Keeping the Company of Saints

An Auspicious Association:

Pilgrims in the Sant Tradition

Some hours have passed since I first inhaled Mumbai airport’s moist night air, in which the fragrance of incense and mogra flowers combine with the smell of sweat and open drains. After laboring up the steep scarp separating Maharashtra’s steamy coastal plain from the drier air of the Deccan plateau, my taxi is coasting with relief into the sleeping city of Pune. There’s a hazy morning glow on the horizon. We stop for chai at a roadside tea-stand.

Nearby a blind man is following the Indian tradition of reciting sacred texts invoking Shri - auspicious, benevolent power. He’s singing the immortal words of the Supreme Being from Sri Bhagavad-gita:

Take refuge in Me. Do not grieve. Fix your mind on me and I shall liberate you from all evils. I promise this, for you are dear to Me.[1]

The little copper bowl in front of him holds a few coins thrown by the passers-by who appreciate his efforts to be useful. Though Indian cities are booming with cyber-cafes and affluent malls, here is an arresting example of survival, and the irrepressible faith in a benevolence that mystics of all traditions say is the divine ground of life itself.

Over my years of yoga study and practice, I’ve experienced this benevolence and inspiration through the heart-felt words of Muslim poet-saints like Rumi and Hafiz, and Indian poet-saints like Kabir, Namdev, Mirabai, Tukaram and Akka Mahadevi. Their songs have inspired and supported the Indian people through drought, famine, the Moghul invasion, and now through the challenges of modernity. I came to this bustling city to see for myself how these saints – or sants in the local Maharashtrian language of Marathi -- continue to shed their auspiciousness into the hearts of the people.

In particular, I am drawn to Sant Jnaneshwar Maharaj or Jnanadev, who is considered one of the cornerstones of a reform movement called the bhaktimarga or the “path of divine love,” that emerged in Maharashtra in the thirteenth century. Like many of the mystic sants in the bhaktimarga, he broke many boundaries. Though male he is known locally as Mauli or “mother”; though only a teenager, he became Maharashtra’s greatest poet and spiritual genius; though born into a Brahmin family, he was an outcast; though learned, he willingly taught the illiterate; though forbidden, he allowed Sanskrit scripture to be made available in the common language of Marathi; though initiated into the most esoteric path of devotion to Shiva/Shakti[2], he is honored as a devotee of Vishnu/Krishna; and though dead for seven hundred years, he is still considered alive.

Legend has it that while followers chanted, Jnanadev walked into his tomb to permanently enter the yogic state of samadhi. Thus, his heart continues to beat in the local imagination and within his tomb (samadhi shrine), which I have come to visit in the little town of Alandi, north of Pune. I will also join the renowned 15-day, July pilgrimage, in which bhaktimarga followers chant and walk the 140 miles from Alandi to the holy town of Pandharpur.

The word “Hinduism” causes our colonial imagination to run riot through images of naked sadhus smoking chillums, haggard ascetics lying on beds of nails, snake charmers, animal sacrifices, erotic Tantric statues, bejeweled temple dancers and burning widows. However, India is in continuous spiritual reform, though these ancient practices still exist. After all, which Indian party or government ever had the power to create a re-formation, or to homogenize the bewildering diversity of India’s teeming billions?

The bhaktimarga reform movement began during the thirteenth century in Maharashtra, lead by mystic sants like Namdev and the village grocer Tukaram. They were ordinary working-class people, not the high-caste Brahmins designated to specialize in spiritual teaching, and were often chastised for being unauthorized spiritual teachers outside the caste system in place at that time.[3] These mystic poet-saints protested the aberrance of asceticism, the superstition of village magic, the egotism of punditry and learning, the hierarchical dominance of the caste system, and the elaborate, costly Sanskrit rituals of Brahmanism. Scholars refer to this movement as the pan-Indian bhaktimarga or the “path of divine love’ that had its roots in Tamil Nadu[4] and spread throughout India during its medieval era.

The bhaktimarga’s vision of unity and simplicity resound in the words of Sant Tukaram, one of Maharashtra’s seventeenth-century poet-saints. In the song below, he expresses an Indian national’s frustration with the bewildering variety of arcane phenomena associated with the word “Hinduism.”

I know no trick/ To lure the public.

I can only sing of You/ And praise Your goodness.

I work no miracles,/ I wake no dead.

I have no hordes of disciples/ To advertise my selflessness.

I am not the lord of a monastery/ Thriving on grants of land.

I run no God-shop/ To worship personal profit.

I command no spirits,/ Nor hold any seances.

I am no teller of tales from the Puranas/ Split between profession and practice.

I am no wretched pundit/ Splitting Vedantic hairs.

I burn no lamps to raise/ The Mother Goddess with shrill praise.

I swing no rosary/ To gather fools around me.

I am no warlock/ To bewitch, to magnetize, to fix, to kill.

Tuka is not like any of these / Crazed citizens of hell.[5]

Yogis use austere discipline, creating miraculous transformations of mind and body to gain union with this benevolent life-force; scholars use profound intellect to plumb the mysteries of its formless nature, but for the common man, the Indian scriptures recommend devotion to a form of the Supreme (bhakti) as being the simplest and easiest path to an illumined life. Even today, this devotion to different representations of the formless divine has become a hallmark of life in India - easily practiced by ordinary, working-class people with children, and not requiring strenuous renunciation or a lifetime of Sanskrit study. Narada’s Bhakti Sutras, the Bhagavad-gita and the sage Kapila in the Bhagavata Purana have outlined the path of liberation through devotion.

Countless thousands of rural villagers in the state of Maharashtra follow nature’s seasonal cycles of tilling, planting and harvesting as they have done for centuries. Their hardy, earthy and often challenging existence is softened by their fervent devotion to the tradition of poet-saints that flourished in the medieval era of Maharashtra, following the thirteenth-century saints, Jnanadev and Namdev. Most of rural Maharashtra lives sheltered under this lineage of bhaktimarga sants and the village people are nourished by the ecstasy of chanting and kirtan - gatherings in homes or temples where the song-poems of the sants are mixed with exposition by kirtankars, lay preachers who lead kirtan in the evenings, after practicing their village trade of farmer, weaver, tailor, metal-smith.

One evening kirtan at Jnanadev’s Samadhi Shrine felt like the Indian counterpart of gospel music. The leader roused the audience with fiery rhetoric, vigorous drumming, soaring vocal improvisations and a chorus playing cymbals with deafening fervor. However, kirtankars can have a refined style, as well. Many maintain the gentle daily rhythm associated with a life of teaching young students: rising early, doing puja, studying the scriptures, meeting visitors, and in the evening, teaching the songs, scriptures and stories associated with the sants. Inwardly content with their daily sadhana, or spiritual practice, they often prefer to avoid the hectic crowds and hardships associated with the practice of pilgrimage.

Even so, for most followers of the bhaktimarga, an annual 15-day pilgrimage on foot to the holy town of Pandharpur is the foundation of their spiritual practice. Because of this, they are known as “Warkaris” – someone who does (kari) the regular pilgrimage (wari). This tradition of pilgrimage to Pandharpur started in the early twelfth century,[6] and has gained huge proportions in which the number of participants commonly quoted today is seven lacs (700,000). They go whenever the spirit leads them, but, around the sacred time of Ekadashi, there are two large organized pilgrimages, in the lunar months of Ashada and Kartika, which generally fall in July and November.

On these occasions hundreds of thousands of devotees from Maharashtra and beyond carry the sacred silver sandals (padukas) representing the great poet-saints from Alandi to the holy town of Pandharpur and its temple of Lord Vitthal. Prominently represented in the procession are palequins (palkhis) carrying the padukas of Jnaneshwar and Tukaram, along with the palkhis of other historic sants like Eknath, Namdev, Bahinabai, Janabai, and contemporary kirtankars and gurus. In this way the sants continue to give pilgrims their auspicious presence (darshan) and enjoy the company of their devotees.

Because of my familiarity with the practice of “enjoying what is”, I felt ready to embrace the challenges of the pilgrimage, whose austerities are considered a spiritual practice by the faithful Maharashtrian farming community. Their devotion to Sri Vitthal – a form of Sri Krishna -- created an atmosphere of solidarity and support for contentment. Everywhere I saw smiling faces floating in a light-hearted holiday atmosphere -- undaunted by mud, rains, and lack of toilets -- and I marveled at the organized disorganization which supported the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims with only minimal hardship to both the participants and the towns we passed through.

Our huge procession of pilgrims was made up of dindis or chanting groups associated with a guru or village. These dindis were self-sufficient in providing their members with food and tents, but local municipalities provided tankers of water for drinking and bathing. Our massive procession was welcomed in the rural villages with gaily decorated archways and patterns in colored sand on the road (rangolis) and blessed food (prasad) in the form of bananas and snacks.

The generous outlook of the bhaktimarga reaches out across caste and sectarian barriers. Kabir, a sant of North India, was honored equally by Muslims and Hindus, and the annual pilgrimage to Pandharpur has a dindi lead by a female Muslim. It isn’t incongruous that Jnanadev is considered both a Shaivite and Vaishnavite, because in the bhaktimarga, all forms of God are honored as doorways to the formless Absolute.

Mystics aligned with the unity behind diversity are rarely agitators. However, in the struggle for India’s independence, many kirtankars, like Vasudeo Kolhatkar of Pune, became politically active and some were jailed by the British. But for the most part, the bhaktimarga approach has been to avoid extremes. Sayings attributed to Tukaram such as, “One should be happy in whatever state God has put us,” have been criticized by renowned Indian reformers such as Lokmanya Tilak[7] for discouraging necessary revolution and encouraging passivity.

Still, the poet-saints hastened the caste system’s eventual illegality, with much thanks to the thirteenth century Sant Chokamela, an untouchable from the lowest caste. His humiliating exclusion from temples and final triumph over the temple authorities (supported by divine intervention) is now enshrined in folklore. Like Mahatma Gandhi centuries later, Chokamela’s accomplishment was through non-violent means -- a classically Indian attitude also maintained by Jnanadev and Tukaram during their own struggles with Brahmanical authority.

Though Jnanadev’s parents were originally Brahmins, he and his family were outcast because of a mistake his father made. Without complaint, Jnanadev respectfully argued his family’s case before the council of Brahmins in Paithan, which was eventually convinced (legend says by a miracle) to reinstate the family into the Brahmin community.

Another great mystic, the grocer Tukaram, was seen as a threat by the Brahmin authorities of the town of Dehu. In an attempt to unseat him, they decreed that Tukaram destroy all the devotional songs he had ever written. The sant, though conflicted, obeyed them and cast his life’s work into the river. But legend has it that the manuscripts were miraculously saved. Tukaram advises:

If one stands up

To argue or fight

One gets into a mess

Reeds don’t need to exert any force of their own

They accept the force of water

If one tries to be tough

One meets one’s match

The humble stay out of trouble

Says Tuka

Blend with all

You’ll join

A global family[8]

I experienced the joyful global family as we sang our way into Pandharpur. A pilgrim, filled with the spirit of celebration briefly carried me on his shoulders, and the youngsters romped in the mud. But after all the jumping and clashing of bells had died down, we didn’t run to the Vitthal temple as I had anticipated. After all, devoted pilgrims can wait in line for over twenty-four hours to have darshan of Lord Vitthal’s statue. Instead, we held evening kirtan and headed to our tents to rise early the next morning and join the crowds in procession (pradakshina) around the Vitthal Temple, which is humble by Indian temple standards. Nonetheless, it has been honored over the centuries by Maharashtrian villagers, and its old wood pillars and heavily-worn steps bear the mark of millions of hands and feet.

The sants are beloved by all, from the poorest villagers to the rich and famous. In Alandi, I was fortunate to see Lata Mangeshkar, the legendary Bollywood singer, adorning Jnanadev’s Samadhi with mountains of fragrant flowers. And via a large video screen on the outside of the Vitthal Temple, I watched a famous politician’s darshan of the black statue, clothed in gleaming yellow silk. Manohar Joshi honored “the auspicious dark one” with enormous flower garlands before flying out via helicopter.

From start to finish, the pilgrimage was an immersion in the sanctifying sweetness of “association with the saints” (santasajjanaanci maandi), and not simply a journey to reach Pandharpur. The saintly teachers of the present enjoyed their association with the saints of the past, like two facing mirrors enjoy and reflect each other’s light -- a classic analogy used in Jnanadev’s poetry. In this association, the sant’s holy relics gave blessings to the “saints-in-process” who were guided and uplifted by their sacred songs.

Jai Jai Vitthala Vitthala gajaree, a well-known song by Chokamela, who lived at a time when there was an unprecedented number of bhakti sants, glorifies the sant association…

This holy town is resounding with people calling out ‘Jai Jai Vitthala!’

Everywhere in Pandharpur there are colorful flags, decorations,

and processions of devotees chanting God’s name in ecstasy.

Nivritti, Jnaneshwar, Sopan and other supreme devotees of the Lord have

gathered here, and one can experience their spiritual radiance.

Everywhere crowds of people are singing the glories of God.

It’s here that Chokhamela embraced the Lord![9]

As night fell on the sacred day of Ashada Ekadashi -- the culminating day of the pilgrimage to Pandharpur -- our vast encampment of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims pulsed with the sound of bells and kirtan. The auspicious darshan of benevolence was happening within the temple of Sri Vitthal and within each pilgrim’s heart.

India today may be striving to change its public image from poor mystic to global leader. Even so, while religious fanatics and commercial interests inflict tragic agonies within the global community, the auspicious association with these moderate, mystic reformers of India upholds humanity’s highest aspirations and bestows a healing boon of unity, tolerance and peace. Says Tuka, “You’ll join a global family...”

References:

For an overview and history of the Warkaris, see:

G. A. Deleury, The Cult of Vithoba, ©1994 Deccan College Research Institute, Pune, as well as Philip C. Engblom’s introduction to the Warkari pilgrimages and Eleanor Zelliot’s Historical Introduction to the Warkari Movement in Palkhi: An Indian Pilgrimage, by D. B. Mokashi, © 1987 Philip C. Engblom, State University of New York Press, Albany.

[2] Shaivite Tantra practiced by the wandering Nath Yogis who first codified yoga-postures into the system we now know as Hatha Yoga.

[3] The Indian government has made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of caste.

[6] Page 7, The Cult of Vithoba, by G. A. Deleury

[7] Lokmanya Tilak (1856 – 1920) was a scholar and politician honored as a determined and pivotal figure in the movement to secure India’s independence of British rule, prior to the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi.

[9] Author’s rendering from various available English translations.