Glossary

ABHANG (abhaṅga): Marathi [M], literally [lit.] “unbroken”; a verse form used for devotional songs in Marathi from the earliest period onward. The abhang is often considered a form of the ovi.

ADVAITA: Sanskrit [Skt], lit. “nondual”; in Sanskritic philosophy, one of the most influential schools of thought that argues there is no distinction between God and human souls.

AGRAHARA (agrahāra): Skt, a donation of land, usually to a Brahmin, and often given by a figure of state, such as a king, minister, or general.

ANTYAJA: Skt, lit. “lowest born”; in Sanskrit, this term sometimes means Shudra and sometimes means “Untouchable,” but it is a comparative term primarily, not a designation of actual caste status. The term is used this way in Marathi as well, usually juxtaposed to dvija or “twice-born.”

APABRAMSHA (apabhraṃśa): Skt, “deviation” or “corruption,” a term in Sanskrit for languages other than Sanskrit in northern India, from approximately the sixth century to the thirteenth century, the precursors to medieval and modern languages such as Hindavi.

ATMAN (ātman): Skt, “the self” or “the soul.”

AVATAR (avatāra): Skt, incarnation, often associated with Vishnu and his various incarnations that include Narasimha, Rama, and Krishna.

BAKHAR: M, lit. “chronicle”; an offical, state record-keeping form in prose used in Marathi from the fifteenth century onward. Considered a “historical” record.

BALUTA (balutā): M, a system of hereditary occupation, property rights, governmental and ritual entitlement within a small region, such as a village, often determined by, or intersecting with, both varna and jati. A cognate of the jajmani system.

BHAGAT: Skt, M, etc., lit. “a devotee,” related to bhakta and bhakti.

BHAKTA: Skt, usually lit. “one who exemplifies bhakti,” but also lit. “distributed, divided, loved” as well as “cooked” as in food or a meal; a term that generally denotes someone who is devoted to something in ways that conform to the general idea of bhakti.

BHAKTI: Skt, lit. “distribution, division, belonging to, attachment, devotion”; usually glossed as “devotion”; implies both a devotion to one’s deity and a devotion to a community or public.

BHANITA (bhaṇitā): Skt, lit. “spoken” but also “relation” and “description”; the name of the line in Indian (Sanskrit and regional-language) poetry and song, usually ultimate or penultimate, that signifies the purported author’s name.

BRAHMAN (brahmaṇ): Skt, the “absolute.”

BRAHMANAPURI (brāhmaṇapurī): Skt, lit. “a Brahmin’s town,” a town, the revenue of which is taxable for the maintenance of a Brahmin, a family of Brahmins, a group of Brahmins, or a Brahminic endeavor such as a temple, monastery, or other organization.

BRAHMANATVA (brāhmaṇatva): Skt, M, lit. “Brahminness,” the quality of being a Brahmin by caste and action. Often used interchangeably in Mahanubhav texts with brahmanya.

BRAHMANYA (brāhmaṇya/brāhmaṇya): Skt, M, lit. “Brahminness,” the quality of being a Brahmin by caste and action. Often used interchangeably in Mahanubhav texts with brahmanatva.

BRAHMIN (brāhmaṇa): Skt, lit. “the one who calls out”; the first of the four varna categories; often translated as “priest”; as a professional designation, the term implies a ritual officiant, a scholar or other literate and lettered person, a temple overseer, and so on.

CHAMAR (cāmār): M, the name of an “Untouchable” jati in Maharashtra and elsewhere. Also spelled Chamhar (cāmhār) and Chambhar (cāmbhār) in Marathi.

CHANDAL (caṇḍāla): Skt, lit. “fierce, angry ones”; a classical Sanskrit word for “Untouchables” and outcastes in general.

CHARITRA (caritra): Skt, lit. “comportment, exploits”; usually glossed as “biography.”

CHAUHATA (cauhaṭā): a public square and/or market. Also sometimes rendered chaurasta (caurāsta), where the “four roads” meet.

DANA (dāna): Skt, “gift,” a donation.

DARSHAN (darśan): Skt, lit. “view”; two key meanings are indicated by this term: 1. viewing a diety, sacred person, or sacred object in Hinduism; 2. a term used in the sense of a “school of thought” or “point of view” differentiating the six classical Indian philosophical systems.

DESHI (deśī): Skt, lit. “of the land/region”; a reference to a regional language, a vernacular; in the Marathi context, a reference to Marathi.

DESHMUKH (deśmukh): M, the hereditary office of a regional leader.

DEVANAGARI (devanāgarī): Skt, the name for the script most commonly associated with Sanskrit and some other Indian langauges, such as Marathi and Hindi.

DHARMA: Skt, lit. “that which is held together, maintained, made firm”; a key concept in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism that is variously translated by terms ranging from “law, practice, duty, justice” to “way” and “religion,” the latter particularly since the nineteenth century. Its antonym is adharma.

DHARMA ŚĀSTRA: Skt, “social science,” texts and essays on the proper order of society.

DVIJA: Skt, lit. “twice-born”; refers to the first of the four varna groups, who have engaged in the sacred thread ceremony and received a “second birth” through that ritual. The dvija varna groups are Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaishya.

“EKĀṂKA”: M, lit., “alone,” sometimes refers to the first division of the Līḷācaritra containing all stories of Chakradhar and others leading up to the point at which one of Chakradhar’s key devotees, Baisa, joins the Mahanubhav order and is initiated.

GADHEGAL (gāḍhegāl): M, “donkey stone” or “donkey curse.” Refers to both the image of the donkey curse and the verbal formula etched in stone.

GAVANDI (gavāṃdī): M, a public and free service of food offered by a benefactor for the benefit of strangers, usually people engaged in some religious merit-accruing activity, such as a pilgrimage. Similar to the Sanskrit annachhatra or “food pavilion.”

GOSAVI (gosāvī): M, a derivation of Skt gosvāmin, lit. “master of cows”; an honorary title given to spiritual masters or deified people, usually within the sphere of Vaishnavism and Krishna worship; a common title for Chakradhar in the Līḷācaritra and other Mahanubhav texts.

GOTRA (gotra): Skt, “clan,” usually a patrilineal genealogy. For some Brahmin communities, gotra refers to a genealogy in relationship to a key ancestor, perhaps of the mythic seven sages.

GRANTH: Skt, lit. “tying together”; refers both to 1. a book and 2. a composition.

GUNA (guṇa): Skt, lit. “a quality or characteristic.” See saguna and nirguna.

GURAV: M, a non-Brahmin temple priest and caretaker; often considered a jati in Maharashtra and elsewhere.

GURU (gurū): Skt, teacher.

JAJMANI (jajmānī): M, derivation of Skt yajamāna or “patron”; indicates a hereditary system of relations among jati groups in a community, such as a village, often determining economic, social, and religious benefits and responsibilities.

JATI (jāti): Skt and M, lit. “birth”; refers to the cross-religious divisions of Indian society that name any of thousands of “castes” usually associated with a particular form of traditional labor, region, and/or other charateristic idiosyncratically related to an ethnos, e.g., Shimpi as the jati title for the Maharashtrian tailor caste or Deshastha as a jati of a Maharashtrian Brahmin caste. In the most general sense, jati governs rules of endogamy and commensality. This term is related to, but not synonymous with, varna, another term often glossed as “caste.” See under varna.

JIVA (jīva): Skt, “life soul,” a living being.

JNANA YOGA (jñāna yoga): Skt, lit. “the discipline [yoga] of knowledge [jnana]”; one of the three yogas of the Bhagavad Gītā, juxtaposed with the discipline of action (karma) and devotion (bhakti).

KARMA: Skt, lit. “action”; used in multiple ways in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism primarily; sometimes indicates a kind of accumulated record of activities in one’s life; sometimes indicates “destiny”; sometimes juxtaposed to other modes of soteriology, the other yogas of the Bhagavad Gītā.

KAVYA (kāvya): Skt, “poetic,” refers to literary style and aesthetics, usually associated with Sanskrit.

KAYASTHA (kāyastha): Skt and M: a general class, and sometimes a caste (jati), of professional scribes and writers. In general Kayasthas are considered “high-caste” in Maharashtra.

KIRTAN (kīrtan): Skt, M, Hindi, etc., lit. “to recite, to glorify”; a public performance genre in India among Hindus and Sikhs primarily, kirtan takes multiple forms in different regions. In Marathi, kirtan is a mixed form of song, dance, theater, exposition, music, and so on, in a fairly structured format. A performer of kirtan is called a kīrtankār.

KSHATRIYA (kṣatriya): Skt, approximate literal meaning is “ruler” or “warrior,” likely related to kṣetra, “the field” or “field of battle” as in Kurukshetra, the hoary battlefield of the war depicted in the Mahābhārata; the second of the four castes in the varna hierarchy.

KULA (Skt kula; M kuḷa): family, group, tribe, association.

KULKARNI (kuḷakaraṇi): M, village accountant.

LILA (Skt, līlā; M līḷā): lit. “play”; primarily refers to both the “playful” actions of Krishna and Rama, that is, their life stories, and the telling of those stories in the context of a “play”; also a term to refer to particular stories or events in the lives of Chakradhar, Changadeva, and Gundam Raul in Mahanubhav texts and in particular the Līḷācaritra.

LINGA (liṇga): Skt, lit. “a mark or sign”; a metonymic representation of Shiva, sometimes resembling or in the form of a phallus, and often coupled with a yoni, lit. “womb, uterus, source.” A central feature of Shaiva worship.

LIPI (lipī, lipi): M, “writing,” refers to orthographic practice, and in particular, the “secret” orthography of the early Mahanubhavs called sakaḷa lipī.

MADRASSA (madrassa): Persian, “school,” usually a school of Islamic learning.

MAHAJAN (mahājana): M, “the great people,” usually refers to village leaders and elders; can also sometimes indicate Brahmins in particular.

MAHANUBHAV (mahānubhāva): M, the name of a religious community centered around forms of Krishna that arose in the thirteenth century in Maharashtra.

MAHAR (mahār): M, the name of a jati considered by some to be “Untouchable,” primarily in Maharashtra; the largest jati of “Untouchables” in Maharashtra; a mahārvāḍā or “Mahar neighborhood” is an area of town with a concentration of Mahar inhabitants.

MAHATMA (mahātmā): Skt, “great soul,” an honorific, appears in thirteenth-century Marathi as a term for a holy person, somewhat like “Baba” in contemporary contexts in India.

MANDAL (maṇḍḷa): M, “a circle,” a social group, a geopolitical region (province).

MANDIR: Skt, lit. “home”; usually indicates a Hindu or Jain temple.

MARATHE/MARATHA (marāṭhe/marāṭha): M, a term that indicates the region and culture associated with “Maharashtra.” In the thirteenth century this term did not connote a caste group, Maratha, as it does now.

MATANG/MANG (mātaṇga [mātāṇga]/māṇg): M, the name of a jati considered by some to be “Untouchable,” primarily in Maharashtra.

MATHA (maṭha): Skt, lit. “a dwelling”; usually glossed as a type of Hindu monastery, often run by and for Brahmins or high castes in the Yadava century.

MAYA (māyā): Skt, lit. “illusion”; an epistemological idea in several Indic philosophies and religions that posits the phenomenal world is an illusion; also means simply the phenomenal world without the connotation of an illusion.

MELA (meḷā): Skt, lit. “a meeting”; refers to a gathering or confluence of any kind; in the context of Hinduism, usually indicates a public gathering at a holy or pilgrimage site at a particularly auspicious time.

MLECCHA (mlecha): M, foreigner, usually refers to Muslims.

MODI (moḍī): M, refers to a calligraphic script commonly in use by scribes in Marathi.

MOKSHA (mokṣa): Skt, lit. “release”; in Hinduism, the freedom of the self (ātman, jīva, etc.) from the cycle of rebirth (saṃsāra).

NATHA (nātha): Skt, the general designation for a variety of Shaiva religious communities throughout India who practice various forms of yoga and meditation in an attempt to generate superhuman powers and immortality. All the major early figures of Marathi bhakti are remembered to have been Nathas, including Chakradhar and Jnandev.

NAYAK (nāyaka): Skt, M, Hindi, etc, lit. “a leader”; in Mahanubhav contexts a term and sometimes a name that often indicates Brahmin caste status; also a term for the male protagonist of a drama; also, a designation for the leader of a militia.

NIBANDHA (nibandha): Skt, “a treatise,” an essay on a topic, often refers to essays on social science (dharma shastra).

NIRGUNA (nirguṇa): Skt, lit. “having no [nir] characteristics [guna]”; in the context of bhakti and its performative and devotional practices, refers to the worship of a nonanthropomorphic deity, often associated with monotheism, nondualism (advaita), and antagonism toward the depiction of deities, pilgrimage, external worship, etc.; often associated with meditative disciplines and especially with mantra practices.

OVI (ovī): M, a poetic metrical form, the two most common of which are the grānthik or “literary” form, usually recited rather than sung, made of three lines of equal length and one of half the length of the previous three, the form preserved in the Jñāneśvarī; and the kaṇṭhastha or “voice” (“oral”) form, usually song, which conforms to the meter of the abhang in general. May derive from ovaṇe, to “thread, stitch, sew,” but also “to sow” and to pound, as in pound wheat; sometimes associated with “women’s work songs,” though this connection seems highly conjectural, yet common in Marathi cultural memory.

PRADHAN (pradhān): Skt, lit. “chief”; a royal minister, usually of a “high caste” but theoretically of any caste, gender, or religion.

PRAKRIT (prākṛta): Skt, a term used to name several different languages derived from, or in genealogical relationship to, Sanskrit, and often inflected by gender, region, caste, or other social marker. The term implies a relationship to “nature” as a feminine-gender concept.

PRASAD (prasad): Skt, lit. “favor, grace”; refers to an item given to a deity or holy person that is returned to the giver and usually distributed as a “blessing.”

PRASHASTI (praśasti): Skt, lit. “public praise”; often used to refer to those portions of inscriptions or texts that praise a benefactor, king, or other significant figure.

PRAVACANA (pravacana): Skt, lit. “exposition”; a lecture, usually a public lecture, on any subject, though in Marathi this term is often used to refer to a lecture on the Jñāneśvarī. Someone who gives a pravacana is called a pravacanakār.

PUJA (pūjā): Skt, lit. “worship”; the ritual actions and implements invovled in Hindu veneration of a deity or divine figure; can take place anywhere, in a temple, a home, or any location deemed “sacred.”

PURANA (purāṇa): Skt, lit., “of the old,”; myth, legend, classical stories, past events; can refer to a collection of general mythological texts of the ancient, classical, and medieval periods, and are often morality tales.

“PŪRVĀRDHA” (pūrvārdha): Skt, lit. “the first half”; the first of the two parts of the Līḷācaritra, usually marked from the beginning of collected memories about Chakradhar, Changadev, and Gundam Raul to the period just before Bhatobas becomes a devotee of Chakradhar. In some versions of the Līḷācaritra, the “Pūrvārdha” is also distinguished from an earlier period, called the “Ekāṃka,” by the point at which one of Chakradhar’s key devotees, Baisa, joins the Mahanubhav order and is initiated.

RAJE (rāje): M, “of the royal court”; in Old Marathi the term means political rule or political administration, referring to the “offices” of the royal court.

RAJYA (rājya): Skt, “royal.” A term that designates the functions, actions, theories, and aesthetics of kingship.

RANA (rāṇā): Skt, M, “king”; often used in the Līḷācaritra by Chakradhar to refer to Guravs.

RASA (rasa): Skt, “juice,” taste, flavor, aesthetic.

RASHTRA (rāṣṭra): Skt, M, “country, land, region.”

SABHA (sabhā): Skt, “company, assembly,” a group convened to judge something, most often used in connection to Brahmin assemblies; often implies a public assembly.

SADHU (sādhu): Skt, lit. “one who is unimpeded,” “straight”; a Hindu holy renunciate.

SAGUNA (saguṇa): Skt, lit. “with [sa] characteristics [guna]”; in the context of bhakti and its performative and devotional practices, refers to the worship of a describable, often anthropomorphic, deity. Regularly embraces the depiction, in physical and literary form, of deities, their mythology, modes of worshipping them, etc. Often involves described relationships between devotees and deities in human ways, i.e., the love of a mother for a child, of a lover for another lover, etc.

SAHITYA (sāhitya): Skt, lit. “association, society, harmony”; usually refers to “literature” of high aesthetic merit.

SAMĀDHI: Skt, lit. “put together, union”; several meanings, including 1. a state of deep meditation; 2. a tomb or other memorial containing a holy person, usually a yogi; 3. a text that tells the story of the last days of life of a particular figure, usually a holy figure. In this book, samadhi refers to one of three key biographical texts attributed to the Marathi sant Namdev about Jnandev; a deep meditative state that Jnandev is said to undertake, as described by Namdev; and the physical location and memorial where Jnandev is said to still reside in the deep state of samadhi (meditation).

SAMKHYA (saṃkhya): Skt, lit. “counting, reckoning”; a philosophical system in Hinduism, usually associated with Shaivism and with Shaiva yoga that is dualistic and engages the idea of “creation” through an enumeration of the various elements that make up the cosmos, such as the male and female elements of Purusha and Prakriti and the many “qualities” or gunas.

SAMSARA (saṃsāra): Skt, lit. “going around”; the state and conditions of metempsychosis or transmigration in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Often synonymous with mundane and “everyday” life.

SANNYASA (sannyāsa): Skt, lit. “abandonment”; refers to the act of renouncing social life. Someone who does this is called a sannyasī.

SANT: Skt, lit. “a good person”; in Maharashtra the term indicates any of the religiously accomplished figures associated with the Varkari lineage or other bhakti groups and does not pertain to nirguna bhakti especially; often glossed as “saint” or “saint-poet,” the latter conveying that fact that many sants are attributed song-poems (abhang, ovi, etc.).

SHAIVA (śaiva): Skt, lit. “belonging to Shiva”; a designation for a person, place, or thing associated with Shiva, especially related to the worship of Shiva; often used to refer to those individuals and communities that worship Shiva in some form.

SHAKA (śaka): Skt (M śake), one of two main ways of measuring the passing of years in India associated with Hinduism; the second is the Vikram year. The shaka year begins its count in 78 CE. Shaka is sometimes referred to as the śālivāhan year after the king Shalivahan, and the year begins its count from Shalivahan’s defeat of the king Vikramaditya (after whom the Vikram year is named).

SHASTRA (śāstra): Skt, lit. “command, instruction”; generally a “science” or knowledge system, or a text that details a knowledge system. Often this term indicates Dharma Śāstra texts, especially the Laws of Manu.

SHIMPI (śiṃpī): M, lit. “tailor”; a caste (jati) name in Maharashtra; Namdev’s caste in Maharashtra.

SHLOKA (śloka): Skt, a type of verse, usually a couplet with sixteen syllables; most often in Sanskrit, but also in Marathi, Hindi, and other languages.

SHRI (śrī): Skt, lit. “light, luster, auspiciousness”; one name for Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu, and in particular Lakshmi as depicted in the Shri Rangam Temple in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu; a prefix term to denote auspiciousness, as for a name, place, text, etc.

SHUDRA (śūdra): Skt, the fourth of the fourfold varna hierarchy.

SMRITISTHALA (smṛtisthaḻa): Skt, lit. “the place [sthala] of memory [smriti]”; a memorial; textually, a series of memories or recollections, especially among the Mahanubhavs.

STRISHUDRADIKA/STRISHUDRADI (Strīśudrādika/ Strīśudrādi): Skt, M, lit., “women, Shudras, and others.”

SUTRA (sūtra): Skt, “thread,” refers to technical literature on a given subject, usually made up of aphorisms.

TANTRA (tantra): Skt, “a weave,” refers to a set of practices sometimes associated with yoga and intended for specific benefits.

TIRTHA (tīrtha): Skt, “a ford,” a crossing place along a river, refers to pilgrimage places.

“UTTARĀRDHA” (uttarārdha): Skt, lit. “the Last Half”; the second of the two portions of the Līḷācaritra, usually marked by the time when Bhatobas becomes a devotee of Chakradhar.

VACANA: Skt, “a speech,” sometimes refers to the utterances of particular sant figures, especially Vira Shaivas composing in Kannada.

VAISHNAVA (vaiṣṇava): Skt, lit. “belonging to Vishnu”; a designation for a person, place, or thing associated with Vishnu, especially related to the worship of Vishnu or associated forms and deities, such as Krishna and Rama; often used to refer to those individuals and communities that worship Vishnu in some form.

VAISHYA (vaiśya): Skt, lit. “the one who dwells; inhabitant; home owner”; the third of the four varna groups; often translated as “merchant”; traditionally associated with “trade.”

VARKARI (vārkarī): M, lit. “the ones who do [karī] the pilgrimage/rounds [vār]”: the title of the pilgrims who go to Pandharpur to visit the temple of Vitthal on a yearly or twice-yearly basis; the largest devotional or bhakti group of Maharashtra, the Varkaris, of which Jnandev, Namdev, Eknath, and Tukaram are the chief sants.

VARNA (varṇa): Skt, lit. “appearance, color”: the theoretical socioreligious heirarchy of classes or “castes” enumerated in the Vedas and legal texts (Dharma Śāstra), and elsewhere, consisting of four ranked parts: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras.

VARNASHRAMADHARMA (varṇāśramadharma): Skt, the orthodox Hindu social theory that prescribes duties and stages (ashrama) in life according to caste (varna), gender, and age. Traditionally, there are four stages encumbent upon high castes or “twice-born” dvija, which are those of the celebate student or brahmacārya, the householder or gṛhastha, the “forest-dweller” or vanaprastha, and saṃnyāsa or “renunciate.”

VITTHAL (viṭhṭhala): M, the deity who is the principle object of devotion in Pandharpur and to Varkaris; also commonly called Viṭhobā and Pāṇḍuraṇga.

VRATA (vrata): Skt, “a vow.”

YOGA (yoga): Skt, “discipline,” a set of physical, mental, psychic, and mystical practices oriented toward some end or goal.

YUGA: Skt, lit. “a yoke”; refers to an age within mythic world time in Hinduism.