Sant Dnyaneshwar

 

Although the dates of Sant Dnyaneshwar birth and death are uncertain, tradition believes that he was born in 1271 and went into samadhi in 1926. His father Vitthalpant became a sanyasi first but later recanted and reverted to family life. To him were born four children, namely Nivruttinath, Dnyaneshwar, Sopandeva and Muktabai. Sant Dnyaneshwar’s parents went to Prayag by way of penance for behaving contrary to religious dictates.

One may now look at the very unusual family life lived and suffered by Sant Dnyaneshwar for some time along with his parents, two brothers and a sister, and after a compulsory demise of his parents, only with his two brothers and sister all four having become orphans, ostracized by surrounding society as they were regarded impure, being offspring of the Sanyasi who had reverted to married life by breaking vows of celibacy etc. Dnyaneshwar’s father-Vithalpant beseeched learned priests at Alandi in Pune District for a prescription for purification. He was told to enter to a Jala Samadhi and as for a degree of purification of his four young children, he was informed that they should approach priests at Paithan and it so happened that whereas Dnyaneshwar’s parents got the penalty of voluntary drowning, the second part of the decree, obtained at that price at Alandi could never be implemented because the certificate given by the priests in Paithan was never implemented in Alandi.

 

 

Expelled from his caste himself, Sant Dnyaneshwar had experienced the inflexibility of the caste system and bookishness of learning and psychological and intellectual oppression of women and the lower castes. Possibly as a result of this his sympathies must have turned towards the common masses. When the importance of social equality starts getting eroded the scope for foreign intervention in political, cultural fields increases correspondingly. History stands witness to this phenomenon. He advocated not only the importance of social equality but prominently declared that an individual was free to promote his or her own welfare based on that permanently equal status for all. Subject to these principles, what followed was a significant programme for carrying this message to all those around him.

Indian society has always remained like a vast pyramid, most of which was covered with darkness, but its top illuminated to varying extent, from time to time. The contemporary priesthood had possessed a moral and social responsibility of spreading light but it was either not conscious of it or had deliberately ignored it. Sant Dnyaneshwar has shot some of his sharpest arrows at such misguided ritualists who had only one objective in life viz. that of achieving material pleasures by promoting a ritualistic approach in society. he was convinced that thereby he could express, systematically, the entire body of his own well-formed conclusions-as already seen. Ignorance, resulting social injustice and other evil consequences had conditioned Sant Dnyaneshwar ’s family life; and these developments must have left an indelible print on his mind. The Gita emphatically preached the doctrine of equality.

Acute sense of equality is the shield of our freedom. Among those great saints who worked hard for promoting social equality, Sant Dnyaneshwar can easily be counted as an effective pioneer.

 

Vijendra Sonawane

(Vijendra.Sonawane@ssfoffice.in)

 

Reference:

1) श्री.ज्ञानेश्वरी मुक्तचिंतन