Dnyaneshwari is a commentary on the Gita written more than seven centuries ago by Saint Dnyaneshwar in the contemporary Marathi language in verse form using the ovi style. It brought the philosophy of the Gita, until then the prerogative of Sanskrit pundits, to common man. It is written in verse form as used to be custom of those days, An excellent spiritual seekers guide, it discusses in detail four different paths viz. The path of Knowledge, the path of action, the path of yoga and the path of devotion to choose from depending upon the psychological make up of the seeker. It presents the cream of Vedanta philosophy, Sankhya philosophy, Kundalini yoga and the practice of devotion. While Gita is difficult to understand to a common man, Saint Dnyaneshwar has written Dnyaneshwari (Original name Bhavarthadeepika) specifically for common man and therefore the text is easy to understand.
Saint Dnyaneshwar wrote this critique at the age of sixteen on the instructions of his Guru and elder (only by two years) brother Nivruttinath. Nivruttinath was a disciple of Gahininath, one of the nine gems or Navnaths of the Nath sect. Dnyaneshwari written seven hundred years ago is still vibrantly alive and is regularly read in many homes in Maharashtra.
Due to changes in the Marathi language over the last few centuries the text is not easily understandable, but many prose translations are available. While writing commentary on Gita Dnyaneshwar Maharaj has used a lot of examples and similes from day to day life and from nature to make the meaning very clear to a common reader. However, with today's educational levels many of these are not necessary and often they distract the reader from the smooth flow of the philosophical thought. In this translation therefore
(1) Only the philosophical part of the text has been retained except where there is need for clarifying the meaning.
(2) Rather than presenting the translation sequentially it is presented as a group of sequential verses (omitting of course those having similes etc.) with a cogent meaning and are subtitled.
Omitting unnecessary similes (for modern reader) and further omitting the traditional obeisances made to various deities and his Guru, only 5752 ovis (verses) have been used out of the total 9032 ovis, reducing the material by about a third.
This translation, thus truncated, is intended more for an intellectual reader rather than the pious. It is the intellectuals who hold executive and professional positions in today's socio-economic world and are the ones who can influence the society positively or negatively. But their world is a world of perpetual haste and cannot afford long winded texts of the old days. Thus a shortened version of Dnyaneshwari is most suited for this class un order to turn their influence on the positive side.
Being a commentary on the Gita, Dnyaneshwari also has 18 chapters.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROLOGUE
This translation of Dnyaneshwari contains only the philosophical part of the text. When Dnyaneshwar Maharaj wrote Bhavarthadeepika, now known as Dnyaneshwari, seven hundred years ago for the common man, general educational levels were not as comprehensive as today, there was no printing press and books had to be transcribed by hand. Dnyaneshwar Maharaj used many similes and examples from human society as well as nature to explain the points made in the Gita. Dnyaneshwar Maharaj belonged to Nath Sect where Guru is worshipped more than any deity and Dnyaneshwari contains a lot of text dedicated to the praise of and obeisances to his Guru Nivruttinath (who was also his elder brother, elder by only two years), besides obeisances to several other deities as is traditional in Hindu religious literature. These similes and examples are no longer necessary for today's rader who is better read and informed and in fact it is the experience that too many of these distract the reader from the main flow of thought. In this translation, these parts are omitted except where necessary. The text involving obeisances also has been omitted as it is also extraneous to the philosophical part. The intention in adopting this approach is to make an edited translation available to an intellectual reader. The pious readers can always use the half a dozen verse by verse translations available in bookshops.
Due to differences in the structure of Marathi and English, verse by verse translations pose difficulty in collating the verses to make a single long sentence. In this translations, a set of consecutive verses have been grouped together to make sentences and paragraphs with cogent meaning and the paragraphs are given sub-headings for easy reference and meaning. Thus this translation can claim to assist a rader in faster reading. By this approach the text was shortened to 5752 verses out of the total of 9032 verse (ovis).
No comments:
Post a Comment