Bahinabai’s life (1628-1700 CE) and the events in it are known to us today because of her unusual practice of noting them all down precisely in her verses, in seventy-eight abhangas with her exact date of birth. She also wrote her autobiography Atmamanivedana.
Abhanga is poetry with verses in praise of Vithoba, Panduranga or Vitthala, a form of Vishnu predominantly worshipped in Marathi-speaking areas. Abhangas of several poets are sung to this day in temples or enroute on varkari, pilgrimage by vari, pilgrims who walk great distances to temples.
The Bhakti Movement
Bahinabai is one of the important poets of the Bhakti period of India’s history. Her verses are particularly autobiographical. The Bhakti movement is a significant development in medieval India which saw the flowering of religious feeling and devotion to God over a period of nearly 700 years, from the 9th to the 16th centuries CE. Several religious teachers took the message of Sanatana Dharma to the people through personal interaction, verse and song. The Bhakti Movement’s impact on literature and the arts was huge. This peoples’ movement occured spontaneously all over India with no ruler or leader in charge. It touched various facets of life - religion, the arts, women’s status. The result was increased geographical and cultural awareness between different parts of India, especially of far-flung areas, since devotees travelled across the country on pilgrimage and artists for work opportunities.
The Marathi scribe Mahipati (1715-1790 CE) wrote biographies of Varkari saints. His work is still considered the most authoritative. He wrote hagiographies of Vaishnava poets who lived between the 13th and 17th centuries CE, and mentions Bahinabai in his Bhakta-Vijaya.
Bahinabai’s life and the influence of Sant Tukaram
Bahinabai’s father Audeo Kulkarni was a village scribe, hence an educated man. Her mother was Janakibai. Bahinabai was married at the age of 3 to a widower Ratnakar Pathak aged 30. The seventeenth century in India was an age with very different social mores that are not easily comprehensible today. Child marriage was the norm and the position of women in all aspects of society was very low. Women’s education was an issue of no consequence. Ritualistic worship was at a peak. In fact, these circumstances make it all the more remarkable that Bahinabai chose the unusual and difficult path of learning, poetry and devotion that ensured her voice was heard - so resoundingly, in fact, that her work is still known today more than three centuries later.
Due to her extreme youth at marriage, she and her husband stayed with her parents in the initial years and share their itinerant lives with them. It is conjectured that she received some classical training from her father, unusual for the times. The family had to leave Deogaon due to a family feud and lived unsettled lives for a while until they finally settled at Pandharpur. The famous temple of Vitthala here made a lasting impression on young Bahinabai.
Soon after, Sant Tukaram (1608-1650 CE), the pre-eminent poet of the Bhakti age, became Bahinabai's guru who shaped her thought process. She attributed her taking to the path of bhakti, and subsequently her writing and a vision of Vithoba, to Sant Tukaram and his benevolence. Her husband tried his best to prevent her from being Tukaram’s disciple and under his influence, but she was not deterred. Bahinabai’s life took the path of bhakti right until the end.
A difficult life at home
Very early in her life Bahinabai found that she had to choose between her hot-tempered husband and the call of bhakti for Vithala, or learn to balance the two.
Bahinabai had a cow at home, as was the norm at the time. When a calf was born, the young one followed Bahinabai wherever she went. Her husband heard that the calf had followed her to the gathering of a famous kirtana performer Jayaram Swami. He was furious and locked Bahinabai in a shed. The cow and calf then refused to eat and the calf unfortunately died. Bahinabai lay unconscious for three days in shock. When she came to her senses, she felt she saw the idol of Vitthala before her and Tukaram appeared to advise her to keep steady. The unfortunate episode of the calf was narrated to Jayaram Swami who counselled Ratnakar Pathak that he did not realise his own good fortune in being married to such a person. Bahinabai was akin to the calf in the Varkari tradition that symbolises a person who has attained the highest form of yogic concentration in previous births but due to some faults, takes birth as a calf in the present one.
Still, Ratnakar Pathak prevented her from attending harikatha and going to temples. Even as her fame spread due her abhangas, she saw her husband unhappy at the attention she was getting from devotees. He felt ignored while all that people wanted was to hear Bahinabai’s compositions. He physically abused her and confined her to the cattle shed in punishment. And yet just when he was about to abandon her, events took a turn. Ratnakar Pathak found he was confined to his bed for a month by a mysterious burning sensation in the legs. Bahinabai took such good care of him that by the end of that month he was convinced of her devotion. He mellowed his opposition to her choosing the path of bhakti. In fact he turned a new leaf and become a devotee himself. However, when today we hear Bahinabai’s verses that speak evocatively of the physical violence she suffered at the hands of her jealous husband, the difficult path she had to traverse is obvious.
Bahinabai had a cow at home, as was the norm at the time. When a calf was born, the young one followed Bahinabai wherever she went. Her husband heard that the calf had followed her to the gathering of a famous kirtana performer Jayaram Swami. He was furious and locked Bahinabai in a shed. The cow and calf then refused to eat and the calf unfortunately died. Bahinabai lay unconscious for three days in shock. When she came to her senses, she felt she saw the idol of Vitthala before her and Tukaram appeared to advise her to keep steady. The unfortunate episode of the calf was narrated to Jayaram Swami who counselled Ratnakar Pathak that he did not realise his own good fortune in being married to such a person. Bahinabai was akin to the calf in the Varkari tradition that symbolises a person who has attained the highest form of yogic concentration in previous births but due to some faults, takes birth as a calf in the present one.
Still, Ratnakar Pathak prevented her from attending harikatha and going to temples. Even as her fame spread due her abhangas, she saw her husband unhappy at the attention she was getting from devotees. He felt ignored while all that people wanted was to hear Bahinabai’s compositions. He physically abused her and confined her to the cattle shed in punishment. And yet just when he was about to abandon her, events took a turn. Ratnakar Pathak found he was confined to his bed for a month by a mysterious burning sensation in the legs. Bahinabai took such good care of him that by the end of that month he was convinced of her devotion. He mellowed his opposition to her choosing the path of bhakti. In fact he turned a new leaf and become a devotee himself. However, when today we hear Bahinabai’s verses that speak evocatively of the physical violence she suffered at the hands of her jealous husband, the difficult path she had to traverse is obvious.
Progression of Bahinabai’s personality with increased learning and wisdom
Bahinabai’s abhangas are a window to her personality and her desires. They offer a clear picture of the evolution of her thought process. Her early verses reflect the societal views at the time, of women as lacking in self-confidence. They speak of seeking to escape life through suicide since a woman’s life was worth nothing, and show the effects of the prevalent culture that conditioned Bahinabai to think of women as selfish, fickle, seductive and deceptive. But a change of tone is apparent by and by in her later verses. As Bahinabai’s knowledge of the scriptures and her life experience increased, and she learnt more from her gurus, her later verses reveal that she apparently overcame these self-limiting thoughts. She began to see herself as worthy of self-respect. These later verses are full of wisdom and confidence.
She asks Vithala how she can aspire to better herself if she is tied down by mundane family issues. In another verse she leaves it to Vithala, her friend and brother, to arrange her life such that she is free to worship Him and yet be a good wife to Ratnakar Pathak.
Bahinabai often mentioned the motherly nature of the Guru in her autobiographical abhangas and addressed God as ‘my mother’ in her verses.
Some of her abhangas are about her son Vithoba to say that he acted as her companion, again emphasising the vital role of family in varkari traditions. She severely questioned the importance of caste in her times.
Bahinabai died at the age of 72, forever conflicted by her duties to her husband and her family while her heart yearned to immerse herself in devotion to God. Yet she did not renounce the world, a decision that several women devotees before and after her have taken.
Her life choices
Bahinabai’s life is a study on the contrasts between traditional orthodox behaviour, and the call of bhakti. Traditionally she should have remained housebound, living entirely under the thumb of her husband yet Bahinabai broke with this tradition to use her intellect to study, to compose verses and go outside the home to congregations. She lived her entire life amidst the tension and the pull between these two life choices. This is how she negotiated her life - that of a traditional existence of a mother and wife, and yet a very spiritual seeker.
Ref:
Goddesses And Women In The Indic Religious Tradition - Edited by Arvind Sharma
Vaisnavi by Steven Rosen
Bhakti Women and Poetry - www.brewminate.com
Great Women of India - Edited by Swami Madhavananda and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar
Great Women of India - Edited by Swami Madhavananda and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar
No comments:
Post a Comment