The specialty of learned people in India is that they consider it their duty to make that knowledge readily available to everyone, not keeping their original wealth of knowledge limited to themselves. And after many years, society considers such great persons as sants. One such Sant was born in Maharashtra, whom people know by the name of Sant Dnyaneshwar, who understood the need for a language understandable to all people. And by creating Abhang, Nityapath, etc., poems in the Marathi language in an easy and understandable language, he took the philosophy to the ordinary people.
Sant Dnyaneshwar was born in Apegaon in the thirteenth century on Sawan Krishna Ashtami, Shake 1197 (AD 1275). His father’s name was Vitthalpant Kulkarni, and his mother’s name was Rukminibai. His grandfather’s name was Govindpant, and his grandmother’s name was Mirabai. Nivritinath was his eldest brother. Apart from him, Sopan and Muktabai were his junior brother and sister. His father, Vitthalpant, had abandoned the sanyas ashram and accepted the householder life. Due to this, the religious pundits of that time considered all these brothers and sisters impure. Only Vitthalpant thought it appropriate to follow the orders of his guru. So that their sons and daughter should not have to bear the burden of their deeds, the religious priests asked Vitthalpant to take the water mausoleum along with his wife. And it was decided to take the orders of the priests of Paithan to purify the children. Vitthalpant and Rukminibai took the water mausoleum, but according to the mandate given by the priests of Paithan, the religious fanatics of Alandi did not provide justice to these four children.
These brothers and sisters have created their place in society with immense reverence. Sant Dnyaneshwar presented his views on Bhagavad Gita by making the elder brother Nivritinath his guru. This book is known as ‘Dnyaneshwari’ or ‘Bhavartha Deepika’. By creating Dnyaneshwari in the Marathi language, Sant Dnyaneshwar provided an opportunity for everyone to understand the Bhagavad Gita.
Sant Dnyaneshwar inflicted severe blows on those who were selfish with their work, giving importance to rituals and taking society in the wrong direction. His family life was imposed unjustly harsh impacts by the then society. No one else should have to bear such misery, so he quickly explained the philosophy of Bhagavad Gita to the people to make the community aware and understand due to the concrete realization of social equality. Serenity is the soul of his philosophy.
Sant Dnyaneshwar Maharaj has explained the need for social equality very well. He started the great work of spreading the message that every person has the freedom to try to do his own welfare from that level of equality to all the people around him. For this work, he travelled in Maharashtra and other provinces and collected people through discourses and kirtans at different places.
Uniting people can be considered as one of the main objectives of the life of Sant Dnyaneshwar. From a social point of view, when the equality element is disrespected, it becomes easy to attack that society by external, political, and cultural; history is witness to this. Propagation of equality is the shield of freedom of our country, and the best sants who have worked in this regard from time to time are spearhead Sant Dnyaneshwar.
Vijendra Sonawane – vijendra.sonawane@ssfoffice.in
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