The Bhakti Movements 201made outcaste because he had given up the life of a sanyasi to
return to household life. Namdev was responsible for the spread of
the movement, Dnyaneshwar for its theorisation. Dnyaneshwar’s
greatest work was a philosophical commentary on the Bhagavad
Gita in Marathi known as Dnyaneshwari. This Dnyaneshwariwith
its Vedantic idealisation is still used today in long readings in the
villages, usually financed by the elite. While it is credited with
bringing the ‘highest’ teachings of the hitherto Sanskritised religion
into the vernacular for the masses, it is clearly an ongoing
Brahmanisation of the tradition. At the same time, as the movement
spread, it began to draw in devotees from all the various caste-
communities throughout the Marathi-speaking areas and with
them expressions of aspiration and equality.
However, the problematics of the bhakti movement are also
shown in the stories of these sants. Ekanath (c. 1533–1599) was
the Brahman devotee most famous for his progressive attitude on
caste issues, and he wrote a large number of songs taking the voice
of a untouchable Mahar; many were also critical of false Brahmans
and false devotees. There are many famous stories which show that
he invited untouchables to feasts and also dinned in their homes. In
one, a pious devotee, Ranya Mahar, invites Ekanath; he goes, is
outcasted and does penance, but then accepts another invitation.
When the Brahmans check on this, they see him eating in his own
home: the God Vithoba has taken Ekanath’s form and eaten at the
house of the Mahar (Zelliot 1997: 23). This story comes from an
18th century biographer of all the sants, named Mahipati, again a
Brahman.
But the story does not indicate a challenge to caste as a system.
Ekanath’s orientation to untouchables is shown as a paternalistic
one, and he did not, like Kabir, attack Brahmanic rituals or the
Vedas. Neither did Maharashtra’s most famous untouchable saint,
Cokhamela (second half of 13th century–1338).
Cokhamela and his family seem to have followed the traditional
work of the Mahars throughout. Though Cokhamela defies the
Brahman priests of Pandharpur with his desire to worship Vithoba,
and though Vithoba is shown as aiding his worship by miracles,
there is little evidence of Cokhamela’s active protest against caste
oppression or desire to escape his traditional duties. He does show
a heightened sense of pollution, as a recent study by Eleanor Zelliot
shows:Bai Mira found a guru in Rohidas.
She touched his feet—take me to the other side.
Mira’s Mohan, come to the Mertni’s desh(ibid.: 1997: 112)It is in this way that Mira takes her place in the ‘company of the
saints’ and her name becomes known. Her departure, her actions,
are a deadly insult to Rajput honour, and there are stories of her
husband, the Rana, trying to call her back, sending her poison. In
the end she disappears, or dies, in a temple of Krishna, said to have
been absorbed by the god himself. Mukta argues that quite possi-
bly she was killed in revenge on the orders of her insulted husband
(ibid.: 225–31). While even her most radical songs do not depart
from the framework of saguna bhakti, devotion to a personal God,
she stands nevertheless as a rebel against the patriarchy and
casteism of medieval society, someone who could actively identify
with all its marginalised sections.
Cokhamela: The ruit of
What was Done Before
The most widespread bhakti tradition in the western India state of
Maharashtra, the Varkari movement focuses not on around Shiva
or the avatarsof Vishnu but rather on Vithoba, the black god of
Pandharpur. While Vithoba is identified by the Brahmanic tradition
with Vishnu, he evidently originated as a ‘hero-stone’ erected to a
guardian protector of the semi-pastoral early Maharashtrians. In the
popular mind while stories of Krishna are told, they are less impor-
tant that stories of the sants, and the god is most often appealed to
a Vithoba or as Pandurang, a name that evokes the town.
Like other bhakti movements, the Varkari santscame from
diverse backgounds and included men and women. They remained
as householders, their unity and commitment symbolised by the
wearing of the mal(a kind of rosary), vegetarianism, and a yearly
pilgrimage to Pandharpur when they had the ‘company of the
saints’. Today also hundreds of thousands of people walk hundreds
of kilometers on this pilgrimage, normally organised in caste-based
groups around the palanquin of a particular sant.
The movement began in the 13th century under the leadership of
Namdev, a tailor, and Dnyaneshwar, a Brahman whose father was
200 Buddhism in India