Dnyaneshwari: The Read of A Lifetime

      I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been told by people to go and read the real deal: The Vedas, The Gita, and so many Sanskrit texts which my entire life will prove too short to read. But perhaps you’ll sympathize with me if I was a bit overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start! It’s like walking into your dream library and crying from sheer nervous happiness because you know you want them all!

  Finally I found an English translation of Dnyaneshwari by Ravin Thatte. I was a bit hesitant of reading a translation, because let’s be honest, there isn’t a book written which can be translated word for word from one language to another and not lose any  of it’s original meaning. Still, it was a start.

   The copy has 1034 pages to be precise (I’m still on the second chapter) and I’ve read large volumes before, but this book is different. The feeling that you’re reading something sacred and dealing with knowledge passed down for centuries by men from generation to generation like it is some secret treasure, is ever-present.

   Sant Dnyaneshwar was smart. His effective use of poesy, his almost mnemonic-like description of certain qualities and characteristics is very interesting. Dnyaneshwari teaches you how to live. It was written with the individual in mind, but it’s concepts largely apply to the society and how one must live in it. This book might be a dense encryption of the deepest secrets of the ages, and is by no means an easy read, but it is a colourful one. The description of Ganesha in the first chapter with different qualities describing his different organs is if not anything, a brilliant mnemonic device.

   Dnyaneshwari  was first present in the oral form when it was translated from the Gita by Dnyaneshwar for villagers and laymen who could not understand the Gita  because it was written in Sanskrit, a language then only restricted to the upper echelons of society, the Brahmins. Hence, not only does Dnyaneshwari contain easy and familiar language which describes the ancient landforms of India with its people, but also stories and mythological lores of Gods and man which the villagers possibly could understand better.

   Dnyaneshwari is like a river. It is a river of ancient knowledge and still carries with it the essence of the India that once kings with abundant riches and possibly men with strange powers resided in. You cannot stop it, you can’t even measure it and few have been able to cross it, but it flows on, providing knowledge to those who were not fortunate enough to receive it and who praise the one man who cared enough to.