The door in my face.
I’m shameless, they say,
An exhibitionist.
The elders in a conference
Are taking a decision.
The angry gentry
Have done their bit
And brought ruin
On a defenseless man.
What do I want, says Tuka,
With these people?
I must get going now
And search for Vithal.
:AK
The Varkaris
EACH VARKARI poet of note claims a distinct story and a unique set of poems, yet the principal ones seem so closely aligned with one another—through kinship, household residence, or teacher-student descent—that it makes sense to treat them together. Often their biographies intertwine.
The word varkari means pilgrim or traveler, a term used for both a religious tradition of Maharashtra State and its poet-saints. The devoted Varkari hopes at least once in his or her life to make the pilgrimage to Pandharpur (or Pandhari) to visit the image of Vithoba (colloquially, Vithal), a deity who contains aspects of both Krishna and Śiva. The Vithoba images show the god standing on a brick. An early devotee had called upon Vithoba, but was busy when Vithoba arrived. The man provided a brick for the god to wait upon, then went off and forgot about him. Vithoba waited patiently, a long, long time, which endears him to his petitioners.
As holders of a subversive Hindu tradition, the Varkaris had numerous followers, making the poets social revolutionaries as much as spiritual guides or literary heroes. They openly denounced or made fun of the Brahmans’ obscure rituals and slavish adherence to scripture. Varkaris treasure the songs of their poet-saints over Sanskrit texts.
Until the close of the seventeenth century the Varkaris remained the principal force in Marathi literature—the writing of Maharashtra State—and Dilip Chitre, their most dedicated modern translator, says they established the ground for the literature that would follow. So little did the poets care for status or hierarchy that even age set no authority. As a teenager Muktabai had an elderly hermit, Changdev, for a student, and Janabai claimed intimate relations with Vithal though she was multiply dispossessed—an orphan, a woman, a servant, the follower of a heterodox tradition, and a religious poet singing not in Sanskrit but in her native tongue. Despite persecution, a trickster, extravagant, at times clownlike quality animates some of the poets. This reaches its height with Tukaram’s poems to his wife.
Jñandev (1275—1296) Jñandev is best known for his Sanskrit-language Jnaneshvari, a commentary on the Bhagavad-gītā. He is considered the first of the Varkari poets, their “archmentor and preceptor,” in Dilip Chitre’s words. He composed his early work in Sanskrit, but then broke with orthodox convention and discarded the terms and the language of his priestly upbringing. Jñandev took to the language and folk meters of the nonliterate local people. The Varkaris who succeeded him all used vernacular language and also modeled poems on folk traditions.
Jñandev’s father had been a disciple of a great celibate guru, Ramanand, but married and became a householder. Publicly shamed by Brahman authorities for this change of life, he and his wife were ostracized, hounded, and finally pressured into suicide. The Brahmans mocked and reviled the couple’s four children: Nivrutti, Jñandev, Sopan, and their young sister Muktabai. That is, until the children proved spiritual accomplishments which dwarfed the realizations of their detractors. Though quite young, they took on the Brahmans in public debate and composed a series of treatises, including Jñandev’s Jnaneshvari, that refuted the ideology of the Brahmans. They established what became the Varkaris’ first tenet: God is not separate from the world in all its manifestations.
Jñandev drew on two folksong traditions. The first is the ovi, used by women working with mortar and pestle or at the rahat, a Persian-style water wheel. Most ovi lyrics are protest songs more than work songs—complaints about a life of grinding hard labor, grousings about unhappy marriages and despotic husbands, or sarcasm flung at the patriarchal family structure. Frequently the songs petition a deity to deliver the singer from servitude. The other model Jñandev took up was the abhang, a style of call-and-response used for religious ceremony, epic storytelling, and other social performances. Jñandev drew on stories of Krishna for his abhang-style poems. Along with the affectionate term Vithal for Vithoba, he used the names Hari and Govind, depicting his chosen deity as a “blue cowherd.”
At age twenty-two Jñandev descended into an underground vault beneath the Vithoba temple at Alandi, near the modern city of Pune, and entered a trance, the sanjeevan samādhi, giving up worldly existence. He would have learnt from Nath yogins the technique of choosing one’s point of departure from life.
Muktabai (1279—1297) Sister of Jñandev. Once when her older brother had been humiliated by Brahmans, fallen into despair, and sequestered himself in his room, Muktabai drew him out of his dark mood: “We Varkaris, no, we do not hide out from life.” She took for a disciple the renowned, elderly yogin, Changdev, who regarded her as his “mother” and would sit in her lap. At age eighteen she vanished, consumed in a purple flash of lightning. Like her brother Jñandev, she may have learnt from Nath yogins the ability to choose one’s method of departure from the world.
Namdev (1270—1350) Born into a tailor’s family, he took Jñandev as his guru, though Jñandev was younger and of a higher caste. Once when Vithoba appeared in a dream, Namdev impulsively pledged to compose a billion poems of praise to the god. In order to meet the billion-poem vow, Namdev assigned large numbers to members of his household, including his mother and their servant girl Janabai.
Janabai (1298—1350) Orphaned early, she worked in Namdev’s house. It is hard to tell if she regarded the higher-caste poet as a guru or simply someone she worked for. She directed a good deal of venom at Namdev’s mother, who following tradition would have run the household. Janabai’s poetry complains about the bitter work she has to accept as a low-caste servant from employers who stand only a bit higher in the social order. Yet she shows rapture, and deep gratification at the help she receives from Vithal, who shows up to help her with the most demeaning chores. Vithal grooms her, too, something women do for each other, not gods.
Also strange—to the Brahmans this would have seemed the final indignity—Janabai sometimes adds -bai, sister, to the god’s name. “Vithalabai.” As though he’s a girlfriend.
Eknath (1533—1599) At a time when Brahmans avoided the shadows and even the voices of untouchables, the scholar and poet Eknath showed respect and sought their company. “Every soul you encounter is god,” says one of his songs. Poetry of the earlier Varkaris had mostly disappeared over the two previous centuries, due to continual raids by Muslim armies. Eknath became obsessed with Jñandev and located the poet’s tomb, proving to a dispirited Marathi people that Jñandev was no legend but a figure of national pride. He labored for years to restore Jñandev’s writings. Then, following his hero, Eknath chose his own death-illumination, jal samādhi, submerging himself in the Godavari River.
Tukaram (1608—1650) The best-known poet of the Varkaris. Little about Tuka’s life can be verified, but the circulating stories show how deep he sits in popular imagination. Since he was born a śudra, at the bottom of the caste hierarchy, no one should expect much documented biography, though.
Despite his low birth, the stories show Tuka as a prosperous, civic-minded, properly devout businessman. He may have inherited family property, and held a sizable estate, with enough land to build a temple. This Rotary Club life changed when Namdev and Eknath—two predecessors, dead centuries before Tuka was born—visited him in a dream. In the dream Namdev assigned Tuka a large number of devotional poems to write—to help with the billion Namdev himself had pledged to Vithoba three hundred years earlier. From that point on Tuka had only one desire: to praise his god in poetry. To complete the assignment—and out of spiritual convictions that left little room for commercial dealings or family affairs—Tukaram let
his shop, his business, and his family estate fall into disrepair. A few poems laced with grim, self-effacing humor show him parrying with his wife. Tuka can sound victimized by his devotion, beginning with the dream in which Namdev commands him to write poems.
That Tukaram would write religious poems, and do it in Marathi, not Sanskrit, outraged the Brahmans, who thought no śudra should even speak on religious matters. Dilip Chitre writes, “He was eventually forced to throw his manuscripts into the local Indrayani River at Dehu, his native village, and was presumably told by his mocking detractors that if indeed he were a true devotee of God, then God would restore his sunken notebooks.” Tukaram sat by the riverside, praying and fasting; thirteen days later his notebooks of poetry surfaced, undamaged by water. The notebooks were conserved in a nearby temple.
Not long after his poetry came back, Tuka disappeared. A few late poems take the form of last words of counsel to friends or followers, written before he walked out of town and vanished into the unknown. He seems to have disappeared without trace. Whispers and rumors go around, though: What if Tuka did not set out on pilgrimage? What if hostile religious officers did away with him?
: AKHO (AKHA BHAGAT)
(1591—1656)
Turban tilted rakishly
to hide the bald spot,
but how will that mask
the emptiness in your heart?
Such dandy twirled whiskers,
such fancy tripping speech!
Fool, Death tomorrow
thumps on a slackened drum.
Your charade goes poof,
a miserable fart.
Akha says: Rotted doors
fall apart.
:GP
His acquaintance with Hari—nil!
But he sits decked in ochre,
guru’s garb pulled out
from some bag of tricks.
As snake goes visiting fellow reptile’s den,
disciples saunter in
to exchange a lick on the mouth with him,
before they slither homeward again.
There are too many such gurus in the world!
Small chance, says Akha,
they give you a hand
to reach you across.
:GP
Where the creature is
there is the Creator,
but you wander elsewhere,
search in faraway places.
The first false step, says Akha,
was that you forgot
to look within.
So you forgot.
Go then, study
with a saint. What’s gained
by shows of piety:
one day all whiskers and beard,
the next day tonsured, sheared?
:GP
The Dude! Bathed, scrubbed,
perfumed, tucking in
eats till he bloats
stud size.
Battening on
each pleasure on earth,
a germ of Maya sits crouching
in that bulk.
That carcass
believes Maya to be his friend.
Maya will chew him down
to his entrails.
:GP
Akho
AKHA BHAGAT, affectionately called Akho, lived in what is today Gujarat State. Born in 1591 in the village of Jetalpur, he moved nearby, to the city of Ahmedabad. A goldsmith by caste and profession—considered low-caste and magically impure due to contact with chemicals—his reputation rests on his six-line chhappas or poem-sayings. In them he savages the caste system, calls out religious hypocrisy where he sees it, and displays intense revulsion for religious rituals used to exclude the poor or the vulnerable. Available facts about his life are scant. He suffered the deaths of both parents, his only sister, and two wives, which may mark his poetry with a dark outlook. Portraits show a turbaned figure with huge moustache falling over a grim mouth, a prominent ring in his ear, and a demeanor seasoned with hard thought. He wrote perhaps 746 terse, pointed chhappas, along with a number of longer philosophical poems. Based on his work, it is evident he had a hunger for learning; his poetry shows knowledge of Hindu scripture, astrology, astronomy, medicine, music, sculpture, and agriculture. He was informed about the properties of minerals and plants and the habits of birds and animals, and he distinguishes auspicious from inauspicious days based on astrological calculation.
Akho died in 1656. The quarters he held in Ahmedabad, popularly known as Akha no Ordo or Akha’s Room, became over the years a pilgrim destination. In 2005 a historical organization of Ahmedabad restored them, setting a bronze likeness of him in the courtyard. The city’s 2012 Heritage Festival honors Akho prominently on its website; yet this principal literary figure of Gujarat remains virtually unknown to those who do not speak Gujarati. This is ironic: Gujarat State has sixty million citizens—a population larger than the country of England.
: KABIR
(1398—1448)
Certain Poems of Kabir
From the English versions of Kali Mohan Ghose
I
The spring season is approaching,
Who will help me meeting with my dearest?
How shall I describe the beauty of the dearest,
Who is immersed in all beauties?
That color colors all the pictures of this universe,
Body and mind alike
Forget all things else in that beauty.
He who has these ideas,
The play of the spring is his.
This is the word which is unutterable.
Saith Kabir: There are very few who know this mystery.
II
My beloved is awakened, how can I sleep?
Day and night he is calling me,
And instead of responding to his call
I am like an unchaste girl, living with another.
Saith Kabir: O clever confidant,
The meeting with the dearest is not possible without love.
III
The scar aches day and night.
Sleep is not come.
Anxious for meeting with the dearest,
The father’s house is not attractive at all.
The sky-gate opens,
The temple is manifested,
There now is the meeting with the husband.
I make oblation of my mind and body:
To the dearest the cup of the dearest!
Let flow the quick shower of rain from your eyes.
Cover your heart
With the intense deep blue
Assembling of the cloud.
Come near to the ear of the dearest,
Whisper to him your pain.
Saith Kabir: Here bring the meditation of the dearest,
Today’s treasure of the heart.
IV
It is true, I am mad with love. And what to me
Is carefulness or uncarefulness?
Who, dying, wandering in the wilderness,
Who is separated from the dearest?
My dearest is within me, what do I care?
The beloved is not asundered from me,
No, not for the veriest moment.
And I also am not asundered from him.
My love clings to him only,
Where is restlessness in me?
Oh my mind dances with joy,
Dances like a mad fool.
The raginis of love are being played day and night,
All are listening to that measure.
Rahu, the eclipse, Ketu, the Head of the Dragon,
And the nine planets are dancing,
And birth and death are dancing, mad with Ananda.
The mountain, the sea and the earth are dancing,
The Great Adornment is dancing with laughter and tears and smiles.
Why are you leaving “the world,”
You wit
h the tilak-mark on your forehead?
While my mind is a-dancing through the thousand stages of its moon,
And the Lord of all his creation has found it acceptable dancing.
V
O deserted bride,
How will you live in the absence of your beloved,
Without hunger in the day,
Sleepless in the night watches,
And every watch felt as if
It were the aeon of Kaliyuga?
The beautiful has deserted you in the full passion of his April.
Alas the fair is departed!
O Thou deserted,
Now begin to give up your house and your having.
Go forth to the lodge of the forest,
Begin to consider his name.
And if there he shall come upon you,
Then alone will you be come to your joy.
Eager as the caught fish for its water,
Be thou so eager to return!
Shapeless, formless and without line,
Who will be come to meet you,
O beautiful lady?
Take recognizance of your own wed Lord,
Behold him out of the center of your meditations,
Strip off the last of your errors,
And know that Love is your lord.
Saith Kabir: There is no second. Aeon
After aeon
Thou and I are the same.
VI
Very difficult is the meeting with him,
How shall I be made one with my beloved?
After long consideration and after caution
I put my feet on the way, but every time
They have trembled and slipped aside.
The slippery path leads upward and the feet cannot hold to it.
The mind is taken in shyness,
For fear of the crowd
And out of respect to the family.
Oh where is my far beloved?
And I in the family dwelling!
And I can not escape my shyness!
VII
How shall it be severed,
This love between thee and me?
Thou art lord, and I servant,
As the lotus is servant of water.
Love and The Turning Seasons Page 6