Octavio Paz was born in 1914 in Mexico City. On his father's side, his grandfather was a prominent liberal intellectual and one of the first authors to write a novel with an expressly Indian theme. Recipient of Nobel Prize for Literarture(1990), Paz was appointed Mexican ambassador to India in 1962 : an important moment in both the poet's life and work, as witnessed in various books written during his stay in India. Paz was a poet and an essayist. His poetic corpus was nourished by the belief that poetry constitutes "the secret religion of the modern age." Eliot Weinberger has written that, for Paz, "the revolution of the word is the revolution of the world, and that both cannot exist without the revolution of the body : life as art, a return to the mythic lost unity of thought and body, man and nature, I and the other." His is a poetry written within the perpetual motion and transparencies of the eternal present tense.

Excerpts from In Light of India

The philosophical antecedent of Sufism, its origin, is the Spaniard Ibn 'Arabi(1165-1240) who taught the union with God through all His creations. The affinities of Ibn 'Arabi with Neoplatonism are only one aspect of his powerful thought. Love opens the eyes to understanding, and the world of appearances i.e. this world is transformed into a world of apparitions; everything that we touch and see is divine. This synthesis of pantheism and monotheism, of belief in the divinity of the creation (the world) and belief in a creator God, was the basis, centuries later, of the thought of such great mystic poets of India as Tukaram and Kabir.

A revealing fact : all these mystic poets wrote and sang in the vernacular languages, not in Sanskrit, Persian or Arabic. Tukaram(1609-1650), who wrote in Marathi, was a Hindu poet who was unafraid to refer to Islam in terms such as these: "The first among the great names is that of Allah....".But he immediately affirms his pantheism : "You are in the One.... In [the vision of the One] there is no I or you....". During the period of the decline of the Mughal Empire, from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, the coexistence of Hindus and Muslims had become a less a matter of entrenched opposition as it was under Aurangzeb, but it never reached a state of reconciliation.

There were political and military pacts between Hindu and Muslim leaders, all of them provisional and dictated by circumstances; but there were no movements of religious or cultural fusion such as those under Akbar or, at the other extreme, of a Kabir or a Tukaram.

March 4,1999, is a very special day for all Marathi speakers. It is the 350th Tukaram Beej. The first Tukaram Beej was the second day of the lunar fortnight of the waning moon in the Hindu calendar in 1650 AD. On the forenoon of this day, the greatest Marathi poet ever, performed his last kirtan and simply vanished. The Varkaris who regularly go on a pilgrimage to the sacred town of Pandharpur to celebrate the biennial festivals of their parent deity Pandurang, - believe that at the climax of his last kirtan, Tukaram bodily ascended to Vaikunth (Vishnu’s heavenly abode).

Cinematic Classic

There are alternative hypotheses about Tukaram’s disappearance. One of them is that by some supernatural, paranormal force, Tukaram’s physical presence just disintegrated, even as his fading voice kept ringing in the ears of rapt audience. This by no means is a rationally convincing explanation. It only shifts the miracle from the realm of divine to that of the occult.

As a contemporary English translator of Tukaram’s poetry and as a Marathi critic interpreter of the great poet, I have faced this mystery in my book Punha Tukaram (Once More Tukaram; Pune, 1900;Mumbai, 1995). My answer follows my deconstruction of a group of poems by Tukaram that I read as the poet’s farewell to his friends and followers that may have been part of the text of his last kirtan. I imagine Tukaram leaving his audience rapturously singing the refrain of his last abhang or perhaps the Varkari chant Jai,Jai,Rama-Krishna-Hari or Pundalika Varada Hari Vithala. He had already told them in both literal and metamorphical terms that he was leaving worldly life for his final destination and that he had company ‘upto Varanasi’.

In the 1937 cinematic classic Sant Tukaram that was adjudged one of the three best films in the world made that year, the very final scene in the great mythical eagle Garuda , Lord Vishnu’s personal vehicle ,descending towards the bank of the river Indrayani at Dehu, Tukaram’s native village, flapping its powerful wings. In their time, the duo of directors at Pune’s Prabhat Studio - Vishnupant Damle and S. Fatttehlal- were the Indian film industry’s equivalent of George Lucas and Speilberg. The trick photography scene of Tukaram’s ascension to Vaikunth even by its naiveté appeals to western cinema buffs. I had the privilege of presenting Sant Tukaram to a German group of film enthusiasts in Berlin in the spring of 1992.They were moved by the authentic folk-tradition transformed into an absorbing work of cinematic art. There was applause for the late duo of directors at the end of screenings.

The debate of Tukaram’s intriguing disappearance 349 years ago has taken an unfortunate sensational twist in this, his 350th anniversary year, thanks to a new film based on scholar A.H.Salunkhe’s recent book Vidrohi Tukaram (Tukaram the Rebel) announced by Nilu Phule. Nilu Phule is unanimously acknowledged as an outstanding stage and screen actor and a director with a ‘purposive agenda’. Salunkhe’s book revives a 50 year old sensational hypothesis that Tukaram was assassinated by his Brahmin detractors who themselves spread the canard about his bodily ascension to Vaikunth as a cover-up operation. This is not really a hypothesis for it is simply not verifiable. For that matter, every explanation of Tukaram’s disappearance, including my own, is beyond testing. There is no contemporary eyewitness account of this event.

Murder ‘Theory’

The murder ‘theory’ may make a very dramatic script. Many screenwriters love this kind of stuff, especially about a historical figure who has become an icon for his cultural descendants. Just as a scoop is dream stuff for a journalist looking for a short cut to the top, to a filmmaker such controversial material is a box-office bet worth taking. However I do not think Phule is the kind of filmmaker to whom financial success is welcome at any cost. As for Salukhe I have no intention of casting aspersions on his intentions either. However, I am tempted to examine his logic and would love to shred it to pieces. But that job has already been done, and brilliantly too, by a direct descendant of Tukaram himself - Dr. Sadanand More, this year’s Sahitya Akademi Award winning Marathi author. Incidentally, the book for which Dr. More won the award is Tukaram Darshan gives a comprehensive historical review of how Maharashtra has received Tukaram so far. It uses Tukaram as a mirror of Marathi culture and society .

Dr. More has published a very comprehensive refutation of the theory of Tukaram’s murder by Brahmins in an article carried by Maharashtra Times ( 28th February, Sunday). He has rightly pointed out how this theory would hurt the feelings of devout Varkaris. However, it must be said to the credit of Varkaris that they are liberal enough not to ask for a ban on what they do not agree with. This is unlike the Mahanubhavs, another Hindu religious sect, which has succeeded in getting banned the late V. B. Kolte’s critically researched and comprehensively annotated edition of the 13th century classic of Marathi prose Lilacharitra. So I consider it extremely unlikely that Varkaris will react to any depiction of Tukaram’s murder by Brahmins the way Ayatollah Khomeini did to Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.

Saintly Person

The Varkaris are mild and tolerant and there is ample textual evidence to show that Salunkhe’s Tukaram the Rebel was no one-dimensional social reformer or rabble-rousing critic of the Brahmins as a caste. Tukaram transcended communalism to include even Muslims among Vaishnavas and Sants and he wrote poetry in Dakhani Urdu in which Allah replaces his beloved deity, Pandurang. It is difficult to visualize such a saintly person hating an entire caste or community for any reasons. As Dr. More points out, half of the famous 14 accompanists of Tukaram in his legendary kirtan performances were themselves Brahmin. Tukaram’s most famous disciple was the poetess Bahinabai; and she, too, was a Brahmin.

The fact of the matter is: Tukaram’s poetry is as great a miracle as his life and his deeds that have now become part of the living folk tradition whose hidden significance has often eluded scholars and historians, literary critics as well as cultural commentators. He is quite simply the greatest missing person in the history of Marathi literature.

The Times Of India, Mumbai. 5th March (Friday), 1999.

“You cannot split the Earth by drawing boundaries on it.” - Tukaram

1. We live on a planet that supports life and look for other planets that support life, anywhere in reachable space, in imaginable terms. We try to imagine another Earth and another mirror of life. For, supporting our life, the Earth becomes the very foundation of our awareness, the source of our being.

2. Our knowledge of ourselves cannot surpass our knowledge of the Earth, of which we are a mere detail. Richly detailed by life, the Earth may be conceived as an evolving art form and this, I suppose, is Tukaram’s perception. However interconnected above or beyond the Earth, all the forms of life that spring from the Earth share it as their origin and their heritage.

3. James Lovelock’s famous and controversial Gaia Hypothesis has now been around for more than four decades. Simply stated, it proposes that the Earth is alive. Lovelock being an atmospheric chemist---and not a poet, an artist, a mystic, or a philosopher---his hypothesis could not go unnoticed by his scientist colleagues. As in every field of human endeavour, in science too there is a powerful orthodoxy that attempts to control its own domain from what seems heretical and politically dangerous. Once upon a time, the Church controlled science. The position was nearly reversed in a matter of just three centuries. Today, scientists call their colleagues who challenge the status quo heretics much in the same way the Church once did.

4. Tukaram was a 17th century Marathi poet and arguably the greatest poet in the tradition of Marathi Bhakti poetry founded in the philosophy of the 13th century poet and thinker Jnandev. As a modern translator of Tukaram and other Marathi poet-bhaktas, I have come to believe that their world-view is relevant to our own time as well, and in large measure this is because their faith is rooted in the Earth as a spiritual entity.

5. The Varkaris are pilgrims vowed to visiting the sacred city of Pandharpur on fixed days in the Hindu lunar calendar: the eleventh day of the bright fortnight in the months of Ashadh and Kartik are the days on which they visit the temple of Vitthal or Pandurang, their deip. It is on this day that Vitthal, leaving his legendary abode in Vaikuntha (the residence of Lord Vishnu), visited Pandharpur to meet Pundalik, his devotee; and dazzled by the devotion of Pundalik to his this-worldly obligations, decided to stay on in Pandharpur forever. The story is that when Pandurang came to Pundalik’s door, the latter was engaged in massaging the feet of his aged parents. He motioned Pandurang to stand on a ‘brick’---a stone slab really---while he finished serving his parents. The priority Pundalik gave his parents over his deity impressed Pandurang, the deity. The devotion or ‘bhakti’ of Pundalik becomes the symbol of ‘earthly engagement’ for the Varkari. It is the cornerstone of his faith in human life and its eternal cycle of sowing seeds, raising a crop, harvesting the crop, and thanking the Lord for governing this entire process. The Varkari is the farmer worshipping the Earth. He seeks the blessing of Pandurang in Ashadh, when the monsoon rains arrive, for a bountiful crop; and in the autumn month of Kartik he thanks his Lord.This is the earthly version of the cosmic and cyclic process of creation, preservation, and dissolution. It is the expression of faith in life and its meaning in folk terms.

6. The Vari or the periodic pilgrimage to Pandharpur---is a living tradition of Maharashtra. About half-a-million people participate in it. A unique feature of this pilgrimage is taking the palanquins of ‘sants’ or great devotees of Pandurang to Pandharpur. The youngest son of Tukaram, Narayan, who was born after his father had passed away, started this practice. Narayan placed the sandals (paduka) of his father and carried them from Dehu, his native village, to Pandharpur.Narayan was thoughtful enough to carry the symbolic sandals of Jnandev from Alandi in the same palanquin. As they march on foot to Pandharpur, Varkaris chant “Gyanba-Tukaram” or “Jnandev-Tukaram” all the way, as though they were physically carrying their beloved saints to Pandharpur with them. Today, the palanquin of Jnandev leaving from Alandi and the palanquin leaving from Dehu are separate. But “Gyanba-Tukaram” remains the common and universal Varkari chant.

7. Although all Varkari poet-Bhaktas sing songs that praise the Lord--- Vitthal/Pandurang ---and visualise Him as Vishnu or Krishna in their act of poetic remembrance and verbal expression, their deity dwells only metaphorically in Vaikunth or ‘heaven’. Pandurang, for them, is the cosmic spirit that is present simultaneously within all space and time, and also beyond. He is both Vishnu and Shiva and, according to Jnanadev, the two forms cohere just as Shiva and Shakti cohere to create a cosmic creative resonance. In his interpretation of Shaivism, Shiva or Absolute Being and Shakti, the curiosity, capacity, and will to create many forms to express oneself are indivisible or Advaya. The phenomenal world is not unreal just because it changes; it is not Maya or illusion. It is real. Change is reality, though temporal. It is the expression of the creative, dynamic spirit of the Creator. Since human awareness of existence in relation to the constant spirit of the Creator reflected in changing forms to express its creativity, the Creator within every human bhakta shares the spirit of God. The Bhakta is the Shakti of God reflected in a finite form, an earth-bound creature resonating with the cosmic spirit. God may be in heaven, but His feet are rooted in the Earth at Pandharpur where, as Vitthal, he dwells waiting for His Bhaktas ever since the bhakti of Pundalik entranced Him.

8. For the last eight centuries or more, Varkaris have greeted heaven’s descent on Earth in the form of the arrival of the monsoon to renew the life-cycle of the Earth. At the beginning of the sowing and planting season, they make a pilgrimage to Pandharpur, the earthly dwelling-place of the Cosmic Parents---the male-female spirit of the universe. After reaping their harvest, they return to Pandharpur to celebrate it.

They find their God in the Earth and its ecology and their faith in the coherence of the cosmic spirit in its resonant relationship with life on the Earth.

Style in the Expression of the Warkari Movement in Maharashtra

BHALCHANDRA NEMADE

Bhalachandra Nemade, a leading Marathi novelist, poet and literary critic, was born in the Maharashtra village of Sangavi in 1938. With a Ph. D. and D. Litt. from the North Maharashtra University, he taught in many places retiring from Gurudev Tagore Chair of Comparative Literature at the University of Mumbai.

His first novel, Kosala, established the modernist trend in Marathi literature and is considered a modern classic. This was followed by other novels and poetry, which gave him eminence among contemporary Marathi writers. Tikasvayavara, a highly acclaimed body of literary criticism, won him the Sahitya Academy Award in 1990. His works display a deep understanding of Marathi culture and depict the indigenous lifestyle of the Maharashtra region.

I

If we may assume that the bhakti movement is the most significant creative upsurge of the Indian mind during the present millennium , no student of literary culture can ignore the unique techniques of expression developed within the Warkari Movement in Maharashtra .The creative influence of this movement has been felt in a variety of forms by several social and political revolts in the Indian subcontinent from Shivaji's rebellion in the seventeenth century to Gandhi's in the twentieth .In Maharashtra , to which the present study is confined , the movement has an unbroken tradition which can be traced back to the thirteenth century on the eve of the Muslim invasion of the kingdom of Deogiri. Throughout these centuries there has hardly been a period of any considerable length when the Marathi - speaking people of India can be said to have enjoyed peace and prosperity .Until the rise of the Maratha kingdom in the middle of the seventeenth century , society passed through '' trying times '' under often fanatical Muslim governments . That the Warkari movement , mostly led and sustained by the underprivileged classes should arise in this time of national catastrophe and , despite hostile conditions , develop quietly into the most influential mass movement of rural Maharashtra , is the triumphant result of the broad - based , autonomous and unique style that it generated within itself .

Perhaps a brief comparison with another major movement , that of the Mahanubhavas , which was influential predominantly in thirteenth century Maharashtra , would make the unique stylistic contribution of the Warkaris more clear . The Mahanubhava movement(1) was a Hindu monastic cult founded by Chakradhar (1194 - 1276 ) and it too was supported by the underprivileged classes , although their leaders were mainly learned Brahmans . The cult preached radical values laid down by Chakradhar principally equality and brotherhood . It disregarded the Vedas , attacked Brahmanism , worshipped only one God Krishna and prohibited worship of any other god , and offered equal status to women and shudras .After Chakradhar was killed in 1276 as a result of the hatred he had aroused in the arrogant supporters of Brahman orthodoxy , the Mahanubhavas , unlike the Warkaris , failed to improve upon their techniques of expression in order to cope with the changing political situation .For example , their tendency to favour written as against oral culture increase their dependence on bookish philosophy and textual criticism .Their wearing of conspicuous black dress and their secretive monastic activities alienated them from the common people .Their leadership , unlike that of the Warkaris , came from the top instead of from the grass roots .Their monastic establishments , free association with women and shudras ,their anti - Brahman philosophy and adoption out of fear of several esoteric scripts - all these characteristics made them ineffective in the successive waves of fanaticism and orthodoxy .Soon , therefore , this cult which once was so influential , so revolutionary and so creative in its literature , turned into a pale reflection of itself and by the end of the sixteenth century it had become an object of ridicule within Maharashtra at large .The Mahanubhavas prose works which were created in the thirteenth century have great stylistic merit , but being written they soon became obsolete until in the twentieth century the cult began to show signs of revival .

Work in progess.

No one to this day has satisfactorily solved all the questions that crop up in regard to Tukaram’s poetry- questions, for instance, as to what was the total number of Abhangs that he wrote, how many of them are available at present, whether some of the Abhangs that bear the name of Tuka are not really the work of some other person of that name, and so on.

Most biographers seem to believe that the four thousand and a half Abhangs that are found published in a volume called the ‘Traditional Collection’ are all that Tukaram ever wrote, and that everything else must be taken to be spurious! Evidently it has never struck these people that a rapid versifier who could even talk in verse at all times of the day, could have produced no more than such a small quantity during his long career of thirty to forty years. Of course, if all the manuscripts, whether written by Tukaram himself or by his disciples during his life-time, were available today, the question about the quantity would never arise at all. But even as it is, what we know already about Tukaram’s compositions is enough to prove that he must have composed more Abhangs than are to be found in the ‘Traditional Collection’. One of the fourteen cymbal-players of Tukaram, Santaji Teli Jagnade, wrote down several Abhangs of Tukaram; these have been preserved by Santaji’s descendants; and out of them, 1,200 were published without the slightest change, in book form, by the late Mr. V. L. Bhave. These latter contain a large number which are not to be found in the ‘Traditional Collection’ at all! This in itself is sufficient to indicate that Tukaram must have composed a great deal more than four thousand and a half Abhangs.

In 1889 A.D. the late Mr. Tukaram Tatya Padwal, having, with the most commendable zeal and devotion instituted a search from village to village, published a volume containing 8,441 Abhangs, i.e. about four thousand more than those given in the ‘Traditional Collection’, bearing the name ‘Tuka’. Not all of these new ones, however, belong to Tukaram proper, a remark that is equally true of the old collection, for there were other ‘Tukas’ such as Tuka Brahmanand of Satara, a contemporary of the great saint. Again some of the Abhangs, wrongly supposed to bear the name ‘Tuka’ really bear the expression ‘Tukaya Bandhu’, meaning ‘Tuka’s Brother’, a title used for his own Abhangs by the great Tukaram’s brother Kanhoba. In spite of this, however, there still remain hundreds of genuine Abhangs of Tukaram, scattered all over Maharashtra waiting to see the light of day.

The present form of the language of Tukaram’s poetry does not appear to be the original one. The form of the language therein differs considerably from that of the Abhangs printed in the traditional collection, but is the same as that found in the manuscripts written by Tukaram’s cymbal-player Santaji Teli Jagnade. In this original form, the words are not split up, but run into each other; the dental ‘I’ appears through out as lingual ‘I’. The end of the Abhang quarter is marked not by a vertical line, but by a couple of vertical, dots; and finally, not much attention is given to the distinction of short and long vowels. In short, Tukaram himself wrote in his rustic fashion, but, later on Rameshwar Bhatt or some other disciple of Tukaram must have given it the form that is found in the ‘traditional collection’.

The popularity of Tukaram’s poetry has never abated in the least to this day, no bhajan possible without it, and there can be no kirtan but must begin with it and end with it-with the Abhang “Grant just this, 0 Lord !”.Several lines of his have become household words! No other Marathi poet, medieval or modern, has ever had such universal allegiance. Even the British Government in India did him the unique honour of publishing his works officially. The Bombay Government more than sixty years ago, spent Rs. 24,000 in getting a compilation of Tukaram’s Abhangs edited by the Late Mr. Shankar Pandurang Pandit. This was the first authoritative collection of Tukaram’s Abhangs. Before that, the late Mr. Madhav Chandroba Dukle had a considerable number of them lithographed and published through his periodical Sarva-Sangraha(‘the All embracing Collection’).

Since the Government compilation, there have appeared about twenty-five editions of Tukaram’s Abhangs during the last sixty years published by various publishers, the total number of their copies amounting to well-nigh a hundred thousand. Most of these, however, are mere reprints of other collections. The late Mr. Fraser of the Indian Education Department, and the late Mr. Marathe .of the Bombay Judicial Service jointly published an English translation of a number of Abhangs through the Christian Literature Society. A few Abhangs have been rendered into modern Marathi prose by the ‘Tukaram Society’ of Poona. The late Vishnu-buwa Jog of Poona, at prominent Varkari, published a collection also, with a modern Marathi prose rendering. ‘A necklace of the Abhang jewels of Tukaram’ by the late Mr. Shantaram Anant Desai, Professor of Philosophy at the Holkar College, lndore, deserves perusal. An excellent essay, not now available, was written by the late Mr. Balkrishna Malhar Hans, a man of great critical acumen. The late Mr. D. G. Vaidya, Editor of the Prarthana Samaj’s official weekly organ Subodh Patrika, used to publish in that paper, from time to time, a fine dissertation on some of the Abhangs. These dissertations he afterwards collected and reprinted in the volume of his writings published a few years ago.

To review and assess the worth of the poetry of Tukaram would be the height of presumption for any but his compeers like Jnanadev, Namdev, Ekanath, and other saints. The poetry having bubbled forth from the deepest recesses of the saint’s heart cannot be easily valued by an ordinary mortal. The saint’s expression of his ideas is unsparingly outspoken, yet overflowing with love. One critic may regard the language used in certain places as ‘harsh’, another may point to his outspokenness in certain places as ‘indecent’, a third may object that certain words he has used are ‘vulgar’. But these critics must never lose sight of the all-important fact that the mental attitude of the saint in respect of every single word uttered or written by him was one that was described in the words:

“Drowning themselves are these folk - I cannot bear the sight!”

Just as a father, in his anxiety for the welfare of his son, would cajole or threaten or even beat him on occasions, all with a view to bringing him to his senses, even so Tukaram, with his heart pining for the welfare of humanity, used different language to suit different situations, all with a view to bringing mankind to its senses. True it is that on occasions he has made use of some ‘vulgar’ words, but that is partly because he was living in a village and his language is a reflection of the village life of his day. When even such, avowed scholar-poets as Mukteshwar, Vaman and Moropant could not avoid an occasional use of an indecent word, what wonder if Tukaram used a few? “In the heat of sermonizing,” says the late Mr. N. C. Kelkar, in his critical essay on ‘The Problem of Obscene Literature’, “when the preacher forgets himself in his talk, it is possible that the excited state of his mind may let slip an unapproved or jarring word from his lips; but the sense of sacredness there, both of the man and his subject, is so strong that it completely overpowers the sentiment of indecency! But the preacher can have this benefit only in proportion to his status”. Tukaram’s spiritual status was undoubtedly high; so the sentiment of obscenity was entirely absent.

As literature, Tukaram’s poetry is wholly spiritual and introspective and can well be compared and contrasted with the poetry it bears the closest resemblance. The poetical merit of Jnanadev’s work, especially in respect of the Jnaneshwari, is very high, its language also is highly ‘urbane’, that is to say, courteous and elegant. Even when he wants to thrash, Jnanadev does so with a silken string of delicate words, so that the lashes, far from causing smarting pain, only produce a tickling sensation. Not so Tukaram. He has, as it were, a leather strap ready to lay on the backs of people. This difference was natural in away, for while Jnanadev was primarily an author, Tukaram was an out and out preacher, admonishing people face to face! The case of Ekanath was rather different. He was both an author and a preacher, and his language in his moral poems is not as gentle as in his other works. Tukaram’s poetry, however, has one important peculiarity : when it comes to the invoking of Shri Pandurang, its harshness disappears, and it is all a smooth-flowing stream of sweetness and love! Tukaram, on occasions, did not dare to ‘quarrel’ with Pandurang Himself, but the words that he uses there are so ingenious that they were calculated to provoke in the Deity not anger but only a smile! Tukaram’s similes are very expressive and sweet. His language, though somewhat rustic, is both striking and effective. It is apparently very simple, but the meaning of some of the Abhangs is not easy to grasp. The variety of abhangs adds to the difficulty still further.

Tukaram firmly believed that his verse was not his own, that his mouth was merely a vehicle for Shri Pandurang’s utterance. He has expressed this sentiment in several of his Abhangs, but nowhere as beautifully as in the following:

The power of speech is not one’s own;

God’s the friend-the speech is His!

What is a maina to sing sweet tunes!

Else is the Master who makes it sing!

Who, poor me, to speak wise words?

It is that World’s supporter has made me speak.

Who, says Tuka, His art can guage?

He even makes the lame walk without legs!

Tukaram’s Abhangs, barring a few incidental ones, can be roughly classified under the following topics:-

1. The Puranas (Mythology);

2. Lives of Saints;

3. Panegyric of Shri Pandurang;

4. Laudatory description of Pandharpur;

5. Autobiography and self-scrutiny;

6. Moral instruction;

7. Personal explanation;

8. Miscellaneous;

9. In defence of his Religious Principles and

10. Bharud (Mixed).

Besides the Abhangs, Tukaram has a considerable quantity of other verse in a variety of forms, such as Shlok, Arati and Gaulani. He has some verse in Hindi also.

The essence of Tukaram’s teaching is “Repeat Hari’s Name”. Along with this, however, he gives an important warning that “Whosoever takes the matra (a strong medicine administered in minute particles) of Vithal, must observe the dietary”. And it is the dietary viz. good conduct, kindness to all living creatures, non-killing, beneficence, acknowledgment of Universal God, etc. that is all in all. Without that dietary the matra can never prove effective, warns Tukaram.

Tukaram lays great stress on pilgrimage to Pandharpur and worship of Pandurang, yet that is not the essence of his teaching. That essence is embodied in such Abhangs as

“(Realizing) the immanence of Vishnu is the religion of Vishnu’s devotees. ...”

“ The secret of the Almighty’s worship is not to bear ill-will towards any living being. ...”

“ The saint is he who befriends the wearied and oppressed: in the company of such saints God resides. ...”

“ Wherever dwells peace, God’s company is there. ...” etc.

His sense of oneness is not limited to mankind, but is wide enough to embrace the whole living and sentient world, as is evidenced by the use of the word ‘being’, instead of ‘man’ in the first of these Abhangs.

Though Tukaram was not a great scholar like Jnanadev, Ekanath, Vaman and others, his reading of books and observation of men and things was, for his time, considerable indeed, as shown by his writings. His formal education had never gone beyond reading and writing; yet, once his mind had turned towards spiritual life, he made large additions to his knowledge by reading several Marathi works on Puranas and philosophy, by getting a number of Sanskrit books explained to him, and by attending performances of kirtan and reading of Puranas. The Jnaneshwari and the Bhagwat of Ekanath formed the solid basis of his poetry. The profundity of his knowledge of the world and of human nature can easily be gauged from the hundreds of topics that he has dealt with, as occasion demanded, in his Abhangs. They give a good deal of information regarding the state of society, religion and country prevailing at the time.

Even as mere poetical compositions, his Abhangs rank high. He never made any conscious attempt at composing in strict conformity with the canons of the science of poetics. But his feelings were so powerful that verses composed by him under their influence would automatically become the highest kind of genuine poetry.

G. P. Deshpande, Marathi playwright, was born in 1938 in Nasik, Maharashtra. He received the Maharashtra State Award for his collective work in 1977, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for playwriting in 1996. Prof. Deshpande is known for advocating strong, progressive values not only through

his academic writings but also through his creative work. His plays especially reflect upon the decline of progressive values in contemporary life. Having specialized in Chinese studies, he was head of the the Centre of East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The Library of Congress has acquired twelve of his books including a few on Chinese foreign policy. Some of his works have been translated into English.

Anandowari Revisited

In a remarkable piece of polemic Maharshi Viththal Ramji Shinde (1873-1944), an early twentieth century thinker and political and social activist, summed up the state of Marathi letters thus : Marathi language (and literature) was alive (and prosperous) from Jnandadev (1275-1296) to Tukaram (1609-1650). (From the 13th to the 17th century that is). He then went on to list the people responsible for its decline that followed. He has actually held them responsible for ‘strangling’ the Marathi language! His detailed list of culprits responsible for such a heinous act against the genuine creative urges of Marathi and of course, innocents among the Marathi authors is not important for our argument. The fact is that there was something that the colonial period did to our creativity which resulted into a crisis of the arts especially of literature. I do not think that it is in the main due to our moving away from nativism. More likely it was due to the general colonial tendency to trace the cultural crisis to our image of ourselves. The colonial logic generates an image of the conquered acceptable to the colonizers.

It is accepted wisdom that writing in Indian languages begins with poetry. Strangely Marathi is perhaps the only Indian language which can boast an antiquity for its prose writing that is as old as that of its poetry. The Mahanubhava prose writing dates back to the thirteenth century. Considered to be the first work in Marathi - Vivekasindhu (An ocean of thoughts) by Mukundaraj. But Mahanubhava writing is comparably ancient.

It is therefore not strange that Shinde, well versed in the literary tradition of Marathi took umbrage at the scant regard that the “modern” writing showed to this tradition or to its elegance and achievements. Small wonder then that Shinde rather ruthlessly attacked the literary mavericks as also the serious writers and nearly dismissed them from the hall of fame of the Marathi belle letters.

The pale romanticism that dominated the Marathi literature during the colonial period was made worse with the rise of a rather lifeless “new and standard” language during the colonial period. It was really in the post-independence period that the Marathi literature especially prose seemed to acquire a new life-line. The fifties through seventies of the last century suddenly saw a rise of newer and fresher forms of writing. Fiction came into its own. The famous and much celebrated authors of the new fiction were Gangadhar Gadgil (1923-2008), Arvind Gokhale (1919-1992) and others. At the same time traditional narrative forms also acquired a new strength and life. Vyankatesh Madgulkar (1927-2001) and Digamber Balkrishna Mokashi (1915-1981) were the principal exponents of the latter school. It is not modern or new in the sense Gadgil’s fiction was. It was in many ways an expression of modernized tradition. Its main thrust was to demonstrate that a simplified version of a movement from the dated and pre- industrial oriental tradition to a modernity of industrial and material world was the modern impulse. What authors like Mokashi and Madgulkar achieved was to rid the literary history of the linearity that the nineteenth century seemed to have straitjacketed it into.

Mokashi thus is a writer who along with Madgulkar gave a new lease of life to the world of Marathi letters. As quite often happens, Mokashi never got his due recognition. He remained an unsung hero of Marathi fiction His work Anand Owari is in many ways the statement of modernized tradition. This rendering of that work in dramatic mode is a tribute to Mokashi that has been due for a while. It is to be welcomed that the dramatic rendering is now available in a film. Vijay Tendulkar (1928-2008), easily the most celebrated of modern playwrights of India. He was also an admirer of Mokashi’s work. But that is not all. He has edited Mokashi’s work with a sensitivity that is new to Marathi literature.

The story that Mokashi narrates in this work is the quintessentially central point of debate in modern Marathi. What does one make of the Bhakti tradition of medieval literatures of India? Of course it has posed different problems in different language areas of India. In Marathi the debate has centred on the contradiction between Pravritti (initiative and action) and Nivritti (resignation and withdrawal) Mokashi in a sense relives that debate through Kanhoba, the younger brother of Tukaram, easily one of the greatest poets of Marathi ever. Kanhoba poses the tension between the mundane world of crass materiality and the spiritual or mystic renunciation of that world. Kanhoba emerges in this narrative Tukaram’s alter ego of sorts. In a sense this narrative rejects the modern day versions of the debate like the one of nationalist historian Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade (1863-1926) or a protagonist of the mystic (Mumukshu in Marathi) tradition like Laxman Ramchandra Pangarkar (1872 - 1941). This story establishes the dialectical nature of that engagement. Understandably the nationalist zeal of that debate can be easily dehistoricised and misunderstood today. Indeed that is happening today. But it appears that Mokashi’s Kanhoba is asking the same question more pointedly and poignantly.

Kishor Kadam as Kanhoba in the play Anand Owari

Like the questions of political power and its renunciation that Rajwade found relevant in his discussion of the Sant Kavis (the Bhakti poets of Marathi) Kanhoba in his grand soliloquy is posing the question if the materiality of the world and its mundane compulsion can be wished away at all. Kanhoba is caught in a trap of that mundane world and his beloved brother losing himself in his Bhakti and his Vithoba, the Lord standing akimbo at Pandharpur aptly described by Guy Deleury in his introduction to the French translation of selected poems of Tukaram ( Tukārāma: Psaumes du pèlerin [French] (UNESCO Collection of Representative Works) / Guy Deleury / Paris: Gallimard [France], 1956.), as the Jerusalem of the Marathas. Mokashi celebrates that.

Kanhoba lends poignancy to Mokashi’s work which sums up the dilemma that paradoxically has made Tukaram the most loved poet of Marathi. In the end there is no answer to Kanhoba’s predicament or the entanglement in the mundane world and the spiritual quest. He cannot resolve it the way his brother did or could. At times in Mokashi’s work, he seems to be uncertain if his brother really ever solved the dilemma. For Mokashi’s Kanhoba, the quest is not over nor is it ever likely to be over. His Parabrahma (supreme reality) is distinct and different from Tukaram’s.

Well, in short this is a major work and it should indeed be celebrated that at least an edited version is now available in English. For far too long has our discussion and appreciation of the Bhakti literature has got stuck in clichés. Kanhoba, Tukaram and Mokashi would get us out of the clichés. May be we shall discover the points of strength of modernized tradition and its literature. Let Anand Owari be a voyage of discovery of Kanhoba, and no less Mokashi.

Interestingly, the very beginning of the film seems to be fully employed in creating an ambience so the audience is immediately drawn. It is as if based on the assumption the audience is capable of being very still and attentive—meditative even The first segment is made up of three shots: i) a still shadowy silhouetted image of the actor, over which run the credit titles; ii) a full frontal shot of the deity Vitthala (or Panduranga, along with his consort Rakhumai) standing straight, looking into the camera as if it were; and iii) an image of Tukaram, sitting on the ground cross-legged, at a slight angle to the camera. These are iconic images—having past histories rooted in the cultural and pictorial history of Maharashtra. It is apt the film begins with iconic images. It is interesting that such iconic images have been produced by camera lens. These shots are of very long duration; particularly, the Tukaram image, which remains on the screen for over 2 minutes (206 feet).footnotes : [1] Normally, it is considered difficult to gaze at a static shot in a film for a great length of time—and here we have (after the credits) two static-shots where nothing moves within the image and the camera is static too (except for a slight track-in at the end of the first). But, we have no problem gazing at these images, as the images are accompanied by a song panduranga dhyani panduranga mani—an original abhang composed by the seventeenth century saint poet. Without the music it perhaps would have not been impossible to engage the interest of the audience for such a long time—even if they are habituated to gaze quietly at their favourite idols at home or in the temple. The real-life habit of gazing still and long at one’s adored God has been ‘borrowed’ here in this medium of cinema. There is no other instance of a film where this element is so well and persistently used. Interestingly, the verse underlines the above aspect of adoration and worship; Tukaram sings how he is engaged in dhyan (meditation) and manna (introspection). There is a reciprocal stance both the God and the devotee adopts and the term here is tatastha. Vitthala or Panduranga stands ramrod straight, arms akimbo placed on the hips.

This is a term used in the Natyashastras and it means: when one is looking at a performance one needs to be fully immersed in what is going on in front and at the same time one is sufficiently detached. Ashok Kelkar explains: tatastha is to stand by the bank (tata)footnotes : [2] of an ocean or a river—looking on, taking pleasure but not taking the plunge. It is as if, the verse signals our own stance for viewing this film—any film, for that matter—a stance of full absorption but ultimately analytical and objective. So, let us embark upon some deeper understanding of this ‘marriage’ between a former tradition and the new medium of cinema that is creates this tremendous possibility of appreciation here.

One etymological meaning of icon is ‘resemblance’. The image of Tukaram resembles our mental image of a sant. Though the identity of the man is not yet established, we immediately know him as a devotee or the principal protagonist whose name the film bears. We must ask, there must have been before this image a tradition of image of Tukaram—and there was. A litho print accompanied most books printed in the first decades of the previous century (and well into the forties and early fifties as well). It seems this image was the model before the silent film, Tukaram (1921) directed by Ganpat Shinde (but often attributed to D G. Phalke—perhaps Phalke was consulted).footnotes : [3] Importantly, Vishnupant Pagnis bears a striking resemblance to the actor of that film.footnotes : [4] Now, there was another film Sant Tukaram (attributed to the director Patankar) made the same year and we wonder what its actor Baba Vyas looked like. The actor of Rane’s Sant Tukaram aani Jai Hari Vitthala was Shukla, from the play by Rane. We need to carry out full research as to the acting and singing of these actors, if we want to fully understand our appreciation of the Damle-Fattelal film. But let us return to the fact that it begins with iconic image—those that only the moving image and the audio-visual juxtaposition of the medium of cinema can create.

An iconic image is where narration—story, information, and discourse—meaning and feeling rest frozen. Icons belong to specific traditions, and one must know the tradition in order to properly recognize and absorb the image. An icon stands for something known to the audience a priori. An icon is suspended in time—it is meant for us to gaze at, admire and contemplate upon. To use of iconic images in the beginning of a narration is in keeping with the literary practices of the period: to start novels with iconic figures—not exactly illustrations, but images that introduce or leads a reader to the world of narration and representation. Interestingly (but not surprisingly), we see the same phenomenon in the magic lantern shows called shambarik karolika in Maharashtra. Before the mechanism in the magic lantern moved its images, there would be first a still-image (the show ended too with some still-image). So traditionally, a still image moves and thereby initiates and sets loose the process of narration (discussion/discourse), as if it were; and with the end of narration, the image becomes still again—a tradition several Indian films have adopted and here it is carried out particularly well.

Next, we observe the first image of the God is placed in a full frontal manner (looking out straight in front), while in the second, Tukaram figure is positioned at a slight angle to the camera (or to our eyes). As a result of the two images coming one after the other (joined through the process of editing), they give rise to a triangular spatial arrangement. They create a space to be filled in or occupied by a third person—the audience then looks at the God, at the sant and their very special relationship. This too is a time worn convention in the Bhakti literature.footnotes : [5] A devotee forms and shares a closed world with an adored God; but when this relationship is narrated, sung or represented, there is a third—a spectator looking on at both. So, here is a cinematic creation of a traditional positioning of three characters in a triangular relationship: the bhagavān (the god), the bhakta (the devotee) and the audience.footnotes : [6]

The two shots are joined by the process of editing; the iconic images are created through the medium of cinema—mise en scene and editing. If the filmmakers had composed the two images in full frontal manner or followed the rules of eye-line matching of a classical shot counter-shot, that would have established the bhakta looking at the bhagavān. The camera would then take up each viewing position; the audience, in turn, would alternately take up the position of Tukaram and Vitthala. But that is not the case here.footnotes : [7] Additionally, the two shots are composed in different ways—the image of the God has no background, while that of the devotee is placed with recognisable objects of farm and home use. Which means Vitthala and Tukaram are not spatially connected—but connected through our relationship with them.

[1] What is highly interested here is: we say this is coming from a religious-performative tradition; but let us note that such uses of long held immobile or static shots are used in very avant garde European films.

[2] The first ‘t’ is dental, while the second one is formed when the tongue hits the palate.

[3] It is quite possible that our filmmakers had seen the film made by/under the supervision of Phalke. The personnel of Prabhat Studio knew Phalke very well Phalke had visited Maharashtra Film Company, when he was still an established filmmaker. The Prabhat personnel had donated to the fund being raised to help Phalke as they celebrated 25 years of cinema (Phalke was in a state of penury then). A. V. Damle (dada-Damle to us) informed me of these events (also mentioned in Film India).

[4] One real of that film is preserved in the National Film Archive of India; but the name of the actor is not known today.

[5] Norman Culter has excellently discussed this in his book on Tamil Bhakti poetry, The Song of the Road.

[6] Perhaps this had already become quite an established practice in the Indian studios by the 30’s; an exact recreation of this triangularity occurs in Vidyapati of the New Theatres made in 1936.

[7] The directors, I suggest did not want the audience to take up the position of the God.

There is another triptych in this tradition is: bhagavan, bhakta and pad (here abhang). The song is background music for the title-card and for the shot with the image of the God. In the third, the sant sings the song (in lip-synch-Pagnis sings his own song). The abhang (known to several members of the audience) also iconic does not begin the story, only creates an ambience and situates the audience in the tradition within which the story is to unfold.

The song is continued in the voice of the next character, Salomalo, but now sung differently. Music director Keshavrao Bhole has described how he borrowed from the Sangeet natak mode and created for him a dramatic, ornamental but show-offish style of singing. Here the iconic element is totally broken. The camera begins to move; the scene has many characters; the process of editing bring in several shots; and there is also dialogue inserted and added on to the singing. Bhole had written: the story begins with Salomalo-the false devotee. In dramatic terms, Salomalo is the villain; in terms of the tradition of Bhakti, he is the agent positioned in the narrative to provide obstacles in the path of the bhakta. In episode after episode, he will do this: he will bar Tukaram’s entry into the temple; send the local prostitute Sundara to lure Tukaram astray; invite the Brahmin Ram Shastri so Tukaram’s books are thrown in the waters of Indrayani. When none of this works, then he will appeal to Shivaji Maharaj, who will tempt Tukaram with rich clothes and jewellery-and failing, who will become a disciple. Seeing a Hindu king thus ‘unable to protect Sanatana dharma’, Salomalo will go to a ‘vidharmi raja’, the Sultan of Chakan. When that too fails, Salomalo literally-in this case visually-slinks out of the narrative, exiting the frame (right of frame) never to return again.

If this shows, how extraordinarily well the film episodes are constructed and placed one after the other-we do not have space in this article to go deeper into any-let us note: this is not all. It is my opinion that the charm and durable impression of the film in the minds of its audiences result from several factors and one of it is the amazing discursiveness carried by the individual episodes and their overall structuring.

The first time Salomalo appears it is as if there is a serious disturbance of the calm (shanta) mood, set in by the first two iconic shot and the singing of Pagnis. The Salomalo sequence is ‘wiped off’ with a cinematic wipe and the Tuka-image (and singing) is brought back. This ‘wipe’ is also meant to bring in completely a different ‘topic.’ Now we see a different kind of Bhakti and the business of singing songs. Tuakaram’s wife, a devotee of the local (more grass-root level) Goddess Mangalaai, sings an ovi, songs women in Maharashtra traditionally sang while at their daily chore. Her devotion, her firm conviction about and love for her God and everything else she has brought with her from her natal family are made to contrast with Tukaram’s devotional mode and level of attainment. And so, it is Jijai with who the first two miracles of the film are attached. But at the same time, Jijai is not put in any oppositional binary with Tukaram. Her characterization will run parallel to that of the Tukaram character. Not only is this one of the very rare films in India to portray so extensively and so durably a religious system co-existent with the more mainstream (bhakti and sanatan) ones, but what is most amazing is Jijai is not shown to convert to her husband’s religious belief. In the context of India and its multiple religious systems and beliefs co-existing over centuries, such a representation needs more discussion, but we must here stop with the amusing observation that often a vast section of the audience has always been (and this is so since the first release of the film) taken in more with the representation of Jijai than that of Tukaram.

After the introduction of the wife, we see our hero in his room, sitting alone and writing his verses. Next, he is in the temple; and he is asked never to enter the temple again. Tukaram bids a tearful farewell to Panduranga. After this, we see him on a hilltop engaged in singing and meditation. So, the three locations where we see Tukaram initially in the film is: the house, the temple and the seclusion of nature. These are traditionally the three places designated for meditative worship. After this, the new location for the sant will be his work place. New, from the point of view of tradition, for it is known Tukaram had become a religious person after he gave up his worldly duties (before that he had been a farmer, a grocer and also the local moneylender-a task his family was entrusted by the rulers). The narrative woven in 1936 injects a thoroughly contemporary element in the life of Tukaram; he becomes a daily-wage worker. Had Tukaram remained a popular revered sage singing and meditating in the temple there would be no story, no drama; ‘traditional’ elements alone would not have produced such an effective film narrative. Tukaram enters the narrative-dramatic arena, as he goes out in the world, takes up a job, interacts with family and the village-community. This film is so remarkable, not only because it, as shown in the beginning of the paper, illustrates Bhakti in Maharashtra, but also because it is thoroughly modern. It brings forward a contemporary motto, expressed through the English proverb ‘work is worship.’ We must not forget, every narrative-literary work or cinema reveals the time it is created.

I choose to write about the Marathi film Sant Tukaram (1936) made by Damle & Fattelal. I have seen it over thirty or more times; I like very much to watch it; and continuously teach and write on it. But even so, such a choice is not a simple spontaneous gesture; it is difficult to choose any one film as the best or the greatest Indian film. To say, ‘I choose to talk about the Marathi film Sant Tukaram’ is also to say what guided me to this choice. For sure there are some other film one could have chosen.

So, this piece is about a film called Sant Tukaram and about a choice; about strong and close relationships a viewer forms with a film through repeated viewing, continuous study, and efforts to understand and analyze it. While teaching cinema, one does not choose only those films one is fond of; one uses in the classroom all kinds of films, with different level and quotient of excellence and appeal, with different histories of critical and audience response. Film courses come with specific requirements and the teacher designs her course-material accordingly. The choice of talking or writing about a specific film, too, is invariably guided and shaped by specific factors and needs, linked to various discourse and discussion. [1] And then again, there are times someone in the classroom or someone outside feels sheer love or fondness for a particular film—and then there is the need and the business of verbalizing that. ‘What is this I am feeling after seeing this film’ is also something one must address while analyzing or understating a film.

Sant Tukaram seems to generate very interesting effects on viewers of all age, coming from all sections of society, or from all parts of the world. Anecdotal modes are not usually expected in a serious article, but a very recent experience made me think on this film yet again and hence this piece. A girl attending a foreign India Study Program had opted for a (credited) course on Indian Cinema. Initially, her heart was not fully in her class and studies, till she saw Sant Tukaram. The film, she told me, was the gift she was taking back from India to her family—in the form of a VCD. A devout Muslim family in Canada, they would appreciate seeing a ‘rare’ (she had never heard of the film before) and wonderful film like this. While talking about her own experience of the film, she wanted to know if I would understand if she described it as a spiritual experience. For a teacher, to speak about the film now was also to fully engage with this appeal and challenge; it meant probing why and how such a response is connected with the film. This happens often enough—students see films from all over the world and when Sant Tukaram is shown, they ask what is this special feeling they have just had—something quite different from other viewing experiences.

One usual oft-repeated response to such observation and comments people have is: Sant Tukaram uses the ‘universal language of Bhakti’ and viewers, immaterial of race caste creed etc, respond to that. But then, Dharmatma (made a year ago in 1935) and Gopal-Krishna (made a year later)—both by the Prabhat Film Company—are also based on the tradition of Bhakti. But we do not respond to these films the same way. So, another question follows: over the past eight and nine decades, many films have been made on this very popular Maharashtra-sant; but we cannot say all those films are equally good or equally appreciated. For example when this particular film was made contemporary reviewers and writers wrote about how just a few years ago, Sant Tukaram aani Jai Hari Vitthala (1932) by Babajirao Rane had failed to impress the viewers. This information is of extreme importance, as that film was an adaptation of a phenomenally successful play by Rajapurkar Natya Company. Unfortunately that early film does not exist or else we would have understood in what ways the audience and the intelligentsia then had exercised discrimination and judgment over these two films. [2]

Some others explain: Sant Tukaram uses the ‘universal language of cinema’; it is a simple and naïve film and so we take to it easily. Are those other films complex, then? Do they use a language other than that particular ‘universal language of cinema’ that is used in Sant Tukaram? Evidently, the above two explanations are flawed; but explain, we must. And the explanations and answers belong both to the world of Bhakti and Films Studies. The question remains though: what is so special about this Sant Tukaram? Dilip Chitre had once said, partly questioning me and partly himself: ‘we say “it is a good film;” but what do we mean by good—what does it mean in this case, this good!’

[1] I have written two one-film monographs and they do not surely stand for me as the best or the greatest of all Indian films. They surely are very important to the history of Indian cinema-as is Sant Tukaram. They are loved and appreciated by many-so is the one I am about to talk about. I would like to say that great fondness or any kind of partisanship felt towards a film must be (and is) contextual. On another note, fondness for a particular film might not always mean the possibility of great verbalization or theorization. But fortunately, as we will see, this film does precisely that.

[2] The script of the play exists; reading that, it is possible to say a couple of things about why the 1931 version must not have been a good example of cinema-but there is no scope for that here.

Two rather obvious questions were at work behind the idea of examining the revolutionary potential of Varkari Sampradaya : the fact of continuing and, perhaps, growing influence of Varkari persuasion on peasants and rural artisans, in spite of the rise of 'urban' institutions and the fact that despite large scale bureaucratically sponsored projects, no real enthusiasm has emerged in rural areas for a cooperative effort: an effort such as that foreseen in the ideology of Community Development. In this regard another important technological fact should also be noted. In India and particularly in Maharashtra, prospects for large scale irrigation are severely limited ,which means that any significant rise in agricultural productivity must come from massive, imaginative and yet routine cooperative effort of peasants, labourers and artisans. Thus indigenous and all pervasive economic development demands precisely those impulses which have been conspicuously absent so far.

Such self-generating efforts within village communities cannot be expected to arise without basic changes in rural man-land relations. Even the largely symbolic gestures, in the form of tenancy legislations, have been aborted in practice by the same class of rich fanners who control political and administrative apparatus. Frustrated by lack of consciousness about structural contradictions hidden behind the ruling ideology of legal justice, freedom and individual rights through parliamentary democracy, several young men and women seem to be willing to dedicate part of their lives to this task of raising consciousness. However, they usually go into rural areas with a predetermined adverse orientation to tradition, often imparted to them by their 'progressive' teachers. Varkari Sampradaya, as an element of that tradition, is also treated as an obstacle because they have found or learned no other way of dealing with it. Consequently, they become incapable of establishing a dialogue of shared meanings with the rural masses because

(a) they have never before shared the life experience of oppression in the rural context,

and

(b) they bring with them a hostile attitude towards tradition which, paradoxically, is the only possible common bond between them and the rural folk.

These considerations point to the need for exploring contemporary relevance of tradition and for studying Varkari Sampradaya in these terms. So far I have concentrated on three major themes and explored them in a preliminary way. They are:

1. Varkari Sampradaya as a discourse on tradition.

2. Contemporary society and Varkari practice

3. Contemporary lack of appreciation of its revolutionary impulses by intellectuals and activists.

Study of the writings and practices of Varkari poets along these lines reveals a variety of directions from which dialectical growth of tradition can be gleaned. However, in such a research effort, criterion of successful social transformation, as a predetermined outcome of this dialectic, is not available. Whether an impulse was potentially revolutionary or not has to be judged in terms of the nature of oppressive social practice and the options open to a given society. The context of social and material conditions of production has to be examined. Whether a critical impulse can regain its potential in a changed social practice cannot be determined without such examination. Even a superficial review of the social history of Varkari Sampradaya suggests a possible critical approach. Varkari insistence on the use of the language of the masses and its open door policy with respect to all castes, including the untouchables, are the first obvious critical grounds. Similarly, the rise of linguistic nationalism under Shivaji and corresponding disappearance of creative writing by Varkaris, point to hegemonic appropriation by the ruling classes.

My starting point for a more detailed treatment of Varkari Sampradaya as discourse is the notion of ‘potential community’ which unites, dialectically, the critique and ,its hegemonic appropriation. The notion of potential community can be explored by contrasting it to that of the actual community in ,which members live and communicate on the basis of shared meanings.

Community in the latter sense is living tradition. Family, village, caste are various levels of such actual community in which tradition remains alive and meaningful, for all members, not only through language and rituals but through other shared productive activities as well. Human communal existence has three basic dimensions of the material world, the social world and the world of the self. All of these dimensions acquire substance through meanings that are intersubjective. The necessity of having to regard others as subjects, as having intentions behind their beliefs and activities, implies that the latter can be brought into open and discussed as to their validity within the community. In this sense an actual community also implies a potential community in which tradition becomes its own critique. It becomes a critique of the validity of beliefs and activities in the three domains of human social life. Potential critical scrutiny of social practice, of beliefs and activities rests on three standards that are basic for productive human existence; truth , justice and freedom. In the actual community also these principles operate.

However, they receive interpretations and meanings that seek to justify domination of nature and man over man. Such interpretations negate the potential community. However, they are available to active subjects for critical discourse and for subsequent acceptance as legitimations or rejection. Thus, seeds of revolutionary transformation of a society remain embedded in its tradition. In a genuine and successful revolution these seeds germinate as critical reappropriations through discourse and transform social practice. Tradition as it remains alive in an actual community constitutes a hegemonic moment, an ideology legitimizing domination. But it also carries within it the opposite moment of critique: as a reflection on oppressive social practice which distorts the principles on which a potentially human community rests. In more concrete terms this means that the other side of tradition, the discursive, critical side, must become a conscious activity of those who share basic productive tasks even as they do so under conditions of domination. Our first task in examining Varkari Sampradaya is to see to what extent its initial efforts were directed towards widening the discursive capability of productive subjects. By examining this impulse in and through a dialogue with those who routinely uphold only the hegemonic interpretations, one may contribute to a theoretically guided, genuinely cooperative, productive activity for a transformed society.

Since most interpretations of Varkari theory and practice conclude that it, has always upheld Brahmanic social order, we. should illustrate how, initially at least, it was a critical impulse with a potential for creating revolutionary social practice. In this paper I wish to do this in a limited way. I shall attempt a brief examination of the writings of Jnanadev (1275-1296) who is recognized as the founding father of the Sampradaya.

Notions of community, inter-subjectivity and domains of human social existence appear in Jnanadev's commentary and are basic to his thought. Through these vehicles Jnanadev develops a dialogue with those who constitute his actual linguistic and potentially human community. He elaborates on the differentiated unity of knowledge, devotion and action of the three spheres of human social existence and of the participants of a discourse. For these reasons Jnanesvari is not merely a hermeneutic on Gita but an original exercise in critical re-appropriation of tradition.

The actual community to which Jnanadev addresses his exercise in critical reappropriation can be gleaned from his writings in a variety of ways. It is a community of active producers. Jnanadev explicitly rejects renunciation of productive life and ridicules the claims of liberation through rejection of activity. He identifies the material basis, the ''body-apriori"of human existence, thus:

Perhaps one may be able to renounce the self-ordained activity in a conscious manner. However, since the human body itself is activity-oriented - it is incapable of meaningful renunciation.Furthermore,

Inaction of a renouncer is like a claim that one can stop breathing by falling asleep and therefore,

Having attained human body those who regret having to remain active have to be merely stupid.

This celebration of human productive activity does not blind Jnanesvari to the domination of man and nature over man in actual community.

Thus for him it is at the same time a community of the oppressed (Samvasarshrant ज्ञा.4.32). It is a community of those who experience oppression but cannot find a way to transcend it. Jnanadev's choice of Gita for his interpretation becomes understandable since it claims to address itself to the oppressed at various levels of consciousness. Gita claims that seekers of universal meanings fall in four categories: those who merely experience oppression (आर्त), those who consciously seek to analyse its causes (जिज्ञासू), those who are ready to act (अर्थाथी). and those who have recognized the unity of thought and action(ज्ञानी)

There is an important difference between Jnanadev and others who have turned to Gita for a message. Jnanadev expresses the relation of Gita to seekers of meaning as that of a compassionate mother (माऊली). It is not a taskmaster -teacher or a purveyor of sacred and secret knowledge. Mother in this case symbolizes the principle of understanding of human inter-subjectivity in which active subject ness of both actors is recognized. The intended, emergent equality of subjects in a dialogue is implied in this symbol. Jnanadev's emphasis on community with his audience is not only a ploy to get a message across. It is inherent in all of his reflections on life. Hence we find in him no aggressiveness, obstinacy, deviousness or argumentativeness of a debater. Emphasis is on discovery of meanings through dialogue. A differentiated unity of the teacher and the taught, which is always implicit in a dialogue situation, is to be fully realized as a goal. It is this consciousness of the community, actual and potential, that also guides Jnanadev's choice of the poetic medium. Once again it is not an instrument for making the complex messages of Vedanta palatable to his audience. For Jnanadev the projected experience of potential community, of its universality itself an aesthetic experience. Dualalisms of truth and beauty, content and form, search of knowledge and enjoyment of the muses ( रसास्वाद) cease in such a community.

To such a potential community Jnanadev juxtaposes its negation: life experience in the actual community. The three principles of Being, Consciousness and Freedom ( सत्, चित्त्, आनंद ) stand as dialectical opposites of illusion, falsehood and pain:

and also

Sruti refers to it as Being so as to negate illusion and as consciousness to end the domination of inertness or falsehood.Through these negations of Being and illusion, etc., the positive unity of the three principles differentiates itself.Most hermeneutic interpretations locate universality or unity of these principles in Atman (the Spirit) as the ultimate reality. For Jnanadev, Atman expresses itself in the form of the world. Spontaneous human community is ever changing, joyous manifestation of the Absolute (Chidvilas).

Innumerable forms and sights arise but pure consciousness ( चित्) unites them all.

Furthermore, Jnanadev compares this relationship to speech;

Though millions of words meet in the abode of speech, this gathering cannot conceal that they are all nothing if not speech.

Jnanadev's elucidations of the relationship between speech and experience, give this analogy between Atman and speech a much deeper significance than as a mere illustration. The crucial, and yet 'paradoxical place occupied by speech in his philosophy can be shown with reference to his choice of language and his focus on dialogue (Samvad).

I cannot go into a discussion of the relationship between language and community here. If we translate Adhyatma as the transcendent. Atman as the "Given Unity" (Anadisiddha) that changes with each individual (thus there can be no two identical perceptions) then Atmanubhav, as experience and thought, becomes communicable only to the extent that the other understands what is communicated in relation to his own manifestation of Atman. That is, each individual subject must understand his own experience and thought as a special case of knowledge held in common. This way, what is essentially beyond communication becomes intersubjective knowledge and such knowledge, as Adhyatma becomes the transcendent. The community that transcends differentiated experience and thought and rests in its unity does so through speech. That is why even in Rig Veda, Vak (Speech) is the first creation and representation of Spirit. Jnanadev's choice of Marathi, a language spoken by the productive classes in his society and rejected as vulgar and unsuitable for spiritual knowledge by the Brahmins, rests on this insight into the relationship between language and community. Without it his enormous enthusiasm and confidence cannot be understood. Jnanadev does not speak of merely translating the great message from Sanskrit into a folk language.

He says:

We will present you your native language as it makes the world of literature come alive and as its sweetness makes one find fault with even the drink of the immortals and even more:

Thus the youthful beauty of this native tongue will infatuate and make the muses young again. It will then communicate the otherwise incomprehensible meaning of Gita.

In these lines the inference that Sanskrit, as a dead, fossilized language had lost its ability to generate live, new meanings is unmistakable. As monopolized by legitimizes of the ruling classes it held no meaning for Jnanadev's community of the oppressed. Marathi, on the other hand was the language of the living tradition of that community. For this reason alone Jnanadev is confident that Marathi can bring to life that universal and contemporary meaning of Gita that remains encrusted in its original Sanskrit shell. The necessity of resorting to Marathi language and to the poetic medium is grasped by Jnanadev in his dialectical view of tradition and of the principles embodied in Gita.

Said Shiva. not unlike your own unfathomable beautiful disposition, my beloved, the meaning of Gita is eternally new.

Discovery of these eternally new meanings of tradition is a communal enterprise, an enterprise of discourse. For Jnanadev, therefore, the notion of discourse is of fundamental significance.

Through discourseThrough discourse you enjoy that which is beyond expression. It is like seeing yourself in a mirror.However, this mirror is a mirror with eyes. It is capable of producing not mere reflections but meanings. It is capable of producing an intersubjective unity of subjects.

Thus Jnanadev and Chakrapani are like mirrors with eyes. When they thus witness each other their dualism evaporates.

Note:

Excerpts from Jnanesvari are from Sree Jnanesvari, edited and translated by M.S. Godbole. (Poona 30. Shri Vidya Prakashan, 1977).

All excerpts from Amrutanuhbhav are from Amrutanuhbhav Bhavarth Manjiri

by Anant Damodar Athavale Dasganu. (Nanded, Vittha1 Yashwant Marathe, Sak, 1851).

Excerpts from Changdeopasasti are from L.R. Panngarkar's Shri Jnanadev Maharaj

Caritra ani Granth Vivecan

(Poona, R. Pangarkar, 1912).

Jnanadev presents this thought as an epilogue to his entreaty to Changdeo to abandon his arrogance so as to enter into a dialogue. However, unity that is produced by a dialogue is a differentiated unity, a state of intersubjectivity and not of pure subjectivity or objectivity. It is a unity of equals. Jnandev does not want us to ignore the material basis, the "body apriori", our subjective identity and intersubjective unity:

If dialogue, pleasure of which is possible only through bodily existence ceases, then pleasure of (human) existence ceases too. Can anyone who has gained this treasure of dialogue ever rest happily in isolation?

The unity of equals, of human subjects in cooperative productive activity producing sustenance and meanings, makes for the reality of a speech community 'even in its negation. It creates the possibility of a discourse without words and of knowledge without senses. One can grapple with a theorem even before it is shaped in words.

This is possible says Jnandev because in a discourse:

A spring of cohesiveness precedes the march of letters. Words follow once compassion has made its appearance. Jnandev was not unaware of the dangers of mystical appropriation of this unity into an idealist monism of Pure Consciousness. Jnandev reminds us of the dialectic of identity and non-identity of subjects through Lord Krishna:

In his state of blissful freedom Partha (Arjun) was about to lose his consciousness of self hence he was brought back to that state by means of questions. and finally,

Lord Krishna and Partha became an identity without dissolving self identity. Their discourse was like a lamp igniting another lamp.

I have tried to demonstrate how the notions of community and discourse in Jnanadev's writing express the unity of opposites. For him actual community of the oppressed is also a negation of the potential community of subjects free of domination. The unity of this community rests on the productive social activity of human beings. On this question Jnandev is explicit.

Sensuous social activity loses its sting when it ceases to rest on rage and rancor.

Or

One who discards ego-focality and ceases, to covet, acts in unity with his universal community.He asks us not to indulge in rituals and pilgrimages or worship of idols and deities .He urges us to follow our life practice according to meanings that are impregnated by the principles of potential community. For those who live in duplicity, those who use tradition and social order for deception Jnandev has harsh words.

One who verbalizes knowledge but practices deception on his society is a mine of ignorance.

Jnandev pleads with than to return to a truly traditional practice which carries in it. in principle. true meanings of existence. consciousness and freedom. If unity of theory and practice has not been established in daily, productive existence then anyone who believes that he has resolved the enigma of existence through inference is no more than attempting to irrigate the soil with a mirage.

Jnandev's exhortations for life according to social order (Dharma) I have been usually interpreted as a split in his thinking on spiritual and life. A comprehensive critique of these interpretations and of their impact on the life of the Varkaris will take me into the other two areas of investigation:

into contemporary society. Here, I wish to try to counter these interpretations by merely pointing to that thrust of Jnandev's thought which rejects reliance on any external authority. The authority for providing guidance, for interpreting and directing social action rests with those subjects who remain active within social life.

What is called authority rests on accomplishment through activity. How do you expect it to arise at the outset of one's journey? And

In the equanimity of consciousness, in the unity of mind and intellect, rests the essence of authority.

Finally

Only those who embody the universal meaning of Sruti and Smruti in their activity and become examples of those principles in practice, have authority.

Jnandev is even more explicit in rejecting the transcendental authority of the Vedas. In a telling verse he brings them on the level of subjectivity that must remain moot in the absence of a community of subjects.

If Vedas despite their descriptive power, fail to grasp the totality. the transcendent, then they are just as dumbfounded as we are in this task.

Naturally, therefore. he concludes:

Even though Vedas have said a great deal and suggested many paths one must choose only that which ensures one's well being.

So far I have attempted to bring together those core elements of Jnandev's thought which in their original form constitute a basis for critical appropriation of tradition. Jnandev's writings as well as the Varkari practice show that what is commonly interpreted as a community of devotees is at the same time a community of producers. It stands juxtaposed to the community of appropriators whose instrumental. ego-focal domination of society. in the name of unity of this juxtaposed. alienated duality. negates the liberating intentions of tradition. of potential community of equal subjects. To the appropriators as well as the oppressed Jnandev makes a plea for a discursive return to tradition. In rejecting the authority of the Vedas and of those who stand in an appropriative opposition to the basic principles of human communal existence Jnandev is seeking a discourse on tradition that must by its own rules. if successful, result in a revolutionary transformation of society. Jnandev s thought moves from the life practice of the oppressed (Samvnsarshrant) into its critical negation as a negation of illusions, falsehood and pain. To the latter are juxtaposed Being, Consciousness and Freedom as principles of the transcendent community of active subjects. This community, in its actuality, rests on production. It is a production of sustenance and meanings through activity and speech. Hence. it is a community of active native language speakers who reject renunciation as a remedy for their unfreedom. Thus, they retain their capability for critically examining hegemonic interpretation and for innovatively recreating universal meanings of tradition. By insisting that the meaning of Gita is both eternal and new and by demonstrating it through a poetic dialogue. Jnandev challenged the very foundations of Brahmin-Maratha hegemony without advocating self-destructive deviance. He placed oppression in dialectic of freedom. He rejected all authority that did not rest in the community without rejecting authority as such. In this way Jnandev's thought returns to practical life after a discursive journey into the meaning of tradition. His message is that of a revolutionary and critical productive activity within social practice.

A limited discursive attempt, represented by this paper, is open to criticism of academic exercise or even sophistry. Such a misunderstanding can be averted only by integrating this exploration with a comprehensive critique of hegemonic interpretations and of associated domination in social life.However. such a comprehensive, practical critique is a privilege of all who experience contradictions between ideology and existence. This paper can at best claim to have the intention of joining a critical dialogue of the community of the oppressed. In the absence of such an intention and effort guided by such an intention, all activity, academic as well as practical, will continue to have no roots in that community.

Jayant Lele
Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario.
Canada

Maharashtra Studies Group:
Association for Asian Studies
Annual Meeting, 1978
Indiana University, Indiana , Pennsylvania
April 27-29 , 1978

Note:

Excerpts from Jnanesvari are from Sree Jnanesvari, edited and translated by M.S. Godbole. (Poona 30. Shri Vidya Prakashan, 1977).

All excerpts from Amrutanuhbhav are from Amrutanuhbhav Bhavarth Manjiri

by Anant Damodar Athavale Dasganu. (Nanded, Vittha1 Yashwant Marathe, Sak, 1851).

Excerpts from Changdeopasasti are from L.R. Pangarkar's Shri Jnanadev Maharaj

Caritra ani Granth Vivecan

(Poona, R. Pangarkar, 1912).