Remembering Sant Namdev

Sant Namdev (Namdeo, c. 1270-1350 CE) was a precursor of bhakti reformers like Kabir, Ekanath, Tukaram and others. An ardent devotee of Vitthal (also called Vithoba or Panduranga), a form of Vishnu or Sri Krishna, he helped in the growth and development of the Varkari sect, and created a culture of devotion in western India and in Punjab where he spent the latter part of his life.

Born on October 26, 1270, Namdev, the son of Damasheti and Gonai, was sixth in descent from Yadusheta Relekar of Narsi Brahmani village in Maharashtra. Soon after his birth, his parents moved to Pandharpur, the holy seat of Vitthal, in district Sholapur. He was married to Rajabai (Rajai), daughter of Govindsheti Sadavarte and was blessed with five children – Nara,Vitha, Gonda, and Mahada (sons) and Limbai (daughter), but his mind yearned for a mystic union with the divine. He evinced little interest in the ancestral business of tailoring and calico-printing, and spent most of his time in the shrine of Vitthal or in the company of holy men. His preceptor, Visoba Khechar, helped him to reach the higher realms of being where external worship is required no more.

‘The anguish of bondage and liberation has been resolved;

I now remain ever absorbed in the state of divine bliss.

Khechar’s feet are the quintessence of all my endeavours.’ ( SNG, 1370)

As with most holy persons, miracles have come to be associated with Namdev. At the age of five he made the idol of Keshavraj drink milk. He once saved Pandharpur from an imminent danger of flood, brought a dead cow to life, and made the temple of Naganatha rotate in the western direction, when asked by a Muslim to shift his venue of kirtana-performance. During his religious travels with Sant Jnaneshwara, he is said to have raised the level of water to quench his thirst. He transformed the pebbles of Bhima river into touchstones after he had sunk a precious piece which his wife had borrowed for making gold.

Namdev visited Punjab twice, first with Sant Jnaneshwara, and then independently, travelling through Gujarat and Rajputana. He settled in village Ghuman, now in Gurdaspur district of Punjab, and stayed there for about two decades, making many disciples including Vishnuswami, Bohar Das, Jallo, Laddha, and Kesho.

In his abhangas, lyrical poems, Namdev wants to make his heart a prison-house of God, so that He cannot escape. To redeem himself of sins, he solicits the grace of god as his divine treasury would not be depleted. He claims to see god face to face, and hears the anahata nada, unstruck sound, within. In consequence thereof, he does not see duality of subject and object, and finds God in everything and everything in God.

‘See Him with your inner eye; hear Him with your inner ear; comprehend Him with your entire mind and thought;

Intoxicated with His love, sing praises of the Lord, for He is present in each particle and every being.’ (SNG, 414)

Namdev rejects self-mortification, ablutions, penances, pilgrimages, and animal-sacrifice, and lays emphasis on constant remembrance of God’s Name, which he regards as an antidote to worldly afflictions.

‘Repeat thou His Name, listen to His voice,

And vanquish death.

Meditating on His Name,

Make all divine powers thy slaves.’ (SNG,668)

To Namdev, holiness is not a matter of applying sacred marks or wearing a specific apparel but of remaining in god-consciousness. He censures the priestly class for being intermediaries between god and men, and for using religious places as personal property.

‘They behave as if they are dear relatives of the Lord,

But they are, O Nama, none other than thieves in disguise.’(SNG, 1804)

Namdev holds that spirituality presupposes purity of mind and heart, firmness of faith, indifference to worldly activities, absolute surrender to His will, and absence of human vices like lust, anger, greed, attachment and vanity. He recommends the company of saints who can transform a man of the world into a man of God. In his view, the true saint embodies peace and equanimity, and is indifferent to honour and dishonour, pleasure and pain. Moreover, he is above the lure of money and carnal desires.

‘The saints are my shelter, the saints are my treasure.

I have attained the Lord through my association with the saints.’(HP, 32).

While Sant Jnaneshwar provided an intellectual basis to the medieval Bhakti tradition, Namdev imbued it with devotional feelings and emotions. His poems in Marathi, Hindi and Punjabi, reveal his poetic genius, and are much popular in Punjab and Maharashtra. Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Sikh Master, included sixty-one of his verses in the sacred Adi Granth.

(Dr Satish K Kapoor, former British Council scholar and principal of Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar, is a noted author, educationist, historian and spiritualist based in Jalandhar city.)