सांवल शाह

Sanwal Shah

Narsingh Mehta, also known as Narsi Mehta or Narsi Bhagat, was a 15th-century poet-saint of Gujarat, India. He was notable as a bhakta and an exponent of Vaishnava poetry. His bhajan “Vaishnav Jan To…..” was Mahatma Gandhiji’s favourite and had become synonymous with him.

Narsiji’s Grand daughter’s wedding event

On the occasion of Narsiji’s granddaughter’s marriage, his daughter gave him jaggery as part of the Shagun (gift given as precursor to an auspicious occasion) and requested his father to surely come to the wedding. Narsi was very poor. He told his daughter that he would surely come to the wedding but he would not be able to bring any gift except remembrance of God. When Narsiji reached his grand daughter’s wedding, a woman asked his samdhin (daughter’s mother-in-law) what gifts the girl’s maternal grandfather had given in kanyadaan? Samdhin jokingly said that he had given two earthen pots. Hearing this, Narsiji felt embarrassed and started requesting God to save his honour. Then, God came with a bullock cart full of wedding gifts such as a red suit for the bride with chunari, all the wedding dresses, jewels, pearls, diamonds, horses, palanquins and many other gifts for the girl. Narsiji happily gave Bhaat (Nanakshak – presents given by maternal grandfather in the marriage of a girl or a boy). After this, both the earthen pots broke down and everyone was surprised to see that both the earthen pots turned into gold full of gold and silver. This way, God saved the honour of his beloved Bhagat Narsi.

The Episode of Sanwal Shah

Once some sadhus while going to Dwarka, came to Narsiji and gave him five hundred rupees and requested him to write a hundi of five hundred rupees in his name as they considered him to be a very famous person. They told him that when they would reach Dwarka, they would get the hundi encashed. At first, Narsinghji refused and told them that he was a poor man and that there was no seth (rich man) known to him, who would give them cash in exchange of hundi, in Dwarka. However, when the sadhus insisted, he gave them a hundi of five hundred rupees encashable at Dwarka by the seth Sanwal Shah. (The hundi or the so-called bond prevalent in those days is similar to traveller’s cheque/Demand draft of today. This reduced the risk of money theft during the journey). The sadhus would present the hundi at the given place and to the person in whose name, the hundi was written and collect the money from him. On reaching the city of Dwarka, the saints searched everywhere but could not find seth Sanwal Shah anywhere. Everyone started saying that now you should take this hundi from Narsiji only. On the other hand, Narsinghji started giving Bhandara (offering food to the priests and poor) by bringing the food materials with those five hundred rupees. When the bhandara was over, one old saint came for the meal. Narsinghji’s wife could find only some flour in the house, which she used to make four rotis and offered it to the saint. As soon as the saint ate the rotis, in Dwarka, God appeared in the form of seth Sanwal Shah and gave money to the sadhus in exchange of hundi. All the rich men of Dwarka were utterly surprised to see this incident as they had never heard the name of seth Sanwal Shah before.

Spiritual Significance: Shiv Baba provides patronage to the poor. Even though His children may be materialistically poor, God fills the bills of His children, fills their stores. The poor children who offer even a little bit to God whole heartedly, He being the true and loving father, fills their lives in return, with enormous health, wealth, happiness and all other attainments.