Namdev

Namdev संत नामदेव
Personal
Born	c. 1270 CE Maharashtra, India
Died	c. 1350 CE Location disputed
Organization
Philosophy	Varkari

Namdev, also transliterated as Namdeo and Namadeva, (traditionally, c. 1270 – c. 1350) was a poet-saint from Maharashtra state of India who is significant to the Varkari sect of Hinduism. He is also venerated in Sikhism.

Most of the spiritual messages of Namdev emphasized the importance of living the life of a householder and that through marriage and having a family, one could attain moksha.

Life

Namdev (second from right) with other bhagats of Sikhism: Ravidas, Kabir and Pipa.

Details of the life of Namdev are vague. He is traditionally believed to have lived between 1270 and 1350 but S. B. Kulkarni — according to Christian Novetzke, "one of the most prominent voices in the historical study of Maharashtrian sant figures" — has suggested that 1207-1287 is more likely, based on textual analysis. Some scholars date him to around 1425 and another, R. Bharadvaj, proposes 1309-1372.

Namdev was married to Rajai and had a son, Vitha, both of whom wrote about him, as did his mother, Gonai. Contemporary references to him by a disciple, a potter, a guru and other close associates also exist. There are no references to him in the records and inscriptions of the then-ruling family and the first non-Varkari noting of him appears possibly to be in the Lilacaritra, a Mahanubhava-sect biography dating from 1278. Smrtisthala, a later Mahanubhava text from around 1310, may also possibly refer to him; after that, there are no references until a bakhar of around 1538.

According to Mahipati, a hagiographer of the 18th-century, Namdev's parents were Damashet and Gonai, a childless elderly couple whose prayers for parenthood were answered in a form that bears similarities with the Immaculate Conception and involved him being found floating down a river. As with various other details of his life, elements such as this may have been invented to sidestep issues that might have caused controversy. In this instance, the potential controversy was that of caste or, more specifically, his position in the Hindu varna system of ritual ranking. He was born into what is generally recognised as a Shudra caste, variously recorded as shimpi (tailor) in the Marathi language and as chimpi (calico-printer) in northern India. Shudra is the lowest-ranked of the four varnas and those of his followers in Maharashtra and northern India who are from those communities prefer to consider their place, and thus his, as the higher-status Kshatriya rank.

There are contrary traditions concerning his birthplace, with some people believing that he was born at Narsi Bahmani, on the Krishna River in Marathwada, and others preferring somewhere near to Pandharpur on the Bhima river. that he was himself a calico-printer or tailor and that he spent much of his life in Punjab. The Lilacaritra suggests, however, that Namdev was a cattle-thief who was devoted to and assisted Vithoba.

A friendship between Namdev and Jñāneśvar, a yogi-saint, has been posited at least as far back as circa 1600 CE when Nabhadas, a hagiographer, noted it in his Bhaktamal. Jñāneśvar, also known as Jñāndev, never referred to Namdev in his writings but perhaps had no cause to do so; Novetzke notes that "Jnandev's songs generally did not concern biography or autobiography; the historical truth of their friendship is beyond my ken to determine and has remained an unsettled subject in Marathi scholarship for over a century."

Namdev is generally considered by Sikhs to be a holy man (bhagat), many of whom came from lower castes and so also attracted attention as social reformers. Such men, who comprised both Hindus and Muslims, traditionally wrote devotional poetry in a style that was acceptable to the Sikh belief system.

A tradition in Maharashtra is that Namdev died at the age of eighty in 1350 CE. Sikh tradition maintains that his death place was the Punjabi village of Ghuman, although this is not universally accepted. Aside from a shrine there that marks his death, there are monuments at the other claimant places, being Pandharpur and the nearby Narsi Bahmani.

Work

The literary works of Namdev were influenced by Vaishnava philosophy and a belief in Vithoba. Along with the Jñānēśvarī, a sacred work of Jñānēśvar, and of Bhakti movement teacher-writers such as Tukaram, the writings of Namdev form the basis of the beliefs held by the Varkari sect of Hinduism. He was thus among those responsible for disseminating the monotheistic Varkari faith that had emerged first in Karnataka in the mid- to late-twelfth century and then spread to Pandharpur in Maharashtra.

Namdev and Jñānēśvar used the Marathi language to convey their beliefs rather than using the traditional Sanskrit language that was essentially a buttress for the pre-eminence of the Brahmin priests. Namdev's style was to compose simply worded praise for Vithoba and to use a melodic device called samkirtana, both of which were accessible to common people. Shima Iwao says that "He taught that all can be saved equally, without regard to caste, through devotion (bhakti) to Vithoba" and that he greatly influenced groups of people who were forbidden by the Brahmin elite from studying the Vedas, such as women and members of the Shudra and untouchable communities.

The earliest anthological record of Namdev's works occurs in the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scriptures compiled in 1604, although Novetzke notes that while the manuscript records of Namdev mostly date from the 17th- and 18th-centuries, there exists a manuscript from 1581 that presents a rarely recounted variant version of Namdev's Tirthavli, a Marathi-language autobiographical piece. It is evident that the Guru Granth record is not an accurate rendition of what Namdev wrote: the oral tradition probably accounts significantly for the changes and additions that appear to have been made by that time. The numerous subsequently produced manuscripts also show variances texts and additions works that are attributed to him. Of around 2500 abhangs that were credited to him and written in the Marathi language, perhaps only 600 - 700 are authentic. The surviving manuscripts are geographically dispersed and of uncertain provenance.

Philosophy

Namdev was influenced by Vaishnavite philosophy. His poems sometimes invoked Vithoba, sometimes Vishnu-Krishna as Govind-Hari, but in the larger context of Rama, which states McGregor, was not referring to the hero described in the Hindu Epic Ramayana, but to a pantheistic Ultimate Being who is "transcending, unqualified, infinite, eternal, unknowable, offeror and seeker of mystical love". Namdev's view of Rama can be visualized, adds McGregor, "only as the one true, or real Teacher of man (satguru)".

Indian traditions attribute varying theosophical views to Namdev. In north India, Namdev is considered as a nirguna bhakta, in Marathi culture he is considered a saguna bhakta. Callewaert and Lath state that the saguna label on Namdev is questionable because he uses over three dozen names for the divine in his poems, including Narayan, Hari, Nath, Deva, Vitthal, Prabhu, Ram, Bhagvant and Brahma.

If I have to sing, I sing of Ganesh and Sharda,
 There is none except them,
If I have to dance, I dance the Tandava of Shiva,
 He is the one who knows to dance,
If I have to recite, I recite the four Vedas,
 Whatever is still left from one, I do say
If one has to know, one should know all the Eighteen,
 Whatever is still left, I should know
If there are any artists, they are the sun and the moon,
 They show the Twelve and Sixteen in the sky
Nama says I have staked all,
 Let Keshava take me as his own.

— Namdev, Gane Jari Mhano, Translated by Prabakar Machwe

In Namdev literature, devotion as the path to liberation is considered superior than other alternate paths. Novetzke states that the envisioned devotion is not one way from the devotee to Vishnu, but it is bidirectional, such that "Krishna (Vishnu) is Namdev's slave, and Namdev is Vishnu's slave". To Namdev, mechanical rituals are futile, pilgrimage to holy places is pointless, deep meditation and loving mutual devotion is what matters. Namdev and other sant poets of India "were influenced by the monist view of the ultimate being (Brahman)", which was expressed, in vernacular language, as the loving devotion not of a specific deity but to this ultimate, according to McGregor.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Iwao, Shima (June–September 1988), "The Vithoba Faith of Maharashtra: The Vithoba Temple of Pandharpur and Its Mythological Structure" (PDF), Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 15 (2–3), Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture: 183–197, ISSN 0304-1042, archived from the original (PDF) on 26 March 2009
• McGregor, Ronald Stuart (1984), A History of Indian Literature, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 9783447024136
• Novetzke, Christian Lee (2013), Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev in India, Columbia University Press, ISBN 9780231512565
• McGregor, RS (1992), Devotional Literature in South Asia, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521413114
• Callewaert, Winand M. and Mukunda Lāṭh (1989), The Hindi Songs of Namdev, Brussels: Peeters Publishers (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta Series), ISBN 978-9068311075
• Prill, Susan (2009), "Representing Sainthood in India: Sikh and Hindu Visions of Namdev", Material Religion, 5 (2): 156–179
• Sadarangani, Neeti M. (2004), Bhakti Poetry in Medieval India: Its Inception, Cultural Encounter and Impact, Sarup & Sons, ISBN 9788176254366