indology,

Sanskrit, Vedic studies and History. This helped to clear the literary opaque image of Lord Jhulelal. The interaction with scholars of Sindhi and Lohana communities helped the researcher to understand the deep devotion and belief of these people towards their community deity.

In conclusion, as described above, various methods were exhausted to bring out the significance of the deity and his placing in the pantheon of religion.