Bhagat Sain
A royal barber. Tradition holds that God took his place at court while he was lost in devotion.
Sain was a barber, a nai, in the service of a king, probably at Rewa or Bandhavgarh, in the fifteenth century. He was a devotee in the tradition linked to Ramanand.
The story of him is that one day, lost in the company of holy men, he forgot to go to court to shave the king. God took his form, went in his place and served the king so beautifully that the king was overcome with peace. When Sain arrived, late and afraid, and the truth came out, the king became his disciple.
His one hymn in the Guru Granth Sahib, in raga Dhanasri, describes worship with the lamp, incense and offerings, and says that the only true worship is the Name. His place in the scripture, alongside the weaver and the leatherworker, is part of its message that the barber's devotion counts as much as the priest's.
Detail of Bhagat Sena (unknown if referring to the Punjabi saint, Bhagat SainThe Met, New York · photo Mir Kalan Khan (Wikimedia Commons) ↗