A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s4.9

Language: English

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Jnānēshvar is declared by tradition to have been born in A.D. 1271 at Apegāon, and lived most of his life at Alandi in Poona District, where his tomb and temple still exist and attract thousands of people annually to a great fair held in his honour. He was the son of a Deshasth Brahman, named Vithalpant, who had become a Sanyāsī, but subsequently reverted to the life of a Grihasta or householder, thereby incurring the displeasure of the Brahmans of Apegāon, who excommunicated him and his family. Vithalpant had two other sons, Nivrittināth and Sopāndēv, born respectively in 1268 and 1274, and a daughter, Muktabāi, born in 1277. Many legends have grown up around the name of Jnānēshvar, which testify to his divine powers and saintliness; and while his sister Muktabāi was popularly regarded as an incarnation of the goddess of learning, he and his two brothers were declared to be an incarnation of the Hindu Trimūrti or ‘ Triad of gods,’ viz. Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu. Among the various literary works attributed to Jnānēshvar, by far the most important is the Jnānēshvarī or Jnānadēvī, which is an elaborate commentary in the Ovi metre on the Bhagavad Gīta; and if the traditional date of his birth be accepted Jnānēshvar must, according to Professor Patvardhan, have composed this great expositional poem of about 10,000 verses at the age of sixteen.

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While concerned primarily with the expounding of the ‘ Song Celestial ’ for the benefit of the ordinary Marāthā of his age, the author of the Jnānēshvarī takes as his underlying theme the value of service and love of God, or, briefly, of Bhakti or devotion, and must on this account be considered the direct forerunner of the Bhakti school of Marāthī poetry. Dr. Farquhar describes him as ‘ the coryphæus of the whole Bhakti movement of the Marāthā country,’ and as ‘ a true Bhakta, honouring Siva as well as Vishnu, and following Sankara in philosophy.’ Remembering that Jnānēshvar was a faithful devotee of Siva and had deeply imbibed the Vedānta philosophy of Shankarāchārya, Professor Patvardhan reasonably suggests that his emotional advocacy of the purely Vaishnava doctrine of Bhakti may have been due to the inspiration of the celebrated Vaishnava philosopher and teacher, Rāmānuja (c. A.D. 1100–1150), who is regarded as the leading opponent of the views of Shankarāchārya. The influence of the latter is clearly discernible in another work of Jnānēshvar, the Amritānubhava, a treatise on self-knowledge, which for this reason is believed by Professor Patvardhan to have been produced earlier than the *Jnānēshvarī*. Dr. Farquhar, however, accepts the suggestion of Dr. Laddu of the Sanskrit College, Benares, that Jnānēshvar was a *Bhāgavat* and that the whole *Bhakti* movement of Mahārāshtra sprang from this *Bhāgavat* origin.

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The *Bhāgavat* cult rests upon a passage in the *Harivāmsa*, which reflects the worship of the two gods, Siva and Vishnu, as equal or as one. An inscription of A.D. 528-9 proves that the *Bhāgavat* community was in existence at that date, while at a later date (c. 800-900) the *Skanda Upanishād* was written to prove the identity of Vishnu and Siva. There seems good ground for holding that the *Bhāgavat* sect, with its doctrine of the identity of the two gods, was numerous in southern India from A.D. 550 to 900, and that the great *Bhāgavata Purān*, with its doctrine of *Bhakti*, was the literary creation of the sect. In all probability Jnānēshvar was under the influence of the *Bhāgavat* Vishnuswāmi, who was his senior by only thirty or at most forty years.¹ In conclusion let it suffice to point out that Professor Patvardhan gives clear reasons for holding that the *abhangas* or trochaic odes usually attributed to Jnānēshvar were probably written by another poet of the same name, *after* the cult of Vithoba had been firmly established and Pandharpur had become one of the popular *tīrths*, or places of pilgrimage, in Mahārāshtra.² Nivrittināth, Sopāndēv and Muktabāī also composed verses which are of little importance compared with the deservedly popular works of their famous brother.