Dnyaneshwar

चंद्रमे जे अलांछन । मार्तंड जे तापहीन । ते सर्वांही सदा सज्जन । सोयरे होतु ॥ — "Moons with no blemish on them. Suns that do not burn. May the good be kin to everyone, always."

A frightened person does not need brilliance. They need a light that will not scorch them. If you are choosing who to call tonight, this is the specification: a sun with the heat taken out of it.

दुरितांचें तिमिर जावो । विश्व स्वधर्मसूर्यें पाहो । जो जें वांच्छिल तो तें लाहो । प्राणिजात ॥ — "Let the darkness of harm lift. Let the world see the sun of its own true work. And let every living thing get what it longs for."

He never asks for fear to be removed from anyone. He asks for light, for honest work, and for each creature to get what it wants. Fear here is treated as darkness — not fought, just outlasted by morning.

देवाचिये द्वारीं उभा क्षणभरी । तेणें मुक्ति चारी साधियेल्या ॥ हरि मुखें म्हणा हरि मुखें म्हणा । पुण्याची गणना कोण करी ॥ — "Stand at God's door for even a moment, and the four liberations are won. Say Hari with your mouth, say Hari — who is counting merit?"

Not enter. Not finish. Stand at the door a moment, and say the name. In his tradition that is counted as the whole thing — and nobody is keeping score.

वर्षत सकळमंगळीं । ईश्वरनिष्ठांची मांदियाळी । अनवरत भूमंडळीं । भेटतु भूतां ॥ — "Let the whole company of those settled in God — raining down every blessing as they go — keep meeting the creatures of this earth, without a break."

The verb he chose is bheṭatu — let them keep meeting beings. Not instructing, not saving, not lifting. Meeting. When a boy of about fifteen was granted one wish for the whole world, he asked that good people keep running into everybody else, continually, forever.

येथ म्हणे श्रीविश्वेशरावो । हा होईल दानपसावो । येणें वरें ज्ञानदेवो । सुखिया जाला ॥ — "Then the Lord of the Universe said: this gift is granted. And with that boon, Dnyanadev became content."

The last ovī of the closing prayer — a few lines before the book signs off with its date — and what he was content about is the point. He receives nothing for himself — the boon was that the crooked soften, that the good keep meeting people, that every creature get what it longs for. He becomes sukhiyā at the news that everyone else will be all right. If the only thing that has ever reliably lifted your own evening is doing something for somebody else, this is one of the oldest notes on that in Marathi.

मोगरा फुलला मोगरा फुलला । फुलें वेंचितां बहरु कळियांसी आला ॥ — "The jasmine has bloomed, the jasmine has bloomed. Even as I gathered the flowers, the buds came into bloom."

One of the most-sung lines in Marathi — and the blooming happens while he is still gathering, faster than he can collect it. In his own frame it is devotion flowering in him. On evenings when nothing seems to move, it is at least a record that things have bloomed before, without being made to.

भावेंवीण भक्ति भक्तिवीण मुक्ति । बळेंवीण शक्ति बोलूं नये ॥१॥ कैसेनि दैवत प्रसन्न त्वरित । उगा राहें निवांत शिणसी वायां ॥२॥ सायासें करिसी प्रपञ्च दिननिशीं । हरिसी न भजसी कोण्या गुणे ॥३॥ ज्ञानदेव म्हणे हरिजप करणें । तुटेल धरणें प्रपंचाचें ॥४॥ — "Without feeling there is no devotion; without devotion no release; do not speak of a strength that has no force behind it. How would the god be pleased in a hurry? Just stay still, at ease — you are tiring yourself for nothing. With such labour you work at the world day and night; by what quality is it that you do not turn to Hari? Dnyandev says: say the name of Hari, and the grip of the world will loosen."

The Haripāṭh is twenty-odd short abhangas sung every day on the Wari, and this is the one that speaks to a tired person directly. Ugā rāheṁ nivānt, śiṇasī vāyāṁ — stay quiet, stay at ease, you are wearing yourself out for nothing. He is not scolding; he is describing a person he can see, and the first thing he says to them is sit down. Text after sanskritdocuments.org, which prints प्रपञ्च and कोण्या गुणे; the Haripāṭh circulates in several recensions, and numbering and spelling vary.

निद्रेचिया वाटा नवचे । ऐसा दृढिवेचेनि अवतरणें नाचे । तें शरीरचि नव्हे तयाचें । मा योगु कवणाचा ॥३४७॥ म्हणौनि अतिशयें विषयो सेवावा । तैसा विरोधु नोहावा । कां सर्वथा निरोधावा । हेंही नको ॥३४८॥ … बाहेर युक्तीची मुद्रा पडे । तव आंत आंत सुख वाढे । तेथें सहजेंचि योगु घडे । नाभ्यासितां ॥३५३॥ — "One who will not go the way of sleep, who struts about on the strength of his own hardness — that body is not even his own; whose yoga could it be? So: do not indulge the senses to excess; but do not make war on them either; and do not suppress them altogether — not that either… When the mark of good measure shows on the outside, inside, slowly, the ease grows. There yoga happens by itself — without practising."

Three moves. First, the man who refuses to sleep and parades his toughness — his body, Dnyaneshwar says, is not his; he has forfeited it. Second, the refusal of all three strategies the tired person usually has: indulge, fight, suppress — not that, not that, and not that either. And third, the line to keep: sahajeṁchi yogu ghaḍe, nābhyāsitāṁ — yoga happens of itself, without the practising. The thing you have been straining for is described here as the thing that arrives when the straining stops.

किंबहुना सर्वसुखीं । पूर्ण होऊनि तिहीं लोकीं । भजिजो आदिपुरुखीं । अखंडित ॥ — "In short: may all, in the three worlds, become full of every happiness — complete — and serve the Primal Being, unbroken."

The eighth of the nine ovīs of his closing prayer, and the one that sums the others up — kiṁbahunā, "what more is there to say". The word to notice is pūrṇa, full, complete. Not successful, not accomplished, not having got there: full. For a reader running on empty, the closing prayer of his nine-thousand-ovī book asks, for everyone, exactly the opposite condition — and it was written by someone who had reason to be exhausted at fifteen. We have taken it from the text itself; the file at sanskritdocuments.org that prints the Pasāyadān on its own numbers this ovī 1799, counting from a different starting line.

जीव विसंवावयाचिया चाडा । सैंघ धांवाधांवी करितसे बापुडा । परि सोयही कवणेंकडां । न लभे एथ ॥३७३॥ ऐसें विश्वरूपाचिया महामारी । जीवित्व गेलें आहें चराचरीं । जी न बोलें तरि काय करीं । कैसेनि राहें ? ॥३७४॥ — "Wanting somewhere to rest, the poor soul runs this way and that — and finds no opening anywhere. In this great plague of the cosmic form, life itself has gone out of everything that moves and does not move. If I do not speak, what else can I do? How am I supposed to stay?"

The exact anatomy of ghutan, in thirteenth-century Marathi. Soy — a way, a route, an opening — and kavaṇeṁkaḍāṁ na labhe, not to be found in any direction. Then the question nobody asks on your behalf: kaiseni rāheṁ? — how do I stay? Not how do I escape. How do I remain in this. Dnyaneshwar, who was a child, understood that the second question is the one the overwhelmed person is actually asking.

जरी तूं गोसावी आमुचा अनंता । तरी सुईं वोडण माझिया जीविता । सांटवीं पसारा हा मागुता । महामारीचा ॥३८३॥ … म्हणौनि वेगीं प्रसन्न होईं देवराया । संहरीं संहरीं आपुली माया । काढीं मातें महाभया- । पासोनियां ॥३८५॥ — "If you are our master, Ananta, then put a shield over my life. Fold this spread-out expanse back in — this plague. … So quickly, king of gods, be kind. Withdraw, withdraw your māyā. Pull me out of this great fear."

Sāṁṭavīṁ pasārā — fold the spread back; the verb is for gathering up something laid out, a cloth, a shop's wares at closing. And then the doubled imperative, saṁharīṁ saṁharīṁ, withdraw, withdraw — the way a person says bas, bas. The boy translator has heard what the Sanskrit prasīda sounds like when a frightened person actually says it.

देवा विश्वरूप पहावयाचे डोहळे । केले तिये पावलों प्रतिफळें । बापा देखिलासि आतां डोळे । निवावे तैसे निवाले ॥३६६॥ — "God, I had a craving to see the cosmic form — and I have received its fruit. Father, I have seen it; now my eyes are as cooled as they are ever going to be."

Ḍohāḷe is the Marathi word for a pregnant woman's cravings — Arjuna craved to see everything, and Dnyaneshwar lets the irony sit: he asked for this. Then nivāve taise nivāle, cooled as much as they will cool — the dry Marathi of a man saying I have had enough. Having wanted the whole picture — the whole truth about the job, the family, the future — does not oblige you to keep looking at it.

तैसें सर्वज्ञेंही मियां । सर्वही निर्धारूनियां । निकें होय तें धनंजया । सांगितलें तुज ॥१३३१॥ आतां तूं ययावरी । निकें हें निर्धारीं । निर्धारूनि करीं । आवडे तैसें ॥१३३२॥ — "So I, who know all, have weighed everything and told you what is good, Dhananjaya. Now you, on top of that, weigh for yourself what is good — and having weighed it, do as you please."

His Marathi for yathecchasi tathā kuru. Āvaḍe taiseṁ — as you like, as it pleases you — is the phrase a Marathi mother uses when she has said her piece and is handing you the choice. Dnyaneshwar heard that tone in the Sanskrit and kept it. Near its close (18.63), the God who has spoken for seventeen chapters tells the confused man to weigh it himself — and in the next breath (18.66) asks for surrender. Both are in the text. This line is the weigh it.

यया देवाचिया बोला । अर्जुनु उगाचि ठेला । तेथ देवो म्हणती भला । अवंचकु होसी ॥१३३३॥ वाढतयापुढें भुकेला । उपरोधें म्हणे मी धाला । तैं तोचि पीडे आपुला । आणि दोषुही तया ॥१३३४॥ — "At these words of God, Arjuna simply stayed silent. Then God said: good — but don't cheat yourself. A hungry man who, out of politeness, tells the one serving him 'I am full' — he is the one who suffers, and the fault is his as well."

There is no silence in the Gita at this point; Dnyaneshwar put it there. Handed the decision, Arjuna goes quiet — and Krishna, reading the quiet, tells him: if you are still confused, say so; do not say "I'm full" to be polite. For everyone who has nodded at the end of the family meeting and gone home with the knot intact, this is the permission the Sanskrit forgot to include. Confusion swallowed out of courtesy, he says, hurts the one who swallows it. Asking again is allowed.

आतां मोह असे कीं नाहीं । हें ऐसें जी पुससी काई । कृतकृत्य जाहलों पाहीं । तुझेपणें ॥१५६२॥ गुंतलों होतों अर्जुनगुणें । तो मुक्त जालों तुझेपणें । आतां पुसणें सांगणें । दोन्ही नाहीं ॥१५६३॥ — "Now you ask whether the delusion is still there or not? Look — I am done, through being yours. I was tangled in being Arjuna; I came loose in being yours. Now there is no more asking, and no more telling — neither."

Guṁtaloṁ — tangled. The Marathi verb is the same thread as the Hindi word for this feeling: uljhan is a guṁtā, a snarl. And what he was tangled in was not the decision — it was being Arjuna. The warrior, the brother, the man with a reputation. Dnyaneshwar's reading of the Gita's last turn is that what came loose was not the choice but the identity that had been making the choice impossible. For the one who no longer knows who they are: he describes that loosening as the relief, not the loss.