Logo India

NIMANANDI TILAK Bairagis, or Vairagis, are a sect of Hindu ascetics, eschewing colour or passion and detached from all worldly allurements. The sect is divided into four different orders, viz. Ramanandi, Visnusvami, Nimanandi and Madhavacharya. Ramanandi and Nimanandi orders are found in Punjab. Nimanandis are followers of the saint Nimanand. They are set to have been living in Bairagipura of Nagpur city for the last 300 years. Nimanandis wear all white ‘tilak’ a two-pronged fork with a black dot on their forehead, the shape signifying the figure of ‘Nar-singh’ - ‘man-lion’, described in Hindu literature to be the incarnation of God.

  BENDIWALE TILAK Vaishnavism consists of many minor sects, consisting of followers of saints and mendicants. One of them is ‘Bendiwale’ or those who wear a dot. Their founder began putting a red dot on his forehead between the two white lines in place of the long red line of the Ramanandis. His associates asked him why he had dared to alter his tilak or sect mark. He said that the goddess Janki had given him the dot and as a test he went and bathed in the river Sarju and rubbed his forehead with water and all the sect marks were rubbed out except the dot. His followers recognised the special intervention of the goddess and he founded the sect Bendiwale.