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20 A HISTORY OF HINDI LITERATURE l)oetvy oithedkaktz movement. Among those devotees (bhagats) of whose compositions fragments have been preserved in the Granth, and who are earlier than Ramananda, are Sadna and Namdev, The Granth contains also a fragment of a certain Jaidev who has sometimes been identified with Jayadeva, the author of the Sanskrit Gita Govinda, who lived towards the end of the twelfth century. But the identification is more than doubtful and the date and the circumstances of this Jaidev are unknown. Sadna, who probably flourished about the beginning of the fifteenth century, is said to have been born in Sindh and to have been a butcher {kasai). He gave up his trade and became a devotee. Only a couple of his hymns are preserved in the Granth. Namdev belonged to the Maratha country and was a devotee of Vithoba at Pandharpur, He probably flourished between about 1400 and 1430. By caste he was a tailor, and according to the legends preserved about him he showed great devotion in his boyhood, but afterwards for a time lived an evil life in company with a band of dacoits. He repented, however, and became a great devotee. He is the author of a considerable number of Marathi hymns, but he was a noteworthy religious leader in the north of India also, and wrote many verses in Hindi. A considerable number of hymns composed by him are in the Granth. Namdev is a most interesting figure and probably one of the first leaders of the new religious revival which began about this time in North India. Ramananda, who lived probably from about 1400 to 1470, was an ascetic who somewhere about the year 1430 began to preach that the eternal God should be worshipped under the name of Rama, that Rama alone was the source of release from the evils of transmigra- tion, and that this should be sought by fervent devotion {bhakti) towards him. The way had already been prepared by the preaching of others on similar lines, and Ramananda evidently met with such success that he took up his residence in Benares and made that the