Jnaneshwar

by Anant Pai

Jnaneshwar (meaning Lord of Knowledge or Jnana) was one of the greatest saints of Maharashtra and the founder of the Bhakti Movement. All the subsequent poet-saints of Maharashtra looked up to him for inspiration. Jnaneshwar was the one who first explained the Gita in Marathi thereby bringing it to the masses who had no knowledge of Sanskrit. He wrote in Jnaneshwari (his commentary on the Gita): "Let the city of the Marathi language be enriched with spiritual knowledge so that the merchandise of happiness will be cheap and customers in this market can take as much happiness as they want."With this motive in mind, he explained the Gita in a simple way, providing examples from daily life. It was not his intension to establish a sect. He wanted only to share the joy of the Gita with the masses. "I want to fill the whole world with divine joy," he wrote. And so he did. His Jnaneshwari is widely read to this day, throughout Maharashtra. Besides Jnaneshwari, Jnaneshwar’s other works include Anubhavamrita, Changdev Pasashti and over a thousand verses known as Abhangas. With his mission accomplished, Jnaneshwar entered samadhi, the state of blissful consciousness, and withdrew from the world in Alandi when he was just 21 years old in 1297 AD. Namdev, in his Jnanadevachi Adi, has recorded the events in the life of his spiritual preceptor in great detail.

Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

Anant Pai popularly known as Uncle Pai, was an Indian educationalist and creator of Indian comics, in particular the Amar Chitra Katha series in 1967, along with the India Book House publishers, and which retold traditional Indian folk tales, mythological stories, and biographies of historical characters. In 1980, he launched Tinkle, a children's anthology, which was started under Rang Rekha Features, India's first comic and cartoon syndicate, that lasted till 1998, with him as the Managing Director.

Today, Amar Chitra Katha sells about three million comic books a year, in English and more than 20 Indian languages, and has sold about 100 million copies since it inception in 1967 by Anant Pai, and in 2007 was taken over by ACK Media.