Sant Namdev

Namdev was born into a family of tailors and cloth-printers and grew up at Pandharpur in the shadow of Vitthal’s temple. Varkari tradition tells that as a small boy he set a bowl of milk before Vitthal and would not leave until the Lord drank it, and that the Lord did. He was the elder companion of Sant Jnaneshwar on his pilgrimage across India, and after Jnaneshwar’s samadhi at Alandi in 1296 he carried the Varkari path on for more than fifty years. His abhangs in Marathi are among the earliest; he is said to have vowed to compose a hundred crore of them, and his household joined in, so the poems of his maid Janabai are kept with his. Namdev travelled north, and his Hindi padas made him one of the first sants of the north Indian tradition; about sixty of his shabads are in the Guru Granth Sahib. Punjab remembers him at Ghuman, where a gurdwara stands at the place he lived. Tradition says he chose to be laid at the first step of Vitthal’s temple at Pandharpur so that every pilgrim’s foot would touch him; the step is called Namdev Payari, and every Varkari bows there before entering.