01Spoken at Nevasa
Jnaneshwar sat in the temple at Nevasa on the Pravara and expounded the Gita in Marathi ovis, and Sachchidananda Baba wrote down every word. The closing ovis say so themselves: in Shaka twelve hundred and twelve Jnaneshwar made this tika, and Sachchidananda Baba, with reverence, became the scribe. They name the place, on the bank of the Godavari, in the holy kshetra where the Mahalaya stands, and the king, Ramachandra of the Yadava line. They also name his guru, his elder brother Nivruttinath, in the line of Gahininath and Matsyendranath that goes back to Shiva. A pillar from that temple, against which he is said to have leaned, is still worshipped at Nevasa.
02Bhavartha Dipika
Jnaneshwar called the work Bhavartha Dipika, the lamp that shows the inner meaning; the people named it after him. It follows the Gita adhyaya by adhyaya, about nine thousand ovis against seven hundred shlokas. The ovi is the metre of the grinding song, the verse women of Maharashtra sang at the stone mill before dawn, four short lines with the rhyme falling on the first three. To set the Gita in that metre was to bring it into the kitchen. Jnaneshwar also wrote the Amritanubhav, his own work on non-dual experience, the Changdev Pasashti, a letter of sixty-five ovis to the yogi Changdev, and the Haripath, which Varkaris recite every evening.
03The Gita in the people's tongue
In the sixth adhyaya Jnaneshwar makes his promise: "majha marathachi bolu kautuke, pari amritatehi paijasi jinke", my Marathi speech, playfully, will win a wager even against nectar. He kept it with images from the village: the farmer, the lamp, the mother and child, the tortoise drawing in its limbs, the moon rising over water. Each Gita shloka opens into dozens of ovis. Where Sanskrit commentators argue a point, Jnaneshwar shows it, and the listener at Nevasa, a farmer or a widow, could follow.
04What Jnaneshwar teaches
The reading is Advaita, but warm. The Self is one, and the world is the play of that one, the way waves are the play of water; Jnaneshwar does not ask the reader to despise the world, only to see through it. Bhakti and jnana are not set against each other: the devotee who sees Bhagwan in every being has the same knowledge the jnani has. The sixth adhyaya, with its long passage on the awakening of kundalini, carries the Nath yoga of his guru line. And karma done without craving becomes worship: the work of each day, offered to Bhagwan, is itself the puja, and Jnaneshwar asks for no other.
05Four children of Alandi
The Varkari tradition tells the story of the family. Vitthalpant of Alandi had taken sannyasa and then, at his guru's command, returned to married life, and the brahmins of Alandi cast out his children: Nivrutti, Jnanadev, Sopan and Muktabai. The children went to Paithan to ask the pandits for a shuddhi patra. There, the tradition says, when a pandit mocked that even a buffalo could recite the Veda, Jnaneshwar laid his hand on a buffalo and it recited. Later, when the yogi Changdev rode to meet them on a tiger, the four were sitting on a wall, and the wall moved forward to receive him. Jnaneshwar was about fifteen when he spoke the Dnyaneshwari.
06The Pasayadan
Where the Gita's 700 shlokas end, the Dnyaneshwari ends with the Pasayadan, nine ovis in which Jnaneshwar asks his guru for a gift of grace, and asks for the whole world rather than for himself. Let the wicked lose their crookedness and come to love good deeds. Let every being find friendship with every other. Let the darkness of sin go, and the world see by the sun of its own dharma; let whatever each one wishes come to him. Let saints who are wishing trees walking, villages of living chintamani jewels, oceans of nectar that speak, gather on the earth. It is sung at the close of every Varkari kirtan and at school assemblies across Maharashtra, the whole room standing.
07Eknath's edition
Three centuries of copying left the text corrupted, with scribes adding ovis of their own. In 1584 Sant Eknath at Paithan prepared a corrected edition, the basis of the text read today, and wrote his own colophon at its end: the work of writing was finished at Pratishthan on the bank of the Godavari, in the month of Bhadrapada, in Shaka fifteen hundred and six. He added a warning that still stands. Whoever slips a Marathi ovi of his own into the Dnyaneshwari, Eknath says, has set a coconut shell on a plate of nectar. Varkari readers take that as a rule, and the text has been guarded closely ever since.
08Alandi and the Wari
Jnaneshwar took sanjivan samadhi at Alandi on the Indrayani in 1296, on Kartik Vadya Trayodashi, and the Varkaris hold that he is seated there still. Each Ashadha his padukas leave Alandi in a palkhi for Pandharpur, and lakhs of Varkaris walk with them for about three weeks, singing "Dnyanba Tukaram" and reading the Dnyaneshwari in the evenings along the way. In villages across Maharashtra a Dnyaneshwari saptah, a seven-day reading, is held in the temple courtyard, the whole text read aloud with a kirtan each night. Many households keep a copy wrapped in cloth beside the gods and read an adhyaya a day.
What it contains
- 1Mangalacharan
The opening ovis of the first adhyaya, to Om, the primal one whom the Vedas declare, and then to Ganesha, Sharada and the guru Nivruttinath. Jnaneshwar pictures Ganesha as the Word itself: his body the Veda, his limbs the Smritis, his jewels the eighteen Puranas, his arms the six darshanas. Varkaris recite these ovis to begin any reading.
- 2Adhyayas 1–6
Arjuna's grief, the undying Self, karma yoga, jnana and the yoga of meditation. The sixth adhyaya, 497 ovis, holds the promise about Marathi sweeter than nectar and the long passage on kundalini. Commentators call these six the section on karma.
- 3Adhyayas 7–12
Knowledge and its realisation, the imperishable Brahman, the royal secret, the vibhutis, the vision of the universal form, and bhakti. The eleventh, with Arjuna's terror and wonder at the Vishvarupa, is one of the richest in images. The twelfth, on the marks of the devotee, is the adhyaya most often read alone.
- 4Adhyayas 13–18
The field and its knower, the three gunas, the Purushottama, the divine and demonic natures, threefold faith, and liberation through renunciation. The thirteenth gives Jnaneshwar's long list of the marks of knowledge, humility first. The eighteenth, over 1,800 ovis, is the longest in the work and gathers the whole teaching before the Pasayadan.
- 5Pasayadan
The closing prayer of nine ovis, 18.1794 to 18.1802, asking grace for all beings. In the last of them Vishveshvara, the Lord of the world, grants the gift and Jnanadev is made happy. It is recited at the end of every Varkari gathering.
Famous verses
ॐ नमोजी आद्या । वेद प्रतिपाद्या । जय जय स्वसंवेद्या । आत्मरुपा ॥
Om, salutations to you, the primal one, whom the Vedas declare; victory, victory to you who are known only to yourself, whose form is the Self.Dnyaneshwari 1.1
माझा मराठाचि बोलु कौतुकें । परि अमृतातेहीं पैजासीं जिंके । ऐसीं अक्षरें रसिकें । मेळवीन ॥
My speech is only Marathi, yet in play it will win a wager even against nectar; such delightful words I will bring together.Dnyaneshwari 6.14
आतां विश्वात्मकें देवें । येणें वाग्यज्ञें तोषावें । तोषोनि मज द्यावें । पसायदान हें ॥
Now may the God who is the Self of the universe be pleased with this offering of words, and being pleased, grant me this gift of grace.Dnyaneshwari 18.1794, Pasayadan
जे खळांची व्यंकटी सांडो । तयां सत्कर्मीं रती वाढो । भूतां परस्परें पडो । मैत्र जीवाचें ॥
Let the wicked give up their crookedness, and their love for good deeds grow; let friendship of the heart arise among all beings, each with the other.Dnyaneshwari 18.1795, Pasayadan
दुरिताचें तिमिर जावो । विश्व स्वधर्मसूर्यें पाहो । जो जें वांछील तो तें लाहो । प्राणिजात ॥
Let the darkness of sin depart; let the world see by the sun of its own dharma; whatever any living being desires, may it obtain.Dnyaneshwari 18.1796, Pasayadan
Founded Marathi literature and the Varkari tradition; Eknath, Namdev and Tukaram stand in its line.