Jnaneshvar

(1275–1296?) Poet and saint who is the
first great figure in the Varkari Panth, a
religious community centered around
the worship of the Hindu god Vithoba
at his temple at Pandharpur in the
modern state of Maharashtra.
According to tradition, Jnaneshvar was
an outcaste brahmin. He incurred this
penalty because his father was a lapsed
ascetic—he left his wife to become an
ascetic, only to rejoin his family at his
guru’s command. Jnaneshvar came
from a very religious family: His sister
Muktibai is revered by the Varkaris in
her own right, and his elder brother
Nivrttinath is supposed to have been a
“spiritual grandson” of the great ascetic
Gorakhnath. Varkari tradition makes
clear that Jnaneshvar lived much of his
life in the town of Alandi, but the truth
of the accounts of many events associated
with his life is questionable—for example, he is said to have caused a buffalo to
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Jnaneshvar
recite the sacred text known as the Veda
in order to humble the pride of the local
brahmin priests. Jnaneshvar’s greatest
work was the Jnaneshvari, a Marathilanguage commentary on the Bhagavad
Gita, one of the most influential Hindu
religious texts. He is also famous for his
songs in praise of Vithoba, which the
Varkaris still sing today. For further
information see G. A. Deleury, The Cult
of Vithoba, 1960; and Justin Abbott and
Narhar R. Godbole (trans.), Stories of
Indian Saints, 1982.