The Mahānubhāvas - Digital Corpus of Old Marathi (DCOMA)

The MahānubhāvasAuthor(s): I. M. P. RaesideSource: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol.39, No. 3 (1976), pp. 585-600Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and AfricanStudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/614716Accessed: 18-09-2017 15:35 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide

range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and

facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

http://about.jstor.org/terms

Cambridge University Press, School of Oriental and African Studies are collaboratingwith JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Bulletin of the School of Orientaland African Studies, University of London

This content downloaded from 140.254.87.149 on Mon, 18 Sep 2017 15:35:42 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

THE MAHANUBHAVAS1

By I. M. P. RAESIDE

The Mahanubhdvas are a Hindu sect whose members are largely con- centrated in northern and eastern Maharashtra, between the old districts of Khandesh and Nagpur, while they are strongest of all in Berar. In many respects they have a rather marginal place in the culture of Maharashtra today. Unlike the Virkari pantha, the much more celebrated and popular Vaisnava sect, they are centred on a backwoods area. They tend to gather in mathas (monasteries) in decayed villages that are a day's journey from the nearest railway or main road. Instead of Alandi, which is on Poona's doorstep, or Pandharpur, their holy places are Ritpur, a crumbling dusty village in the rolling country north of Amraoti, and Mahur, on a mountainside on the borders of Berar and the Adilabad district of Andhra. Like the Virkaris their followers

are almost all non-Brahmans, but unlike the Varkaris they have, until recently at least, acquired few Brahman champions to lend them ethical and religious respectability, and indeed they are chiefly known in Marathi folk-lore as typify- ing a virulent brand of hypocrisy-the stereotype of a sweet tongue and professions of virtue that cover up all sorts of unseemly and unspecified ' goings-on'. Their numbers are relatively small. Enthoven, whose section on them in The tribes and castes of Bombay is one of the few references to the sect in English, gives it an estimated membership of about 22,000 in 1901,2 and it is hard to judge what relation this figure would bear to the number of professed Mahinubhivas today. The modern census figures are of course no help, since Mahdnubhdvas are included under the general heading of Hindus.

However, in spite of this peripheral status in Marathi society, the Mahanubhdva sect has received a great deal of attention from Marathi scholars over the last 50 years, and this is entirely on account of the literature produced within the sect. Up to the beginning of the present century it had been content to suffer in silence the slanders of its enemies (and the enemy was to a large extent the Brahmans of the districts in which it flourished). A nineteenth-

1 The core of this article was a paper read to the Royal Asiatic Society in 1966. This was later expanded to form a contribution to the seminar on Aspects of Religion in South Asia that was held at SOAS in 1970-1. It has been further revised now that it is apparent that there is no longer any prospect of the seminar papers being published as a collection.

2 R. E. Enthoven, The tribes and caste8 of Bombay, Bombay, 1920-2, ru, 427-33. Some of the information supplied to Enthoven (by D. R. Bhandarkar) reveals a high degree of heterodoxy within the sect which may be true of the late nineteenth century but has left no trace in the Marathi literature. See also J. N. Farquar, An outline of the religious literature of India, Oxford, 1920, 247-9. Reference to a few other sources on the Mahlnubhdvas is made in J. Gonda, Die Religionen Indiens, ni, Stuttgart, 1963, 177, but beware some semi-' ghost ' works : ' B. M. Sastri :

Mahdnubhdv Panth' is the Marathi work of B.lakr:inagstri Mahinubhdva referred to in n. 4, below. 'N. Kalelkar: La secte Mdnbhv ' is an unpublished doctoral thesis that I have yet to see. For some of the main works on the sect in Marathi see I. M. P. Raeside, ' A bibliographical index of MahTnubhiva works in Marathi ', BSOAS, xxnr, 3, 1960, 464-507.


586 I. M. P. RAESIDE

century writer from Ellichpur (Muslim and therefore neutral) says of the Mahanubhdvas that 'there is bitter enmity between them and the Brahmans of this district ', but ' however much people oppress them they never complain '.3 The twentieth century wrought a change in this humility and some of the mahantas, as the Mahinubhava religious leaders call themselves, began first in 1907 to defend their sect in the courts against slanders.4 To prove their case and rebut some of the more offensive origins wished on them by their detractors, they had to produce some of the holy scriptures of the sect which had been jealously kept secret until then, and Marathi scholars were astonished to find themselves presented with a whole corpus of literature much of which dated from the fourteenth century and was contemporary with the oldest works of Marathi literature known up to that time. Moreover this corpus contained not only verse but a great quantity of early prose-the only appreciable body of prose to be written in Marathi before the seventeenth century. It is no wonder that a number of Marathi scholars began to devote themselves eagerly to the publication of these early works and to studies of the sect which have enormously increased our knowledge of it over the last few decades. Naturally all this work has been published in Marathi and is scarcely known outside Maharashtra, so much so that the baldest outline of the history of the sect was recently published in a Gujarati journal in the guise of a learned article. The present article sets out only to make available to non-Marathi readers an outline of the institutions and beliefs of the Mahanubhivas. Although I have permitted myself a few speculations on somewhat sensitive points that have, in general, been avoided by Marathi scholars, I have tried as much as possible to restrain myself from suggesting possible influences and indicating parallel beliefs or practice, since I feel that this task is better left to scholars who can take a broader view of the development of Indian religions and philosophy.

Origin and history of the sect

The Mahinubhiva sect has preserved very detailed histories of its founder and of the ramifying guru parampards of the disciples who followed him. With them it has always been a work of piety to keep accounts of the lives of their great men and the works that they wrote in a series of hagiographical works

known as Lildcaritra, Sm.rtisthala, Vrddhacira, and Anvayasthala.5 Unfortu- nately these works are somewhat deficient in dates, and those dates that are given are conflicting and seem frequently to be interpolations. However, by combining the Mahdnubhiva traditions with the emendations of later historians, notably Professor Kolte who has devoted a lifetime of study to the subject, one can arrive at a fairly satisfactory account of the early years of the sect.

3 V. B. Kolte, Mahdnubhdva saa.hodhana, Malkapur, 1962, 148. 4 Times of India, 15 November 1907. For an account of another cause celebre see Balakprna~Bstri MahAnubhAva, Mahlnubhiva-pantha, second ed., Mahur, 1960, 346-58.

6 For these and other title of MahAnubhAva works mentioned subsequently detailed references can be found in Raeside, art. cit. Individual references will only be given for works published since 1960.


THE MAHANUBIHAVAS 587

The founder was Cakradhara, traditionally born at Broach in 1194 the son of the minister of a king Malladeva (?). His name was Haripiladeva and he died young, perhaps c. 1221, but before his body could be burned it was reanimated by the spirit of Cakrapaini, the third avatar of god (paramedvara) according to Mahdnubhava belief. However, he still carried on his secular life as a young prince for some time, but finally set off on a pilgrimage to Ramtek near Nagpur. He separated himself from his train and finally wandered into Ritpur where he met Govindaprabhu, the fourth of the five avatars, and became his disciple. Then began a series of wanderings-12 years in the wilderness as a naked ascetic, then a period in the south at Warangal in Andhra where he rather oddly married again, and finally a return to the Godavari at Paithan where he met Ndgdisd and acquired her as his first permanent female disciple. This marks the end of the period of Cakradhara's life that is known as Ekdnka in the Mahinubhiva histories, the period when he was' solo ' so to speak, and his meeting with Nagdisd can be fairly confidently dated to 1266. Up to this point one may believe as much or as little of the story as one likes, but from now on, for the last eight years of Cakradhara's life which is told in the two sections of the histories called Pirvdrdha and

Uttardrdha, we are given the most detailed account of Cakradhara's wanderings up and down the Godavari, constantly teaching his doctrine and acquiring devoted disciples, many of them women. The names of all the villages where he stopped are given, the number of days that he stayed in any one place, whether he set out in the morning or the evening, and so on. Naturally there are discrepancies in times and numbers between the various versions of the histories, but all the same it is possible to draw a map of Cakradhara's movements during those years and the details hang together remarkably well. About half-way through these eight years, at the break between Parvdrdha and Uttardrdha, Cakradhara was joined by Nagadeva, his most devoted male follower who was to become the leader of the sect after Cakradhara's death

which took place probably in 1274 (8aka 1196 mngha). Cakradhara's death was remarkable, and the most remarkable aspect of it

is that the story is told openly in the sect's own histories, though only in some versions. Because he had earned the undying hatred of the Brahman ministers of the king, Rdmdevrija Yddava, he was arrested and brought to Paithan and there accused of living immorally with his female disciples. As a punish- ment his nose was cut off (some say his ears as well). Later, his enemies still not satisfied, he was arrested again and this time beheaded. The Mahanubhavas say that he then 'received' his head back on to his body and departed for the

north where he is still presumed to be living in splendour--rajya karitam.6

8 This episode, usually known as Aeva.tacer. prakarana (the final event), appears only in some MSS of Lizlacaritra, but it fills an obvious lacuna in the other versions which jump without any transition from the point where Cakradhara's life is threatened to his ' going north '. V. B. Kolte's 8ricakradhara caritra, Malkapur, 1952, covers all aspects of Cakradhara's life and has a final chapter (pp. 284-318) which deals exhaustively with the evidence that bears on his dates.



After Cakradhara's death the leaderless disciples drifted back to Ritpur and gathered round Govindaprabhu till his death in c. 9aka 1209/1287,7 whereupon NMgadeva took over and commanded the group till his own death in c. 1312. He held the sect together, no doubt through having been Cakradhara's inseparable companion, and under him it was a definite rule that only he, as leader, could give dikcs, initiation and teaching, to new recruits. Once instructed, however, these new disciples tended to be shared out among the old guard. Nigadeva was followed by Baidevabdsa (1312-15) and then by Kavidvaracarya, who as his name implies was the great poet of the early period of Mahanubhiva literature, but after his death in the 1390's his successor

Paragar~mabdsa seems to have been unable to control the inevitable fissiparous tendencies of any growing society. Once the nexus of Cakradhara's original disciples had begun to acquire their own isiyas, quite obviously sub-group loyalties began to develop until towards the end of Paradaramabasa's leadership the Mahanubhava pantha split into 13 sub-sects or damndyas. We have the names listed, but many are scarcely mentioned again and must have been very short-lived. Others keep cropping up continuously, but by the end of the nineteenth century they had all merged back into one or other of the two strong factions, the Upadhye and the Kavidvara-the Kavivara representing orthodoxy and the Upddhye having proved for some unknown reason the strongest splinter group. The differences between these two amnayas are now minimal-minor points of doctrine, minor details of dress-but no doubt there must have been many furious debates produced by the original schism.8 In the present century one can see a rather interesting reaction upon the sect as a whole of the attentions of outside scholars. Mahanubhdvas have been

spurred by the interest of others into taking an interest in themselves. Clearly the whole movement had become somewhat debased over the centuries-each

sub-sect devoutly preserving its manuscripts and traditions but rarely bothering to think about them, still less to compare them. From the 1920's onwards they began to produce a few scholars from among themselves and have been moved to resurrect some of the missing Jmndyas. So a learned and respected member of the Kavi-vara was some years ago promoted as the new, revived Yaksadeva mahanta. Time will show whether this is enough to start a viable guru- parampard stemming from him.

The pace at which this modernization and reformation of the pantha takes place depends very much on the character of the incumbents of the more influential centres. Between the wars the mahantas of the Devadevesvara

matha at Mahur and the Gopiraja mandira at Ritpur were enthusiasts who played a leading part in collecting and studying Mahinubhiva works and in assisting outside scholars to understand them. Their immediate successors did

I V. B. Kolte (ed.), Mhdianbhaca-sankalita &ri Govindaprabhu caritra, second ed., Malkapur, 1960, introd., 18.

8 V. B. Kolte, ' MahMnubhdvdnce dona dmnidya 'in his Mahnubhva 8a~iodhana, 123-36.


THE MAHANUBHAVAS 589

not maintain this tradition quite so actively and other centres of reform developed. The position today is that many mahantas within the pantha are happy to take their doctrinal difficulties to Professor Kolte to be settled, for he has devoted more study to Mahdnubhava philosophy and ritual (vicara and dcra) than anyone within the sect. The other half of the sect are strictly orthodox still, and refuse to disclose or even discuss Mahanubhava beliefs with outsiders.

Before leaving the history of the pantha I should mention its extension into the Panjab in the sixteenth century, where it became established in a small way as the Jai Krishni pantha. There are Jai Krishni mathas at Lahore and Peshawar, and there is even reputed to be one in Kabul. The connexion between the Mahinubhivas of Maharashtra and this outpost was well main- tained until partition. It was the tradition for the mahantas of the more important Mahanubhava mathas to be Panjabi, and in fact most of the enlightened Mahanubhava leaders who began to publish on their own account and to co-operate with outside scholars were Panjabis.

Mahanubhdva doctrine

The authority for all Mahanubhava beliefs and practices is contained in the writings produced soon after Cakradhara's death by his disciples. First came

the Ld;i.caritra, the story of Cakradhara's lil.5 or activities on earth. It is divided into three parts, Ekanka, Parvdrdha, and Uttardrdha, as I have already mentioned, and has been published in a very unsatisfactory edition.9 It is supposed to have been composed by the disciple Mhlimbhata immediately after Cakradhara's death and contains all Cakradhara's movements and every

word that he said put down from memory by Mhii.mbhata after consultation with all the other disciples. Soon afterwards Kesobdsa produced from this and from his own recollections an epitome of Cakradhara's teaching in the form of sutras, now called the Satrapctha. This is the ' bible ' of the Mahdnu- bhavas. It is divided into sections of which all but the last four are quite short. Kesobasa later added a further section that has also become holy writ,

the Drstnta-pdtha which is a collection of all the stories Cakradhara ever used to illustrate his teaching. A large proportion of later Mah&nubhiva writing consists of reworking of and commentaries on this material.

The philosophy propounded by the Sfltrapatha is basically a dvaita system, but instead of the simple dualism of prakrti and purusa of Sdnkhya, Cakradhara proposed four everlasting, always independent components of the universe: Jiva (the life-monad), Devatd (minor gods who mainly exist for their nuisance value to Jiva), Prapanca (the material world), and Paramesvara/Brahma. It seems that the Mahinubhdvas are eccentric in setting up Devati as a separate

SH-. N. Nene, Mahdrdafrfya idya caritrakdra Mahindrabha.tta 8ankalita Lildcaritra, Nagpur, 5 parts, 1936-50. The more recent edition of S. G. Tulpule (5 parts, Poona, 1964-6) reprints the same text but with some useful notes and vocabularies.



entity instead of as a higher manifestation of Jiva. The purpose of Jiva is to attain moksa or a state of kaivalya, attaining the form of God (isvara svaripadc prdpti) and participating in the bliss of God (ilvara ananddci upabhoga),10 and Jiva is held back from this by the usual things--anddi avidyd, various categories of ignorance and error, and also by the temptation to aim at something lower. By striving to attain one of the many forms of Devatd, Jiva receives the smear (lepa) of the karma that is in the control of the lower gods, and therefore even the optimum fruits of karma that Jiva can hope to achieve by so doing are necessarily transient. It will eventually drop back into the endless karma- rahati---the wheel of action in the world. The devata are essentially therefore a powerful impediment to Jiva in its

search for moksa. Devata includes in fact almost the whole gamut of the Hindu dantheon. According to Mahinubhava belief the devatd cakra is very elaborately organized into a hierarchy of nine levels. I will not list them all but at the bottom come the karmabhfim*hcyi devata--very minor godlings, yaksas and yaksinis, animistic gods inhabiting wells and ruined buildings. Their number is 13 crores and they are limited in space to a distance of 500 yojands each way-that is the karmabhami, the widest extent of Bhdratvarsa. At the top of the hierarchy comes Mayd, the female principle of creativity, infinite or rather coterminous with the brahmdnda and responsible periodically and under instruction from TIvara for extruding Jiva from where it has been existing in a potential form within her. Meanwhile the astabhairava are busy evolving

Prapanca from the pdnca mahdbhilte*.n and the three gun.as which they in some way embody. Half-way down the hierarchy come the satya-kaildsa-vaikun thicya devatS, who are three parallel sets headed by Brahmd, giva, and Visnu respec- tively. Somewhat confusingly, however, the names of the astabhairava, who are like very bad-tempered henchmen of Tivara employed for creating and destroying Prapanca, include Umdpati, Saddaiva, Padupati, as well as Brahma, Visnu, and Mahddeva.11

One does not need to take this elaborate construction too literally. It is quite obviously a structured rag-bag into which has been thrown any pre- existing god that emerged and it is very convenient for making conversions. For the devatd cakra is incidental, and moreover it is very dubious whether Cakradhara himself was concerned with it at all except to deny its relevance.12

10 V. B. Kolte, Mahinubhava tattvajnina, Malkapur, 1945, 13. A summary of the main points of Mahinubhdva doctrine, for which I have not thought it useful to give detailed references, can be found in Kolte, or~cakradhara caritra, 214-50.

11 SgtrapSitha, Vicira, 20. None of these correspond with the names of the eight Bhairavas of the

gaiva system. Interestingly the remaining two, Kar.li and Vikar5.li are almost the same as the names of two of the 12 sages (Kardla and Vikardla) to whom Kdpdlika doctrine was revealed. Cf. D. N. Lorenzen, The Kipdlikas and Kalmuklhas : two lost aivite sects, New Delhi, 1972, 37.

12 See esp. Sitrapftha, Anyavydvrtti, 1-10. Even though the details are quite different, the concept of an elaborate hierarchy of Devatd has a close parallel in Madhva. Perhaps both systems descend from the lost Pancaritra texts to which Madhva refers. (Cf. S. Siauve, Le8 hidrarchies spirituelles selon l'Anuvydkhyana de Madhva, Pondich6ry, 1971, 9-14.)



His teaching is mainly concerned with the relationship between Jiva and Parameivara. He was preaching a kind of monotheism and refers constantly to the highest deity as Parameivara, gri Prabhu, or simply Para-that which is beyond all the Devata. For him this one true god makes himself manifest on earth from time to time as an avatar in order to assist Jiva in its heavy task

of attaining moksa. The pre-eminent avatar is Krsna, but not Krsna as an aspect of Vis.nu. This Krsna is independent, sui generis and at a pinch Krs.na the expounder of the Gita.

Paramesvara gives salvation (uddharan.a) through the medium of knowledge (jnuna) or of love (prema), and, as is usual where this kind of dichotomy is postulated, it is the receiver of prema, in other words the bhakta, who is dearer to god: 'to some he induces love-when you say love you say bhakti ... he places the bhakta before his face-those who have acquired knowledge he places at his back '.a1 In itself this is a fairly conventional gospel except that it was exclusive and in opposition to the comfortable belief of popular Vedanta that all forms of devotion might be equally efficacious-' a namaskara made to any god goes ultimately to Krsna '. However, there is much in the detail of the Sftrapdtha, particularly in the last two sections, Vicdra and Vicira-mdlikS, that is obviously drawn eclectically from pre-existing systems. In the vocabulary of the sitras which discuss Jiva's acquisition of inferior grades of jndna and sakti there are traces of Vedanta, of Yoga, and of Tantric concepts, and since Cakradhara is more or less contemporary with Madhva it would be surprising if his intransigent distinction of four eternal entities did not owe something to Piirna-dvaita. Informed discussion of any such parallels or influences must await a respectable edition and translation of the Sfitrap}tha.14 Up to now no

serious attempt has been made to compare the Sitrapatha with the Li.h1caritra and although Kolte devoted immense labour to expounding the ' Mahdnubhava ' system in Mahanubhava-tattvajunna, the circumstances of his research, in which he was dependent on the goodwill of devout Mahanubhava scholars, themselves somewhat apprehensive at their own temerity in discussing ' secret ' doctrine with an outsider, made it impossible for him to distinguish between levels of authenticity-between what Cakradhara said in specific situations

(his words as quoted in Lil.caritra), the epitome of his teaching (the Siitrapdtha), and the interpretation of later commentators.

Precepts of conduct

The Acdra and Acdra-milik sections of the Sitrapatha are concerned mainly with the way of life to be followed by the true disciples of Cakradhara/

13 ekarI prema sancariti ; prema bolije, bhakta bolije ... bhaktdsi dpanaperA samora deti ;... jndniydsi pdthisi ghlliti ' (Sitrapdtha, Uddharana, 13-14, 60, 62). There may be slight variations between my citations from Sitrapdtha and those of Kolte. The Nene editions are extremely rare

outside India and my own copy of Sitrap.tha is only a pantha edition published in Nagpur in 1959 without scholarly pretensions.

14A student of the University of Pennsylvania, Miss Anne Feldhaus, is at the moment embarking on this formidable task as a thesis subject.



Parameivara. It is the life of a wandering ascetic that is envisaged-a life in which all worldly ties are abandoned. More specifically Cakradhara enjoins nitydtana (constant movement-' you should be in such places where none know you and you know no one '),15 vijana (solitude--' you should pass your life at the foot of a tree at the farthest confines of the place '),16 bhiksibhojana

(begging all food), and ndmasmarana (constantly remembering the names and acts of Parameivara). There is no trace in this monastic rule of the conventional Vaisnava bhakti-no devotional songs, no personalized god that resides in a specific image at a specific place such as Vithoba of Pandhrapur. In fact Cakradhara says unequivocally: tirtha, devatd, purusu, iye tini Jpalaviti ' holy places, gods, and men, these three you should avoid '.17 All that is needed is smarana, anusmaranya, sakrta smaraa, he says. tumhl dayanasani, bhojani parameivaruci hodvd ki gd 'remembering, more remembering, remembering at every moment. God alone should be with you in sleeping, in sitting, in eating...'.18 One should give no special reverence to a guru, for this only forms another kind of bondage. A guru is only another human being, a jiva, after all. One should stay with him long enough to receive the true teaching and then depart to live alone. If you meet a fellow believer on your wanderings you should remain in company no longer than five days, and this time should be spent in fortifying each other's understanding by discussion and argument. Only the old and infirm may legitimately stay with their gurus and live on the alms begged by others. Also allied with this doctrine of renunciation is a very strong insistence on

ahimsd. tumaceni mungi r~.da na hodvi 'not even an ant should be widowed because of you', Cakradhara says,19 and one of the most strictly observed practices among MahAnubhavas is that of straining all their drinking water through three thicknesses of cloth.

This then in essence is what Cakradhara taught-continually to remember God (Parameivara) and to hold oneself aloof from all but the most unavoidable contacts with men and the world, being at the same time quite indifferent to

praise or blame (tumhdm. mdritm, pujitdm saminaci hodevd ki gd 'a beating or a blessing should be all the same to you ').20 It is a Spartan doctrine in fact, designed only for the sannyasi. There is no provision for lay hangers-on, no ritual, no real sense of community, no tangible objects of worship-except, of course, for Cakradhara himself. It is quite clear that he recommended himself to his followers as the latest avatar of Paramesvara. 'Remembering' for his disciples meant thinking on their leader's life and words as much as anything else. There was also Krsna, but Krsna only as expounder of the Gitd. There

are occasional references in the Siitraptha to the Bhdgavata story of Krsna,21

15 dpa2 ayatez kavhanifr nene, ipaaa kavhayi4teten ne *ije ais8ad sthanf~z aesvelt (Sitrap~tha, Aceira, 22).

16 dehd&in 8evatzr jhadatal.str janma kfepavemt (ibid., 26). 17 ibid., 39. 18 ibid., 29-30. 19 ibid., 60. 20o ibid., 64.

x 1Strapa~tha, Vicara, 82-5. Cf. also L.ldcaritra, Uttardrdha, 283--ycvari gosdavfjardsandhkid go.pi 8snghitali.



but Cakradhara does not seem to have taken much account of this. The Gita

is the word of gri Krsn.a, he says. 'All the rest is just Vyasa '.22 One does not find Cakradhara dwelling fondly on the pranks of Bdlakrs a or the martial exploits of Krsna the warrior. His teaching is confined to stern precepts and when he illustrates his doctrines the examples are contemporary and down- to-earth.

The corollary of Cakradhara's insistence on tyaga, sannyisa, etc., was that he took no account of social and sexual differences. For him women as well as

men, ~idras as well as the higher castes, were, if suitably instructed, equally fit for enlightenment and moksa. His followers were told to beg food from all

four varn.as and the fact that they did so was one of their boasts.23 Needless to say, he had no time for the brahma.s to whom his doctrines were anathema and who persecuted him, although he himself and many of his early followers were brdhmans. Ritual purity meant nothing to him, as is shown by several

stories in the Lid.caritra.24 Later developments

It is not hard to imagine that left in this bare and unappealing state Cakradhara's teaching might well have died with him, but in fact, as often happens, it was soon expanded into an increasingly popular form.

To start with the pantheon, we have seen that Cakradhara's main teaching concerns himself together with some references to Krsna. He makes a very occasional approving mention of Dattdtreya and he always acknowledged and gave great respect to Govindaprabhu as the guru who had passed on to him his

jnina-sakti.25 This much can be gathered from Ll.&caritra, which was, it must be remembered, constructed out of the reminiscences of Cakradhara's closest disciples several years after his death. In the Siitrapitha, which is a distillation

of Cakradhara's teaching extracted from the Li.caritra and which was subject to the same vicissitudes of loss and reconstruction, we find the first explicit mention of the five avatars of Parameivara in the sections called Pancandma

and Pancak.rsna which are a kind of preface to the main work added, according to Mahinubhdva tradition itself, at the reconstruction of the Siitrapatha by Kavidvaracarya in the early fourteenth century. These five avatars, or Krsnas, are listed as follows : ' In the Dvipara-yuga gri Krsna Cakravarti; in Saimphidri (i.e. Mahur) gri Dattatreya Prabhu; at Dvdrdvati gri Cdngadeva Rul~a

22 purda k?.Trdbdhiparyanta dekhati, gama astabhairavaparyanta dekhati ; Bdi, gftr rfkrsnokti ; era avaghifr vydsokti (Sf2trapdtha, Vicdra-malikd, 108-9).

a2 cturvarntyanr cared bhaiksyam, yd strd8i anusarije (Sitrapatha, Acara, 81). Cf. LZtlicaritra, Uttardrdha, 138.

24 ?L.caritra, Uttardrdha, 336, 427. 25 LIicaritra, Eklnka, 7. Cakradhara had little subsequent contact with Govindaprabhu. He

went back to Ritpur only twice (Ekdnka, 21 ; Pzrvirdha, 33-7) and while there lived separately from Govinda who, being both choleric and eccentric, tended to receive him with blows as often as with affection.



(Cakrapani); at Rddhipiira gri Gun.dama Rul~a (Govindaprabhu); at Pratisthlna (Paithan) gri Cangadevo Rdula Sarvajna (Cakradhara)'. In the interval between Cakradhara's death and the time of Kavibvara

the original disciples had, we know, transferred their devotion to Govinda- prabhu, and his guru Cangadeva Raula had come to be canonized in this time. Indeed the whole story of Cangadeva being reborn as Cakradhara may date from this period. As for Dattatreya there seems no reason why the Mahdnu- bhivas should have exempted him from the scorn they felt for all other gods, except, one might suggest, because he was present in strength. The temple of Dattdtreya on the hill-top at Mahur is one of the oldest and most sacred places of that god, and Mahur is very close to the Mahdnubhdva heart- land in Berar. One cannot avoid an unworthy suspicion that Dattatreya was admitted to the pantheon because he was the main object of veneration of the most convenient potential converts. What is certain is that in the Siltrapatha, even as reconstructed in the early fourteenth century, there are only two pronouncements made by Cakradhara which have any bearing on Dattatreya. At the beginning of the Acara prakarana he says flatly Matdpuri Kolhapuri

na vacavem. 'Don't go to Mahur or Kolhapur '.26 He certainly never went near either place himself. However at the end of Vicdra we find ori Dattatreya

prabhucJ caturyugi avataru ... yd margdsi Sri Dattatreyaprabhu adhikarana.27 This seems conclusive, yet I find it suspicious that the words should occur in the very last four siltras of the chapter and that neither of these sentences

can be traced back to Lil.caritra. At all events Dattdtreya has been introduced into the canon by the story of his appearing to Cdngadeva Raula at Mahur in the guise of a tigress. Laying her paw on Cingadeva's head she transmitted the sakti of Dattatreya to him.28 Possibly some historical Cangadeva, the guru of Govindaprabhu, actually was a devotee of Dattatreya. Certainly it was NMgadeva, while living with Govindaprabhu at Ritpur after Cakradhara's death, who first started the rot by visiting Mahur in defiance of Cakradhara's express commands, and the reason was because Govindaprabhu told him to do so almost on his death-bed. In the Govindaprabhu-caritra we hear how Ndgadeva was upset when Govindaprabhu was dying and said ' When Cakradhara passed on he sent us to you, and now you are preparing to die and where will you send us now ? ' And Govindaprabhu, who was a rather choleric old man, said 'Damn it all, why don't you go to Mahur ! ' or words to that effect.2" It is not impossible either that this might be a piece of self-justification by the Kavisvara Jmniya, for it was the Kavigvara who went to Mahur and now control the

26 Siitrapatha, AJcra, 25. Cakradhara's explicit reason was that Mahur, like Kolhapur, was a centre of Devi worship and he felt that the power of the goddess was an impediment to true moksa-

tiyerl s8bhimaniyer sthdneMa sadhakasi vighna kariti. The temple of Devi, under the name of ReinukA, shares the hill of Mahur with Dattltreya and their local legends are intermixed. 7 Siitraptha, Vicara, 282-5. 28 Lil.caritra, Ekanka, 1. 29 ~vo meld, mitipurdasi je mhane (Govindaprabhu-caritra, 322).



Devadevesvar matha at the bottom of the hill of Dattitreya,30 while many of their main rivals, the UpAdhye dmniya, will not go near the place still. I suspect that Cakradhara, whatever claims he may have made about his

own origin (Gujarati royalty, avatar of Parameivara, etc.) in his latter days, taught an essentially ascetic Vaisnava dualistic doctrine, enjoining rejection of all gods and images but allowing Krsna, solely as author of the GitN, as a worthy object of reverence. All this teaching was put out while wandering up and down the Godavari with only one visit to his nominal guru Govinda- prabhu. However after Cakradhara's death his flock moved north, collected round Govindaprabhu, and began to take root in the Berar district accumulating lay followers for the first time and with them accretions, the most important being Dattitreya, the deity of the dominant local holy place.

This new proselytizing period, which followed the disciples' move to Berar, produced other major changes in the Mahinubhdva pantha. Up to now most of the disciples had been brdhmans and therefore educated men. It is not chance that nearly all the major literary works written in the sect appeared in the early fourteenth century. However, as soon as the pantha began to acquire a large non-brchmana infrastructure of converts more doctrine was needed-laws for various grades of g.rhasthas, or lay followers, which significantly include a category of sannyisacyuta (backsliders from sannydsa), as well as bhopi-temple servants.31 It is all right to leave an educated man to work out his own brand of smaraui, but for the multitude something less demanding is needed and we

see the composition of short litanies like Piljvasara and Prasadasevd which give a handy form of words to help weaker brethren in their main, twice daily, remembering sessions.32 The first of these was traditionally composed by Biidevabdsa, the second ica-rya. We find a whole new ritual structure being introduced. Cakradhara had

said that his followers should never omit to salute his ote.33 An ota is a low dais

where he sat to teach and many presumably were preserved in the villages up and down the Godavari where he made long stays. These have multiplied until there is one in almost every village where a body of Mahinubhdvas live. The opt has become a cult object. Moreover it is no longer tied to Cakradhara,

for some are associated with other members of the Pancak.rsna (for instance at Mahur there is one to commemorate Cangadeva Riula).34 This is not all, though. At Mahur a perfectly ordinary linga is one of the main objects of reverence, but this is nothing to do with Mahddeva, one will be told. It is worshipped only because it is a sambandhi sthlna. Any place or object that

was ever touched by any one of the five Krsnas is sambandhi ' connected ' and therefore Mahinubhdvas today, while professing a philosophy which demands an entirely intellectual worship of an ideal Parameivara, still have an unlimited

number of icons to resort to. Sa.e so.t'e tirthlsa c mjhe dandavat, they say ** 30o Brjalkrnagstri, op. cit., 143. s1 ibid., 296-7.

32 Kolte, Mahlnubh~va sa~4odhana, 42. 338 Strap4.tha, Acra, 186. 34 BQ&akrisatri, op. cit., 147. 86 ibid., 375. VOL. XXXIX. PART 3. 41



(salutations to the 1650 holy places). They have taken over or adopted a number of temples by virtue of this sambandhi doctrine and their names give some idea of the sect's eclecticism in its later popular form: the Devadevesvara-

linga at Mahur, Kolhiri ~I and Ganipati at Ritpur, Bhimeivaralinga at Belura, Gopila Krsna at Pujade, Vijn&nesvaralinga at Apegaon, etc.3Y In addition to this they have a flourishing series of relics. Every major matha boasts of possessing some fragment of Govindaprabhu's nails or teeth, and the vastra- vigesa, fragments of cloth from Cakradhara's garment, are an object of reverence for the whole sect and have an elaborate worshipping ceremony connected with them called prasdddbhiseka. These fragments are said to have been left by Cakradhara as a means of worshipping Parameivara.37 Modern converts to the pantha are enjoined to cast out any household gods

that they have (though they should not slight them, but carry them respectfully to the nearest appropriate temple) and then set up in their place a sambandhi stone OR an image made from one.38 From all this it can be seen that as a doctrine and as far as the lay members are concerned the Mahdnubhiva pantha has been almost swallowed up in the surrounding sea of general Hinduism. All that remains perhaps is an increased insistence on ahims5 and the straining of all water as among the Jains, and the custom of burying the dead instead of burning them. I would not care to say how far this last injunction is honoured these days. In fact I have no information on how far professing to be a lay Mahlnubhlva affects one's daily life at all. I can only say that a jatrc at a Mahinubhdva temple like the Devadevesvara matha at Mahur seems very like a jatrd at any other temple. So, one might ask, why have the Mahdnubhivas remained as a separate

entity, thought of and even hated as being different by their fellow Hindus ? This springs entirely from the organization of the hard core, the sannydsis and pseudo-sannydsis who still live communal lives in mathas in the main centres. Here the men and women live in separate and, it is said, strictly separated compounds. They go out to beg for their food. They wear a distinctive dress and they live under the complete authority of a mahanta. The second way in which they are set apart is a rapidly diminishing asset.

It is their reputation for having a secret doctrine, a store of holy books that must never be divulged. Now that these have been divulged, at least to the literate, they are found to be rather small beer---dvaita philosophy that is scarcely likely to horrify anyone and a treasury of Krsna poems that one has to be fairly expert to tell from ordinary Vaisnava bhakti works.

Literature

I have mentioned the doctrinal works already--the original Liladcaritra and the Siitrap-tha drawn from it.9 There are other hagiographical works in the

36 ibid., 371. a7 ibid., 318. 88 ibid., 300. 31 The L.olsarlvada, occasionally mentioned in some of the older sources as if it were a separate

work, is merely an alternative name for the Li.caritra.


THE MARANUBHRAVAS 597

same mould. Govindaprabhu-caritra has already been cited and there is a

whole series of subsequent histories, Smrtisthalta, Anvayastha.a, etc., which are of absorbing interest to historians of the pantha and to linguists. It is hard to assess the literary value of these early prose works with dispassion. Before the nineteenth century there is so little prose of any kind written in any of the modern languages of India that the earliest Mahknubhkva histories are quite unique. They have no 'style'. They are set down in a series of telegraphic jottings which provide the setting for quantities of conversational fourteenth- century Marathi-terse, sometimes vivid, sprinkled with exclamations and expletives, morphologically archaic yet in tone remarkably similar to the speech of village Maharashtra as it can be heard today. Here is one Lila-, picked entirely at random, as an example.

'One day the Gosivi was sitting in the Yak~si.ni temple. Virvandtha (was a) mahitmi of the NMtha sect. He was on his way home from the Ganga. He saw the Gosivi (Cakradhara) and came-sat by him. He asked the Gosdvi, " Do you know how to do the yellow stick ? " The Gosivi shook his head. He was there a little while, then left. Then N~thobi asked, " Ji ji! What does the yellow stick mean ? " Sarvajna (Cakradhara) said, " Making gold out of copper ". " Then what does the white stick mean ? " " Silver out of tin ". " Ji! Have you (ever) made gold ? " Sarvajna said, "Yes. Bring me that lump of cowdung over there. I'll make some for you ". (Then) Sarvajna said, "But then, my children, you won't have me (any more) ". Ndthobi said, "We don't want it, lord ".' 40 It is easy to imagine the vast edifice of commentaries-bhasyas and sthalas

and bandhas and chdyds-which was erected on the foundation of these early doctrinal texts. These are not, of course, literature but works of pious scholarship. In addition, however, there are a number of works written in ovi verse which combine exegesis with didactic and narrative matter. Such is the Rddhipilravarnana which is both a life of Govindaprabhu and a kind of guide- book to Ritpur with philosophical excursions. The Sahyddrivarmana 4 fulfils a

similar role for Dattitreya and Mahur. Kesobasa's Martiprakdsa 42 combines doctrine and the story of Cakradhara's end with a description in the most rapturous detail of his physical appearance. Jndnaprabodha,43 another verse work of particular sanctity, is entirely didactic as its name implies.

Finally there are the Krsna poems. The earliest are Mahlidisd's Dhavale, the oiiupdlavadha and the Uddhavaciti of Bhiskara or Kavi~vara, Narendra's

40 Lfdaritra, Pirvardha, 315. I have translated piva.li ddndf quite literally, for it is impossible

to be sure which of the many derived meanings of danda/dan4t/dndi gave rise to this bit of al. chemist's jargon. 41 V. B. Kolte (ed.), Ravalobseakrta SahyZddrivarnana, Poona, 1964. 42 V. B. Kolte (ed.), Muni KeAirja-.viracita Miirtiprak1aa, Nagpur, 1962. 43 P. C. Nigapure (ed.), Jninaprabodha, Amraoti, 1971. There is a more recent edition by V. B.

Kolte, AMalkapur, 1973, which I have not seen.



Rukmii-svayanmvara,44 and Dimodarapandita's Vachdharanza. Their subject- matter is largely drawn, as one would expect, from the tenth and eleventh skandhas of the BhAgavata-purdna, but the treatment is quite original. The Krsina of the Bhdgavata was of little interest to Cakradhara himself, as I have said, but patently this attitude did not long survive him. It is worth pointing out, however, that in all these Krsna works there continues to be only the most token coverage of the erotic elements in the Krs.a story. No Mahinubhiva poet has ever been moved to make more than passing reference to the rdsa-krida.

In the stories of Krsna's childhood it is the slaughtering of demons that occupies most space (as, to be fair, it also does in the Bhlgavata) and it is the Rukmin7-

svaya.vara that is far and away the most popular episode as evidenced by at least six extant Mahdnubhdva versions. Even Gadyaraja,45 a fourteenth-century

brief history of the Pancakrsna and one of the earliest Marathi works to be written in dloka, devotes nearly a third of its 279 verses to the capture and

wedding of Rukmini. The use of a learned verse form such as sloka is unusual and it should be

noted that the Mahinubhdvas, like Jnanadeva, deliberately used the current spoken language, Marathi, for their doctrinal works as well as for more literary ones. There were Sanskrit works produced by most of the early writers, but one cannot make converts in Sanskrit and a display of learning for its own sake was not encouraged. When Kesobdsa had written his Ratnamildstotra in Sanskrit he proposed to start on another Sanskrit work, but Nigadeva said, 'No, that'll be no help to the old women '." On another occasion when Ddmodara and Kesobdsa were plying him with questions in Sanskrit Ndgadeva snapped at them, 'I don't understand your asmits and kasmdts. Sri Cakradhar taught me in Marathi. Use that '.47

There is then nothing particularly recondite about the Mahdnubhlva works of literature, and the only reason for the sect to have kept them secret in later years was no doubt a very natural desire to be secretive and exclusive, reinforced by the opposition of orthodox Brahman opinion. This opposition may originally have been doctrinal. All the early disciples of Cakradhara were Brahmans recruited on his wanderings among the holy places along the Godavari, and so converts from the prevailing advaita Vaisnavism. It has even been suggested that Jndnadeva may have written his great sermon on the Git7, the Jninedvari,

as a direct response to the Mahinubhivas' seduction of good men from the true path of advaita-a kind of counter-reformation.48 It is certainly true

44 G. M..])olake (ed.), Narindra-viracita ?kmit.-8vayawvara, Nagpur, 1971. The poem edited by Kolte in 1940 is incomplete. This is the first edition of the ' full ' version, but it is by no means certain that the continuation is the work of Narendra himself.

45 J. S. Joki and KrI.adisa Mahlnubhiva (ed.), Hayagrivdcaryakrta Gadyaraja, Bombay, 1966. A fuller edition of this poem is under preparation at SOAS.

46 yeeve majhiy mmhantdrfyd nagavatila (Smrtisthai.a, 15). 47 tumac5 asmit ka8smt mf* neezve ga ; maja Aricakradharem nirpili mnarhuri T? ; tiyaci pusa

(ibid., 66). 48 V. B. Kolte, Cakradhara 5&i Jninadeva, Bombay, 1950.



that the Jndnedvari was written at Nevase on the Godavari in the years immediately following Cakradhara's death and while the Mahinubh~va pantha was still making high-class converts. However, this stage did not last very long, and as the Mahanubhdvas

became increasingly non-Brahman and materialistic-in the sense of becoming tirtha-ksetra-ydtravddi-this Brahman opposition must have become increasingly a fossilized response coupled with a natural objection to a sect which did not recognize the superiority of Brahmans as such. Whatever the reason, the Mahdnubhdvas in a way went underground and began to keep everything secret, not only their doctrinal works. They attempted to do this in a rather interesting way. In the second half of the fourteenth century they invented a series of ciphers into which they transcribed all their important works.49 It is rather odd, though, that the first and most commonly-used ciphers were all invented by members of the Upddhye dmneya,50 and one wonders whether inter-cmndya rivalry may not have been a contributory cause of this development.

The name ' Mahlnubhlva'

Finally perhaps it might be considered that the name of the sect reflects to some extent its present standing in the outside world. To the early disciples it was just 'the way ', and they occasionally referred to their fellow-believers as mahitmis. In the fourteenth century the pantha was commonly known as the Paramdrga, to those inside it, and the Bhatamarga (from Nagadeva bhata who was the first to do much proselytizing) to outsiders. The word mahdnubhava can be found throughout Marathi literature, both within and outside

the writings of the sect, but simply meaning a sidhupurusa, a ' great experiencer ' of any kind. From the sixteenth century at least, members of the sect were known to their fellow-Hindus as Mdnabhavas, but this term had so many pejorative overtones that it is hard to believe that anyone using it would have agreed to derive it from mahanubhIuva,51 and it was not until the present century that the latter term was revived (or instituted) by members of the sect as part of the general rehabilitation which followed the revelation of their scriptures. Nowadays therefore it would be gratuitously discourteous to use the older name, and I think it would be true to say that few people wish to be insulting about a sect which, whatever else it is, is solidly within the Hindu tradition. In spite of what was said earlier about the somewhat marginal place of the Mahanubhdvas in Maharashtrian culture, it is also true that even within the last decade the sect seems to have achieved an increasing degree of social respectability. A number of educated and enterprising Mahanubhava leaders

*9 For a description of the most commonly used cipher see I. M. P. Raeside, ' The Mahinubhava 8akala lipi', BSOAS, xxxm, 2, 1970, 328-34.

50o Kolte, Mahdnubhdva 8aflSodhana, 129-30. 51 One derivation that was popular with their detractors was from mangabhh'f (ibid., 148).


600 THE MAHANUBHAVAS

have broken away from the old monasteries to found institutes,52 to rebuild temples, to publish propaganda material,53 even, I hear, to found housing colonies. In so doing they have become expert fund-raisers, some having been back to the Panjab to re-establish broken ties with the Jai Krishni wing.564 With a flourishing institution behind them they have become establishment figures in the town or village. They are automatically appointed to committees. In short we are undoubtedly witnessing a revival in the fortunes of the Mahinubh~va sect-a revival which had its origin in the discovery of Mah5nu- bhdva literature by Marathi scholars nearly 70 years ago.55

62 For instance the Shri Gita Ashram at Hyderabad, founded by Krenadisa Mahinubh~va to serve the joint purpose of research centre, archive of Mahinubhiva manuscripts, and place of worship.

63 The Akhila Bh~ratlya Mahlnubhiva Parisada was formed in 1953. It organizes an annual gathering (8neha-sammelana) in order to bring members of the sect together for cultural as well as religious exchanges. It also supports the publication of a monthly magazine, Mahmnubh4va, and other sectarian literature.

56 The Jai Krishni wing is also active and now has several ma.thas in North India. In 1971 Hindi- speaking Jai Krishni Mahinubhivas celebrated the foundation of a new temple in Delhi and the installation of a Krena mirti which had been rescued from Pakistan and left without a home for many years (Mahara8htra Times, 21 June 1970).

65 It would be possible to guess at other factors which might have contributed to this revival: diminished Brahman influence in modern Maharashtra; the comparative success of the 'green revolution ' in Berar in the 1960's and the resulting enhanced prosperity of the ku~abf caste from which Mahinubhivas obtain most of their financial support, etc.


The Mahānubhāvas - Digital Corpus of Old Marathi (DCOMA)

Documents

Transcript of The Mahānubhāvas - Digital Corpus of Old Marathi (DCOMA)