bauls 15
As these words from a song trunk carried out, the wandering minstrels of Bengal have always been beyond the narrow limits of the religion. Dressed in robes, strumming an ektara, the Bauls have been an integral part of the landscape lush customarily, going from village to village singing of a universal God. His faith comes directly from the heart and refuses to be confined by Hindu or Islamic principles, but are isntead a synthesis of ECA unorthodox sufi Islam and hindu concept of Bhakti or devotion. That is why that the purists have always been suspicious of these self-proclaimed fakirs; history records many cases of both Hindus and Muslims being sentenced to banishment by the religious Puritans Bauls.