JNANADEVA

born 1275, Alandi, Yadavas, India died 1296, Alandi also called Janesvara foremost of the Indian Maharashtrian mystical poets, author of the highly acclaimed Janesvari, a commentary in Marathi verse on the Bhagavadgita (The Lord's Song). Janadeva was a founder of the devotional school of mysticism known as Varakari (Pilgrim), so called because of the emphasis it places on pilgrimages to the shrine of Vitthala (or Vithoba, a local manifestation of the Hindu god Vishnu ) at Pandharpur. His celebrated commentary, the Janesvari, was written about 1290. He also wrote the Amrtanubhava, a work on Upanishadic philosophy, and a number of devotional hymns. There is a traditionnot fully accepted by scholarsthat Janadeva and his two brothers, Nivrttinatha and Sopanadeva, and his sister, Muktabai, were excommunicated by their Brahman caste fellows and persecuted because they were the children of a sannyasin, or ascetic (their father, who had renounced the world without the consent of his wife, was asked by his guru to return to the life of a householder). All four children were highly respected as saints and poets, and all four voluntarily ended their lives when they were in their early 20s, believing that their work was completed.