Janabai

Sant Janābāi was a Marāthi religious poet in the Hindu tradition in India, who was born likely in the seventh or the eighth decade of the 13th century. She died in 1350.^[1]

Janabai was born in Gangākhed 1258-1350, Mahārāshtra^[2] to a couple with first names Damā and Karund. Under the caste system the couple belonged to the matang. After her mother died, her father took her to Pandharpur. Since her childhood, Janabai worked as a maid servant in the household of Dāmāsheti, who lived in Pandharpur and who was the father of the prominent Marathi religious poet Nāmdev.^[3] Janabai was likely a little older than Namdev, and attended to him for many years.

Pandharpur has high religious significance especially among Marathi-speaking Hindus. Janabai's employers, Damasheti and his wife, Gonāi, were very religious. Through the influence of the religious environment around her and her innate inclination, Janabai was always an ardent devotee of Lord Vitthal. She was also a talented poet.^[4] Though she never had any formal schooling, she composed many high-quality religious verses of the abhang (अभंग) form.^[5][6] Some of her compositions were preserved along with those of Namdev. Authorship of about 300 abhang is traditionally attributed to Janabai.^[7][8]

Along with Dnyāneshwar, Nāmdev, Eknāth, and Tukaram, Janabai has a revered place in the minds of Marathi-speaking Hindus who belong especially to the wārakari (वारकरी) sect in Maharashtra.^[9][10] In accord with a tradition in India of assigning the epithet sant (संत) to persons regarded as thoroughly saintly, all of the above religious figures including Janabai are commonly attributed that epithet in Maharashtra. Thus, Janabai is routinely referred to as Sant Janabai (संत जनाबाई).She wrote many poems .

See also

• Backward-caste Hindu Saints
• Wārakari
• Women in Hinduism
• Bhakti movement
• Namdev
• Nivruttinath
• Dnyaneshwar
• Tukaram
• Eknath
• Sopan
• Muktabai
• Chokhamela
• Sant Soyarabai
• Gadge Maharaj
• Sant Mat
• Pandharpur Wari – the largest annual pilgrimage in Maharashtra that includes a ceremonial Palkhi of Tukaram and Jñāneśvar.

References

1. Dalbir Bharti (2008). Women and the Law. APH Publishing. p. 18.
2. Ranade, Ramchandra Dattatraya (1983-01-01). Mysticism in India: The Poet-Saints of Maharashtra. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-87395-669-7.
3. Feldhaus, Anne; Feldhaus, Professor of Religious Studies Anne (1996-01-01). Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion: A Translation of the Pratyabhijnahrdayam with an Introduction and Notes, by Ksemaraja. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-2837-5.
4. Constable, Philip (May 1997). "Early Dalit Literature and Culture in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Western India". Modern Asian Studies. 31 (2): 317–338. doi:10.1017/S0026749X00014323. ISSN 1469-8099. S2CID 144342657.
5. Novetzke, Christian Lee (2015-10-05). 5. Note to Self: What Marathi Kirtankars' Notebooks Suggest about Literacy, Performance, and the Travelling Performer in Pre-Colonial Maharashtra. pp. 169–184. doi:10.11647/obp.0062.05. ISBN 978-1-78374-102-1.
6. Feldhaus, Anne; Feldhaus, Professor of Religious Studies Anne (1996-01-01). Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion: A Translation of the Pratyabhijnahrdayam with an Introduction and Notes, by Ksemaraja. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-2837-5.
7. Pawar, Nitya (2022), "Janabai", in Sauer, Michelle M.; Watt, Diane; McAvoy, Elizabeth Herbert (eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women's Writing in the Global Middle Ages, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 1–4, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-76219-3_45-1, ISBN 978-3-030-76219-3, retrieved 2024-01-31
8. Glushkova, Irina (October 2021). "Janabai and Gangakhed of Das Ganu: Towards ethnic unity and religious cohesion in a time of transition". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 58 (4): 505–532. doi:10.1177/00194646211041156. ISSN 0019-4646. S2CID 239676576.
9. Glushkova, Irina (2000). ""GIVE ME BACK MY BLANKET!" : VARKARI SAINTS STRIVING FOR THEIR BODIES (Metaphor and Metonymy in the Construction of Divinity)". Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. 81 (1/4): 15–34. ISSN 0378-1143. JSTOR 41694605.
10. Glushkova, Irina (October 2021). "Janabai and Gangakhed of Das Ganu: Towards ethnic unity and religious cohesion in a time of transition". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 58 (4): 505–532. doi:10.1177/00194646211041156. ISSN 0019-4646. S2CID 239676576.

External links

• Janabai: Poems and Biography Archived 2006-12-09 at the Wayback Machine