Sant Jñāneśvar
13th century · Āḷandī, Maharashtra · Vārkarī
Jñāneśvar (Jñānadev) is the founding light of the Vārkarī tradition of Maharashtra. His father had returned to family life after taking sannyāsa, so the children — Nivṛttināth, Jñāneśvar, Sopān and Muktābāī — were shunned by the orthodox. Undaunted, the young Jñāneśvar, in his teens, wrote the Jñāneśvarī (Bhāvārthadīpikā), a luminous Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā, bringing its wisdom to ordinary people in their own language.
He also wrote the Amṛtānubhava and the Haripāṭh. Still a young man, he entered samādhi at Āḷandī, which remains one of Maharashtra’s great places of pilgrimage.
Tradition says that at Paiṭhaṇ, when learned men mocked the outcast children, Jñāneśvar placed his hand on a buffalo and it recited the Vedas — showing that the same Self dwells in all. Another story tells that when the proud yogī Cāṅgdev rode to meet him on a tiger, Jñāneśvar and his siblings rode out on the wall they were sitting on.
13th century · Jñāneśvarī · Āḷandī · Vārkarī