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TEACHINGS OF DNYANESHWARI


Dnyaneshwari, a commentary on Bhagvadgita,  has been a very popular religious, spiritual and philosophical work.

Dnyaneshwar Maharaj wrote Dnyaneshwari more than seven centuries ago on the instructions of his Guru Shri Nivruttinath who was also his elder brother.  It was written in ovi style verse form in the then contemporary Marathi. In the tradition of Nath Panth which does not care for religion, caste or creed of its followers, it brought the philosophy of Bhagvadgita, until then reserved only for the  Sanskrit knowing pundits, to common man. Dnyaneshwari may therefore be considered as a guide to the undrstanding of Bhagvadgita. In fact its original name Bhavarthadeepika signified exactly that.

Dnyaneshwari is  both a philosophical work as well as a poetry. Dnyaneshwar Maharaj uses similes and examples from common life to explain the philosophical points in the Bhagvadgita.  These were necessary for the uneducated or marginally educated people of that era.  Today's well read readers, who may be interested mainly in the  philosophy of Gita, may however find these similes and examples a distraction in the chain of philosophical thought. It was for this reason that in the translated version of Dnyaneshwari in English, which is now on the web, only the philosophical parts of the text were included.

Even in this version, it was noticed that the language had an archaic, long-winded style and many arguments were found to have been repeated.  The present version, which is a summary that retains all the philosophical parts but removes the repetitions and uses  modern language  is more suitable for a rapid reading and understanding of Bhagvadgita as Dnyaneshwar Maharaj interpreted it.  It is suitable for the executive type of persons who do not have too much time at their disposal.  As in the earlier versions, paragraph heading have been used but reference to the ovi numbers have been omitted because there had to be a reshuffling of the text in order to make it cogent.



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Dr V. V. shirvaikar,                                     email: vshirvaikar@yahoo.com
A-23 Yashodhan Soc.
Chintamaninagar 2,
Bibvewadi,
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