हिंदीOn this day
Photo: Max Arthur Macauliffe and his assistants · Public domain
Saint

Sant Namdev

Varkari saint, bhagat of the Guru Granth Sahib

1270—1350

c. 1270–1350 CE

Namdev, a tailor’s son devoted to Vitthal of Pandharpur, carried the Varkari kirtan to the Punjab. His hymns stand in the Guru Granth Sahib, and Marathi, Hindi and Punjabi all claim him.

01The boy who fed Vitthal

He was born at Narsi, in present Hingoli district, and grew up at Pandharpur in a family of tailors. The best-loved katha tells how the child Namdev was sent to offer food to Vitthal and wept until the image ate it. He walked with Jnaneshwar on pilgrimage to the north, and in his abhangas set down the samadhi of Jnaneshwar at Alandi. Kirtan as the Varkaris still do it, singing, telling and dancing before the Lord, begins with him.

02Ghuman and the step at Pandharpur

In later life he lived about twenty years in the Punjab, at Ghuman in Gurdaspur district, where a gurdwara stands in his name. When Guru Arjan compiled the Adi Granth in 1604, he included about sixty of Namdev’s hymns, in old Hindi touched by Marathi and Punjabi. Namdev asked to be laid beneath the first step of the Vitthal temple at Pandharpur, so that every devotee’s foot would touch him. The step is called Namdev Payari, and pilgrims bow to it before they climb.

Vitthal–Rukmini Temple, Pandharpur
Place · Temple grew from at least the 12th–13th centuries; later Maratha additionsVitthal–Rukmini Temple, PandharpurThe home of Vithoba on the banks of the Chandrabhaga, goal of the Warkari wari on Ashadhi Ekadashi. For eight hundred years Maharashtra’s saints have walked here singing.Read →

Places

Vitthal–Rukmini Temple, PandharpurStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Vitthal–Rukmini Temple, Pandharpur

The home of Vithoba on the banks of the Chandrabhaga, goal of the Warkari wari on Ashadhi Ekadashi. For eight hundred years Maharashtra’s saints have walked here singing.

GhumanStanding
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Ghuman

A village in Gurdaspur district where, the Punjab tradition holds, the Varkari saint Namdev of Pandharpur lived his last twenty years. The shrine of Baba Namdev here is kept by Sikh sevadars, for some sixty of his hymns are in the Guru Granth Sahib.

On the timeline

  • 1270 CE (traditional)

    Sant Namdev born at NarsiFaith

    Namdev, the tailor-saint of the Varkari path, is born at Narsi in Marathwada. His abhangas to Vitthal of Pandharpur are sung in Maharashtra, and sixty-one of his hymns sit in the Guru Granth Sahib.

  • 1350 CE

    Namdev’s samadhi at PandharpurFaith

    Sant Namdev passes away at Pandharpur. Tradition places his samadhi at the first step of the Vitthal temple, so that every devotee’s feet may touch it.