Eknath

An abridged retelling of Mahipati's life of Eknath, in Justin E. Abbott's English translation of the Bhaktalilamrita.

A child of Paithan

Paithan, which the book calls Pratishthana, stands on the Godavari. There the great Bhanudas, who had brought back the image of Pandurang from a distant king, had a son named Chakrapani. Chakrapani's son was Suryanarayana, and Suryanarayana's wife was named Rukmini. To them was born Eknath, whom Mahipati calls Vishnu come down into the age of Kali.

Both his parents died while he was still a child, and his grandfather Chakrapani and his grandmother brought him up. The old couple saw at once that the boy was not like others. He did not care for games. He set out his marbles as gods and offered them flowers. He tied a rag to a stick and carried it on his shoulder, saying he was off to Pandhari. When the Haridas came with their kirtans, he listened closely, then repeated the words and danced. Once the grandfather told his wife that his own father, Bhanudas, had asked the Lord for one boon, that he be born in the family, and the Lord had promised it. "It seems to me," he said, "that it is really he who has come in Eknath."

At six Eknath was invested with the sacred thread. He kept every rule his family teacher gave him, bathed and prayed three times a day, did not drink water before bathing, and spoke no word while eating. Memorising the sacred hymns was no effort. His grandfather taught him accounts and the cursive script. People wondered at him. He would not listen to jokes, but sat through the Puranas, and when he recited a verse he never made a mistake. When he asked his pandit questions, the man was struck dumb. "A little pond looks like a great lake," the pandit said, "until you see the ocean. My learning is for earning a living. Your questions are of another kind."

When Eknath asked whom he should ask, the pandit answered that in this life one needs the intimacy of a true teacher, a sadguru, and that only through him are the snares of birth and death broken. The words pierced Eknath. From that day he thought of nothing else. He told himself that the sadguru fills the whole universe, but that one should look for him in a form that can be seen and served.

The voice in the temple

One night he went alone into the temple of Shiva, and in the longing of his heart worshipped there. A voice spoke to him: "In the fort of Devagiri lives Janardanpant, a disciple of Dattatreya. Go and see him."

Eknath set out at once, without telling his grandparents. He walked the five yojanas to Devagiri like a man in the heat of summer searching for water. At the teacher's door the doorkeeper stopped him, and went in to say that someone had come who called himself a disciple. "His name is Ekoba." Janardan, who had had good omens that morning, came hurrying, saw the young man, and embraced him with tears in his eyes. Eknath bowed to the ground and said, "Let me stay here in your service, and give me your assurance that I need not fear. Desire and the six enemies of the soul torment me. Save me." Janardan drew him to his heart and said that his own life would now be fulfilled.

Eknath took on every task, small and great. He rose before dawn to say the names of God, swept the house with his own hands, polished the vessels, brought his teacher water and a bath-board, laid out the clay, the tooth-stick and the warm water, wrung out his cloths, put the shoes ready, prepared the pigments and the lamps for the worship, made the bed, kept the household accounts without a single error, and ate what Janardan left on his plate, and very little of it, lest he grow lazy. Janardan had many servants, but Eknath thought of himself as the only one. Months and years went by, and he never wearied.

Once Janardan asked about his family, and Eknath told him that his father and mother were dead, that his grandparents were living at Paithan, and that he had left them to come here. "There is no duty more important than serving one's teacher," he said.

The general who was not

Janardan served the king of Devagiri as an officer. One morning, when he had just finished his bath and prayers and sat in meditation, spies reported that a great army had come to take the fort. The king was frightened, and the mace-bearers hurried to Janardan's house to fetch him. But no one dared disturb the teacher in meditation.

Eknath took Janardan's form. No one but he knew it. He put on his teacher's clothes, took his dagger, sat in his palanquin, and went to the king's council. "By the strength of your good deeds," he said, "I will conquer the enemy in no time." He gave his orders, the drums were beaten, and the little army marched out. To the enemy it looked huge. The arrows flew, the swords clashed, and for four hours the battle raged under a cloud of dust. Then the invaders broke and fled. They sent an officer to ask for terms. Eknath felt pity for him, and instead of harshness he took him into the city, presented him to the king, gave him robes and ornaments, and sent him home. Then he went back, took on his own form, and stood ready to serve.

Janardan, meanwhile, had finished his worship, had his meal and a short sleep, and went to the council hall. The king rose to receive him. "A great army came today," he said, "and you, with a small force, drove it off." The courtiers cheered his victory, and Janardan, bewildered, said to himself that he had been at home in meditation. Then he understood. Eknath's service, he thought, must stop. He was no ordinary servant.

Dattatreya on the mountain

The king had ordered that no one should trouble Janardan on Fridays. On that day he climbed to a lake on the plateau, bathed, made a thousand clay lingas and worshipped them, and Dattatreya, it was said, would appear to him. One Friday he took Eknath with him, for he had decided that Eknath should see the Lord. "He may come in any strange form," he said. "Let no doubt enter your mind."

While Janardan sat in meditation, a Muslim fakir appeared in a leather garment with bloodshot eyes, a rosary in his hands, and a bitch that was really the wish-granting cow. Janardan knew him and bowed. The two embraced as one. Dattatreya handed him an earthen bowl and told him to milk the bitch. Janardan did, and Dattatreya crumbled stale bread into the milk, which was in truth divine food, and the two ate together out of the one bowl. Then Eknath was told to wash the bowl in the lake. Sitting at the water's edge, he thought: this is the teacher's leavings, which is the Ganga itself. He drank from the bowl.

Janardan then asked Dattatreya to show his own form to his servant, who had not bowed to a Muslim. Dattatreya said that Eknath should not be called a boy. He was Vitthal himself come to save the world. Men would listen to his kirtans and turn to devotion. He would write a Marathi commentary on the Bhagavata and a Marathi Ramayana, and his fame would last as long as the sun and moon. As he spoke, the bitch became the wish-granting cow again, and he took his own form, six-armed. He embraced Eknath, and vanished.

Back at home, Janardan taught Eknath that knowledge without devotion is the babbling of a babbler. "You have the knowledge of the Self," he said. "But do not give up devotion to the Lord with a form."

Mount Sulabha

Janardan sent him to a quiet mountain called Sulabha, behind Devagiri, to bathe in the Suryakunda and meditate there on Pandurang. "If you see anything strange, come and tell me." Eknath sat facing east and brought the image of the Lord to his mind. He lost all awareness of his body. A great serpent on that mountain came to bite him, but as it coiled itself around him its evil left it. It sheltered him from heat and cold, with the tip of its tail at his navel and its hood over his head.

A farmer lived at the foot of the mountain with his wife. Every day they carried milk up to the field for Eknath. One morning the wife, rising by moonlight, thought it was dawn, and set out early. The farmer climbed with the bowl and saw the serpent coiled around the motionless Eknath. He thought the saint was dead, and cried out to the Lord of Pandhari for help. At the noise, Eknath came back to himself, and the serpent slipped away.

Eknath recited a verse of his own: Death had come to sting him, but turned to a merciful one. Then he closed his eyes, and the Lord Vishnu stood in front of him, four-armed, dark, with a crocodile earring and a necklace of jewels. Eknath fell at his feet and the Lord embraced him. The farmer saw it all, and said he had seen God with his own eyes, though he was ignorant and of low birth. Eknath drank the milk he had brought and sent him home with a glance.

Remembering Janardan's order, Eknath went back and told him everything. "By your favour I have received what could not be had," he said.

Chandrabhat and the first book

Some time later Janardan said he longed to bathe in the Godavari and see Nasik, Panchavati and Trimbak. They set out, with horses and a Brahmin cook, and rested wherever the place was beautiful. In a town on their way, they were welcomed by a learned Vaishnava named Chandrabhat, who had a family but no desires. That night, after dinner, he opened a book, the Chatusloki Bhagavata, and began to explain the four verses where Hari speaks to Brahma. As he spoke, his voice choked, and the three of them wept. "It was as if Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva had come together," says Mahipati, "or the three rivers had joined and flowed on as one." In the morning he begged them to eat at his house, and then to let him come with them. "That is exactly what we wish," Janardan said.

At Panchavati they bathed in the Ramakunda, and Janardan told Eknath: "On your head is the blessing of Dattatreya. Chandrabhat has brought the Chatusloki Bhagavata. Write a commentary on it in Marathi." Eknath wrote the verse and then its meaning, and when he read it aloud, Chandrabhat, Janardan and the scholars of that holy place were pleased. It was his first book. Janardan told him to go on to the eleventh book of the Bhagavata, and promised that Krishna would help him.

They finished their pilgrimage and returned to Devagiri, and Chandrabhat stayed. Weary of wife, son and home, he could not leave the company of Janardan and Eknath. One day he lost all sense of body, and saw everything as Janardan, and people began to call him Chand Bodhala. Later he asked to be buried alive. Janardan arranged it, and because they feared trouble from the Muslims, they built the tomb in the form of a Muslim tomb, so that Hindus and Muslims alike came to it. It stands on the hill at Devagiri to this day.

The long pilgrimage

Janardan then decided that Eknath should make a pilgrimage to the holy places of the whole land. "Go as far as Badrinath," he said. "See Lake Manasa in the north, and Rameshwar in the south, and then come back to me. Everywhere you go, bow to what belongs to God. Krishna himself will provide your daily needs." Eknath was glad because he would meet the saints, and sad because he would lose the sight of his teacher. Janardan walked him out of the town. In the forest Eknath laid his head on his teacher's breast and wept, and Janardan said, "I shall always be in your heart. You and I are not separated." He put his own turban on Eknath's head. Eknath walked away, turning at every few steps to bow to the ground again.

While he was gone, his grandparents were in agony. They had not been told where he had gone. They asked from house to house if anyone had seen their Eknath. They asked the crows and the parrots, and walked down to the river and asked the Godavari whether she had drowned him. People said that his parents' death had been followed by poverty, and now that he had run away, the old people would have no one to give them water. Some thought a learned Puranik who had liked the boy must have led him away. When that man returned from the army after four years, they threatened to kill themselves at his door. The Puranik wrote to Janardan and then went to Devagiri himself. Janardan told him that Eknath had served him for years and was now on a pilgrimage at his command, and wrote the grandparents a letter in his own hand. They went to Devagiri, and Janardan received them kindly. "He seems to you only a child," he said, "but in reality he is Pandurang in human form." He kept them a month, sent them home with a second letter to be given to Eknath, and told them to stop him when he passed through Paithan on his way back.

Eknath wandered widely. He saw the rivers, the Purna, the Tapti and the Narmada, and the great Shiva temple at Avanti. In Mathura, Gokul and Vrindavan he was delighted by the loving Vaishnavas who sing the Lord's name. He bathed at Benares and Prayag, bowed at Gaya, saw Ayodhya, and went on to the Himalayas, where he crossed the gorge of the Bhagirathi in a sling, without the least fear. He worshipped at Badrinath, stayed a month at Dwarka, passed through Junagadh, where Narsi Mehta had lived, and then came home.

Home again

He reached Paithan, bathed in the Godavari, bowed to the temple of Pimpaleshwar, and hid there, lest anyone recognise him. When he went into the town at noon for food, his grandparents saw him. "It's a long time since you left us as a child," they said. "You have grown. Bapa, how could you be so hard-hearted?" Eknath said nothing, for he thought that if he made himself known they would tie him to the household. But they took out Janardan's letter and showed it to him, and he bowed his forehead to it. He sat down on the spot and would not get up. For three days he did not move. The townspeople built him a thatched roof, and he sang and prayed there. People gathered to hear him, and, without any study, he sang verses in praise of the Lord.

He had no one to lead the chorus, and the Lord Pandurang felt concern. He took the form of a Brahmin and answered each line, keeping time on the cymbals. No one knew who he was. When Eknath's words reached evil minds, they changed. The wealthy citizens built him a house, gave him land and a courtyard, and his grandparents came to live there with their household gods. On every eleventh day of the month he held night-long kirtans.

On the birthday of Krishna he arranged a great festival. Some Brahmins went to Devagiri and told Janardan, who was delighted, as a father is delighted at his son's success. He came with his people. At the door of Eknath's house, he saw Dattatreya standing as a doorkeeper, trident in hand. Dattatreya said, "Eknath is Pandurang in human form. Out of love for him I have taken my place here." Eknath washed his teacher's feet and drank the water, and for fourteen days the house was full of feasting and kirtans. The leader of the chorus danced with bells on his feet and took up each line as it fell from Eknath's lips. Janardan asked who he was. "Vithoba is the name of this body," the Brahmin said. "I have no home. I am only skilled at leading the chorus, and I wish to live in your company on a morsel of food." Janardan did not guess who he was.

Marriage

When he was about to leave, the old couple fell at his feet. "Of Bhanudas's family Eknath alone is left," they said. "He does not wish to be a householder. Command him to marry, and we shall be comforted." Janardan called Eknath to him. "If a bride comes to you of her own free choice, accept her," he said. "Of all the stages of life, the householder's is the noblest. In it you can feed the hungry and worship Vishnu, and sing his praises." Eknath said, "If it is in my fate, it will happen."

In a certain town lived a Brahmin whose daughter was of marriageable age, but no horoscope matched hers. One night the Lord appeared to him in a dream. "At Paithan lives a Vaishnava named Eknath. Take your daughter there." He went, and the astrologers found the match to be thirty-six, the best possible. The invitations went out to relatives in the province of Vijapur, and Uddhava, a pious Vaishnava cousin's son, came and took charge of all the arrangements. The wedding went on for five days, with all the proper rites. Then the bride's father went home, and the guests departed. Uddhava alone stayed, to serve Eknath, and he never left him afterward.

The bride's name was Girjabai. She was young but knew her household duties, and the old couple, seeing her, said that Janardan had fulfilled the longing of their eyes. The new household lived on whatever came to it, and what came was plentiful. Brahmins were fed, and the hungry were fed, with no question about caste. In the second quarter of the day Eknath fed Brahmins, in the third he read the Puranas, and at night there was a kirtan. Not long after, the grandparents' lives came to their end, and Eknath performed their funeral rites with his own hands. The unknown Brahmin went on leading his chorus.

Then someone came from Devagiri with the news that Janardan had left his body. Eknath felt no sorrow, for to him the teacher was everywhere. But he told Uddhava to celebrate the sixth day of the month with great preparations, since it was the day of Janardan's birth, the day Dattatreya appeared to him, the day he gave Eknath his blessing, and the day he had died. Uddhava borrowed seven hundred rupees from a merchant to pay for the feast, and the whole town was invited. There was a procession to the Godavari, with drums and banners, and Brahmins were fed, and Eknath himself washed their feet. In the evening he gave a kirtan. On the seventh and the eighth days there were more festivities.

The debt and the oath

When the note fell due, the merchant demanded his money. Uddhava told him it would be paid as soon as money arrived. The merchant would not listen. He went to Eknath's house, found him at his prayers, and swore that if Eknath ate before he had been paid, he would break his oath. Eknath fed the Brahmins as usual, but did not eat himself, and neither did Uddhava or Girjabai. The sun set, and a watch of the night went by, and no money had come.

Pandharinath could not bear to see his devotee fast. He took Uddhava's form and went to the merchant's house at night. "Bring the note," he said, "and count out the money, with the interest." The merchant said it was night and the books were at his store, and he told him to come in the morning. "If you are so patient," said the Lord, "why did you put Eknath under an oath? I am faint at the thought of his fasting." Ashamed, the merchant went to his store, counted out the sum, and noticed that every coin bore the same stamp. He handed over the note, which the visitor tore up. The merchant took the pieces home and put them in his account book. He could not sleep. He had made Eknath fast, he thought, and then gone home and eaten himself.

At dawn he went to Eknath and bowed. "I have wronged you." Eknath said that it is a rule of business that a man should not eat until he has paid his dues. The merchant, astonished, said that Uddhava had paid him the day before, and asked why Eknath had been left fasting. "One must not tell an untruth," Uddhava said, and searched, and found the torn note in the account book. Then he understood. "Blessed is your loving devotion," he said to the merchant. "Through your dealings with Eknath you have met the Lord. Do not speak of it to anyone." Eknath then ate with Girjabai and Uddhava.

The one who led the chorus

Twelve years passed in this way. In the holy city of Pandhari a Vaishnava sat in contemplation, longing to see Pandurang. One night the Lord told him in a dream: "I am engaged at Paithan. Eknath is wholly absorbed in kirtans in my praise. I have taken the form of a Brahmin there and lead the chorus. The world calls me Vithoba. Go to Eknath's house and you will see me." The man hurried to Paithan, asked for the Brahmin Vithoba, and rushed to embrace him, and the Lord took his four-armed form, with crown, earrings and yellow garment. The Vaishnava and those who had come with him saw it, and then it vanished. They praised Eknath: "Pandurang himself has led your chorus." When Eknath understood, he wondered, and said, "The Life of the world has wearied himself for me."

Another time, a Brahmin appeared at Eknath's door when Uddhava had asked to hear the Bhagavata, and Eknath had begun to read it. "My name is Keshava," he said. "I am alone, and indifferent to the world. I have come to hear the Bhagavata from your lips. If you give me your word, I will always stay." Eknath said he wished for the same. For many years Keshava sat close to him and listened. If a word was not fully explained he raised a doubt, and Eknath cleared it. "I see," Eknath thought, "that the Lord has many forms. He lately took the form of a Brahmin and led my chorus. It is he who has come again as Keshava, and no one knows him."

The Brahmans' envy

The people who came to listen became Vaishnavas, and gave up dishonest trade. Some of the learned Brahmins of the town were not pleased. They complained among themselves: Eknath had turned the people from the rites that paid them. He read the Bhagavata in Marathi, and set aside the Sanskrit commentary of Shridhara for Dnyaneshvari's Marathi. Even their wives slipped away to his kirtans. Eknath, who honoured them, took no offence. Whether they praised or insulted him, he saw Janardan in all of them. If they asked for a fine cloth or a vessel, he gave it to them. When guests came to town, they were sent to his house, and fed, and the same Brahmins, who had plenty at their own, sent the hungry to his door.

One week the rain came down in torrents day and night, and no fuel could be found in all the town. Late at night four Brahmins arrived, hungry, and the town sent them to Eknath. Girjabai said there was no fuel. "This house has wooden sides," Eknath said, and told Uddhava to rip out some slats. Uddhava said that would take too long, so Eknath ripped the tapes from his own bed and broke up the frame of a straw rick. He heated bath water, warmed the guests, and Girjabai served them a meal.

Not long after, on the day for honouring his ancestors, Brahmins were invited to the feast. While the food was ready and the Brahmins were late from their baths, three bearded fakirs in leather and rosaries appeared, saying that they were hungry. They were Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, who wished to test him. He fed them from the dishes meant for the ancestors, sat beside them, and gave them betel. They revealed themselves to him, and then took their fakir guise again and walked out, belching so the returning Brahmins could hear, and blessing Eknath in their language.

The Brahmins were furious. They said he had fed Muslims before the ancestral rite, and they would excommunicate him. Their head and the leading men came to his house. Eknath bowed to them and begged them to perform the rite, since fresh water had been brought and a second meal cooked. They would not. "If your ancestors come down and eat, we will believe you," they said, and set three seats on the floor. Eknath said "Come," and his ancestors came down in glory, with sacred threads on their necks and gold rings on their hands, and sat on the seats reciting the Vedas. The Brahmins sat with their faces between their knees. The invited Brahmins stayed, performed the rite, and ate with them, and the ancestors then went back to heaven. The head of the Brahmins told the others that they had acted like Durvasa pursuing Ambarisha. Eknath remembered none of it, for he was equally indifferent to being praised or insulted.

Krishnadas Lolya

The Brahmins tried another way. A poet named Krishnadas Lolya, a worshipper of the goddess Bhavani, had been given the power of poetry, and was writing a Marathi version of the Yuddhakanda of the Ramayana. They praised him loudly in Eknath's presence, to make him envious. Eknath said only, "How endless is the glory of God."

One day the goddess told Krishnadas that he would die at the third watch of the next day, and the book was not finished. He took what he had written to Eknath and asked him to finish it. Eknath read a chapter and was pleased, but said he could not do it. "Finish it yourself." "I am afraid of tomorrow," Krishnadas said. Eknath asked how many days he would need. "Until then Death will not so much as touch you." When the time of his death came, Eknath came and passed his hand over him and told Death, "For eleven days do not touch him." Death turned away.

The Brahmins said that if Krishnadas died on the eleventh day, they would believe in the miracle. On the tenth day the book was done. He gave gifts to Brahmins, worshipped Sarasvati, and praised Eknath. On the eleventh day he bathed and prayed, and Eknath came and he worshipped him, and without distress he went to the life beyond. The Brahmins said among themselves, "The more we plot against him, the more his fame grows."

The image from the Karnatak

In the Karnatak a wealthy merchant, devoted to Pandurang, had a metal image of Vitthal made, with a smiling face. He was waiting for an auspicious day to consecrate it when the Lord appeared to him in a dream. "In Paithan lives Eka Janardan. Take this image to him. If you consecrate it here you will suffer." He took advice, waited, had the dream three nights in a row, and came to Paithan with horses and servants. The local Brahmins, hoping for gifts, crowded around him, but he asked for Eknath. He found him seated on his mat with Uddhava, and told him the whole story. Eknath pressed the image to his heart.

At the consecration, Brahmins fed on many dishes, and the image was bathed and adorned. Eknath put a lump of butter on his palm and held it to the image's mouth. "As Krishna you stole butter. Eat it now, and your glory will grow in this place." The image smiled, put out its tongue and licked up the butter.

The merchant invited Eknath to the wedding of Pandurang and Rukmini, for which he would have an image of Rukmini made. Eknath collected the blind, the lame and the poor, dressed them in new clothes, and set out with the image of the bridegroom in a palanquin and Girjabai riding as the bridegroom's mother, with a great procession. The Brahmins of the town performed the ceremony, and after it Eknath sang a kirtan to the merchant and his town, and stayed a month.

To Pandharpur

Since the image of Pandurang had come to him unasked, Eknath told Uddhava that he had never gone to Pandhari. He decided to go. With a crowd of pilgrims he set out on foot, with kirtans at every stage. The night before they arrived, the Lord told the priests of the temple in a dream to go out and meet Eknath, and to have him sing at the temple door on the fourteenth. Eknath fell to the ground at the sight of the city. He bathed in the Chandrabhaga, worshipped at the tomb of Pundalik, and then saw the image of Pandurang, standing on the brick with his hands on his hips. At the Eagle platform, the priests asked him to give a kirtan, since it was the Lord's wish.

A listener asked him to sing the story of his great-grandfather Bhanudas, and Eknath sang it. King Rama of Vidyanagara had come to Pandhari, wished to carry the Lord to his own city, and was told in a dream that this could be done only if Brahmins passed the image from hand to hand. The king did so, and Pandhari became like a body without life. The saints gathered there, Dnyaneshvara, Namdev, Muktabai, Kabir and others, were troubled, and Bhanudas offered to bring the Lord back. He found the locked temple in Vidyanagara open, scolded the Lord for leaving his devotees, sang an abhang, and was told to come for him the next day. The Lord put a necklace of nine jewels around his neck. The king's men took him for a thief, beat him, and sent him to be impaled, but the stake burst into leaf and flower. The king fell at his feet. The Lord told the king to stay in peace, shrank to a small size, and was carried back to Pandhari in a bamboo basket. There Bhanudas set him down at the Padmatirtha, where he took his large form again, and the saints brought him back to the temple in procession. He promised Bhanudas that he would be born in his family.

When Eknath finished, the saints praised him, saying that he was Pandurang himself. He could not bear to hear it, got up, and went out to the temple. He brought gifts to the Brahmins, and came home to Paithan, where the people carried him in with banners.

Sripad and the stone bull

A great sannyasi named Sripad lived in Paithan. He had won over the six enemies of the soul, bowed to every creature alike, and came to hear Eknath's kirtans. Some people mocked him and some praised him. One day he bowed to the swollen carcass of a donkey on the river sand. The Brahmins laughed and said that if he could raise it to life, they would believe in his reverence. He prayed, and the donkey shook itself, snorted, and stood up. People crowded round. The Brahmins now said that Eknath, who sang Marathi kirtans, could never do such a thing.

Eknath, hearing of it, told Sripad that this was a serious matter. "The age is evil. The king is a Muslim. If he hears of your power, he will jail you and make you raise his dead, and everyone will pester you for the past and the future." Sripad asked to be buried alive, and Eknath agreed. Workers dug a pit in the sand, Sripad sat down in it, and it was filled in.

The Brahmins summoned Eknath to the temple of Pimpaleshwar. "You did this without the proper rites. You pressed a sannyasi to be buried. The charge of murder is on your head. You must be excommunicated." They said he could clear himself only by a miracle: if the stone bull in the temple would eat dry stalks from his hand. Eknath bowed, and said to the bull, "Of my own accord I seated the sannyasi in his grave. If I am without fault, eat these." The stone bull put out its tongue and ate a sheaf of stalks. The Brahmins withdrew the charge. But the next day, other Brahmins who had not been there said they had not seen it, and demanded the same. Eknath, troubled, prayed to the bull, "How long must you keep eating stalks?" The stone bull stood up, ran, and leapt into a deep hole in the river. It is there to this day. The Brahmins said, "Dnyaneshvara once made a buffalo recite the Vedas. In the same way Eknath has done something that no man could do," and they let him go.

Alandi

Once Eknath went on a pilgrimage to Alandi, leaving Uddhava at home, and a crowd went with him. By the Indrayani river Dnyanadeva appeared to him in a dream and said that the roots of the ajana tree had reached his neck. Eknath dug into the tomb, saw Dnyanadeva, bowed, and moved the root aside. He closed the tomb again, and sang a kirtan, and kept an all-night vigil on the eleventh. The town was empty and there was no food to be had. The Lord took the form of a Lingayat merchant, set up a booth, and gave the pilgrims what they needed, saying that he was an old friend of Eknath's. After four days he vanished. The pilgrims told Eknath they had bought on credit from a man who was now nowhere to be seen. Eknath understood, and returned home with the crowd singing the story of Dnyaneshvara.

Back at Paithan, he sat down to correct the text of the Dnyaneshvari. Copyists had spoiled it, until its sense and grammar were unclear and few read it. Eknath restored it, and then read it aloud to the people, with Uddhava and Keshava the closest listeners. When the reading ended, the Lord, who had been there as Keshava, asked leave to go. "I have spent twelve years happily with you," he said, "but I am homesick." Eknath gave it, and said he hoped to see him again. The Lord vanished, and thought to himself that he must somehow repay Eknath's kindness.

Ranya Mahar

In the city there lived a Mahar named Ranya, whom the townspeople counted as an outcaste. He and his wife loved Krishna. They came to every kirtan but sat outside, and swept the path that Eknath took to the river, bowing to him from afar. One day Eknath sang of how Krishna showed himself to Arjuna in the form of the universe. Ranya called out a question: "When the Lord became the whole universe, where was I, an outcaste?" "You were wholly attached to Krishna," said Eknath. At those words all sense of difference left Ranya.

His wife wished to feed Eknath at their house. Ranya went to the river and asked, and said he had no right as one without caste. Eknath said, "You are a loving devotee. Krishna has seen it, and is pleased. A Brahmin who knows the Vedas, but has no love, may be below an outcaste who loves." And he recited a verse of the Bhagavata which says that an outcaste who has given his mind, words, deeds, wealth and life to God is better than a Brahmin with twelve virtues who has turned from him.

Some Brahmins standing near were angry. They said the verse was from the Vedas and no outcaste had a right to it. Eknath bowed and asked pardon, but they said he must do penance or be excommunicated. He stepped into a deep pool of the Godavari and stood there while they gave him cow dung and ashes. Ranya, seeing it from afar, went home in despair. His wife said they might as well die. But Ranya said, "Eknath is an ocean of mercy. I will go again." He asked again, and this time Eknath said, "I will come at noon, as soon as the cooking is ready." The Brahmins watching said they must catch him in the act.

They posted themselves in the lanes, at his door and at the Maharwada. At noon Ranya came and asked, and Eknath said, "Go on, I will follow." Then Pandurang took Eknath's form and went to Ranya's house. The wife washed his feet, marked his forehead, put a garland on him. The spies saw it, and some ran to Eknath's house, and there he was, on his seat, with a rosary in his hands. They ran back, and there he was again, eating at the Mahar's house. They ran back and forth until the third watch and found him in both places. Ranya's wife served him, and he ate, drank, and took betel. The couple said, "We had no devotion, no learning, no caste, and you have fulfilled our wish." He vanished. They ate what he left. The Brahmins said Eknath must have learned a magic mantra and gained the favour of a goblin king.

The touchstone

A pious Brahmin of the town had come by a touchstone, which turns iron into gold. His son and wife died, and he decided to go on a long pilgrimage. He could think of no one to trust, and finally gave the stone to Eknath. Eknath looked at it. "It is only a stone." The man touched a bit of iron to it and the iron turned to gold. Eknath tossed it under his seat and forgot it, for gold and cow dung were the same to him. A year later the man came back, and for two days waited for Eknath to mention it. At last he asked. Eknath remembered, they looked under the seat, and the stone was gone. The flowers of worship were thrown out every fortnight, and it must have gone with them into the river.

They went to the Godavari, and Eknath stepped in and picked up some five or seven pebbles. "Choose yours." The man tested each against iron, and every one was a touchstone. Greed rose in him, but Eknath said, "Take the one that is yours. The rest I give back to the Ganga." He chose one and Eknath tossed the rest into the river.

Eknath's day, and Shrikhandya

He rose before dawn, bathed in the river, worshipped the image of Pandurang, listened to the Purana, offered to his ancestors, fed the Brahmins, ate a little, read a commentary in the afternoon, bathed again at sunset, and gave a kirtan at night.

Krishna felt that he could never repay Eknath's service. He took the form of a Brahmin, came from Dwarka, and said at the door, "I wish to serve you. I want no wages, only food, a blanket and a garment, and your company." He gave his name as Krishna Shrikhandya. Eknath could not recognise him, and said that he need not serve, but only accept food. "I will eat what I earn," he said. He took the water-pole on his shoulder, filled the great jar with water from the Ganga, polished the vessels, ground the sandalwood paste, wove the garlands, lit the lamps, and carried away the leavings of the Brahmins. When Eknath called "Krishna!" he came. Because he ground the sandalwood, the town called him Shrikhandya. Unknown to Eknath, he even went into the kitchen and helped Girjabai.

After many years a Brahmin of Dwarka, who had fasted long to see the Lord, was told by Rukmini in a dream: "Krishna is not here. At Paithan he is serving a devotee as a water-carrier." He came to Eknath's gate, and Shrikhandya, seeing him from the river, grumbled to himself, "Why has this creditor of mine come? Rukmini has given me away." The Brahmin told Eknath his story and begged to see Krishna. Eknath called Uddhava to summon Shrikhandya. The Lord came out of the god-room four-armed, with the conch and the disc, wearing a crown, and the Brahmin rushed to embrace his feet. Eknath cried in remorse, "I have wearied the Lord." The Lord said, "Blessed is your pure devotion. First I led your chorus for twelve years as Vitthal, then I listened to your Bhagavata as Keshava. I have been here twenty-four years, and you did not know." Then he vanished. Eknath said to the Brahmin, "Krishna was beside me, and I did not know him. It was you who showed him to me."

The four thieves and the thief in the stocks

Once, as Eknath gave a kirtan, four thieves broke in and began to look for goods. Suddenly they could not see. They bumped their heads and could not find the door. "This is the wrath of God," they said. "Eknath is a devotee of Vishnu." They wandered about the house until they found themselves in the god-room, in front of him. Their sight came back. They fell at his feet and confessed. Eknath said, "You came with high hopes. Do not go away with long faces." He opened his treasure room and told them to take what they wished. When they were ashamed, he woke Uddhava and Girjabai and had a meal cooked, served them himself, gave them betel, and saw them off. From that day they gave up stealing and worshipped Hari.

Another night, a Mahar who stole for a living, and who had been caught, beaten, put in stocks and left to starve, was freed because he was too weak to run away. He heard a kirtan in the distance, crawled to Eknath's house, and sat in a corner. When the kirtan ended Eknath saw a figure like a corpse. The man put his hand to his mouth. Eknath woke Girjabai and told her to cook something. She made wheat porridge with milk and sugar, and Eknath fed it to the man a little at a time, so that he would not die from eating too fast. In the morning he sent word to the mayor that his prisoner was at his house, and the mayor said he would not punish a man Eknath had taken in. The man stayed, regained his strength, and became a devotee.

Some Brahmins said that to feed a thief was to pollute the house. The next day, a ghost came out of a banyan tree on his way to the river. "Through hating a Brahmin I came to this birth. You have fed Brahmins for years, and fed the prisoner. Give me one of those good deeds in the form of water, and I shall be saved." "I see neither sin nor merit," said Eknath. "Ask what you wish." The ghost asked for the deed of feeding the prisoner. Eknath put water in his hand, and the ghost was freed and went up to heaven. The people who had been grumbling were silent.

The summons to Benares

Eknath went to Pandhari every year in the month of Ashadha, as Bhanudas had begun to do. He also wrote: the commentary on the Chatusloki Bhagavata, many abhangs and padas, a commentary on the Hastamalaka, the Sukashtaka and Svatmasukha. The saints begged him to write on the Bhagavata itself, with its mysteries of devotion, and above all on the eleventh book, the Uddhava Gita. He began, and finished two chapters.

A noble Brahmin of the town copied them and took them on pilgrimage to Benares, where he read them aloud at the Manikarnika ghat. Two disciples of a great sannyasi, hearing it, were struck by the style, but said that if this became known no one would read the Sanskrit. They told their master. He was enraged. The Brahmin was brought, and the sannyasi seized the two chapters and wrote to the Brahmins of Paithan, telling them to send Eknath, and a letter to Eknath himself: "Come at once, and bring your book." Two disciples brought it to Paithan.

The Brahmins there were pleased. Eknath said, "The Lord of the Universe has remembered me." He left Uddhava in charge of the worship, the readings, the feeding of the poor and the kirtans, took the manuscript of five chapters, and set out on foot with the disciples. At Benares, he bathed in the Bhagirathi, and the disciples took him to the monastery, where the sannyasi had gone out to beg with his three hundred disciples. When he returned, he told them to go and give Eknath five blows each. As they went in, one by one, each saw Eknath sitting there as Krishna, and bowed with palms joined. The head sannyasi, hearing that they had not obeyed, grew furious and had a curtain hung so that he would not see the writer of a Marathi book. Eknath said, "Why have you hung a curtain? I have come a long way. I am without devotion and without learning. If you find a fault in this commentary, sink it in the Manikarnika." At those words the sannyasi's anger left him, and he had the curtain removed, and saw Krishna.

He wept, and Eknath lifted him up. Then, as the sannyasi read the book, he read one verse, and exclaimed, "What knowledge!" The sannyasis asked Eknath to complete the eleventh book there, and he agreed. In six months it was done, and the monastery celebrated.

But the Brahmin pandits of the city objected. "A Marathi commentary on the Bhagavata! It should be sunk in the Manikarnika, as Vyasa once sank a book." They took the manuscript from Eknath and threw it in. The Bhagirathi lifted up both her arms, with jewelled bracelets, and held the book above the water. The sannyasi leapt in, took it, and put it on his head. "Take warning," he told the pandits, "and go as suppliants to Eknath." They fell at his feet. The sannyasis put the book on an elephant in a procession that lasted seven days. Eknath refused to ride, and walked beside it. On the eighth day he gave kirtans at the monastery for four days, and the Gopalkala on the fifth, and the pandits made copies of the eleventh book. Eknath began the Rukmini Svayamvara by the Manikarnika, and then took leave. The sannyasis and pandits walked with him from the city, and the citizens held his memory in their hearts day and night.

Dasopant, and small mercies

On the way home he met Dasopant, a saint who had practised austerities in the forest for twenty years, until Dattatreya embraced him, and who made his home at Amba Jogai. They embraced. Dasopant took him home for a month, and offered him horses and money, which Eknath refused. "Come to Paithan for the birth of Krishna," he said. Dasopant came, and at the door he saw Dattatreya standing as the doorkeeper, who told him that Eknath was Pandurang in human form. He stayed for the festival, and said, "I thought I was a worshipper of Dattatreya, but since seeing Eknath I recognise no duality."

Eknath's kindness worked on many. A Muslim sitting by the city gate spat, and the spittle fell on Eknath, who felt no anger. He went home, bathed, worshipped, had his meal, and carried a dish of food to the man's house. The man saw it was divine food, repented, and fell at his feet. "I did not look where I was going," Eknath said. "It was my fault. Your repentance is all the penance there is."

At noon on a hot day in Vaishakha, he saw a little boy crying on the burning sand, and carried him on his hip to his mother's hut. She was a Mahar woman. Eknath put the boy down, went back to the Ganga, and bathed in his clothes. No one in the town knew of it. But a Brahmin leper, who had performed austerities for twelve years at Trimbak, was told in a dream by the Lord of Trimbak, "Go to Paithan, and ask Eknath for the deed he did when he carried the Mahar boy." The man asked. "I will give you all the good I have ever done," Eknath said, smiling. "Only that one deed," the leper said. Eknath put water in his hand, and the leprosy left him.

When he read the eleventh book at home, the Ganga came in the form of a beautiful young woman, and sat each day before him, weeping at the stories. Some men grew suspicious, and followed her at the end, and saw her step into the river and vanish. Ashamed, they came and confessed. Eknath said, "You saw the Goda herself. Your sin is shattered."

A neighbour who lived near him, a merchant who never came to a kirtan, was asked by Eknath only to learn a verse of the thousand names of Vishnu. He learned one, then another, and in time all of it. When he was dying of fever and the messengers of Yama came, he remembered, and began to say the names aloud. Yama's messengers ran away, and the messengers of Vishnu took him to heaven.

His family

Girjabai bore a daughter, Godubai, then a son, Hari, and then another daughter, Gangabai. Godubai married into the family of Chintopant, and Gangabai into a family in the Karnatak, and her son was Pundaji. Hari grew up learned in the six sciences, and was called Hari Pandit, and the learned Brahmins praised him. "His father sings in Marathi, and women and Shudras listen to him. Haripant has brought back the Sanskrit Purana." Proud of his learning, and ashamed of his father among the learned, he left for Benares with his wife and two of his three sons, and made his home there. Eknath's youngest grandson, Raghoba, stayed behind with the old couple. As a child he took up the cymbals in the kirtans, acted the Gopalkala, and received the sacred formula from Eknath himself.

Eknath missed his son. He thought, "Under the lamp the darkness is greatest." He went to Benares. Hari greeted him with love, and the monastery's head told him to obey his father, who was no mere man. Eknath asked him to come home. "My age is at its end. The time of my departure is near." Hari set two conditions: that Eknath would not eat in other people's houses, and that he would not read the Purana in Marathi. Eknath agreed, and they went back.

The kirtans stopped. Hari read the Purana in Sanskrit, and Eknath sat and listened. The women and Shudras could not understand, and stopped coming. The people said, "Our fortune is gone." There was a Brahmin widow in the city, once rich, who had vowed to feed a thousand Brahmins, and could not, since her husband had died and her wealth had gone. She earned a few coins by carrying water. A wise man told her that to feed Eknath was worth more than feeding a hundred thousand Brahmins. She saved and prepared the food with her own hands, and went with the man to invite him. Hari was reading the Purana, and went into the house, and refused: "Father has not eaten at another's house since his pilgrimage." Eknath said, "Fulfil her wish." Hari said, "Keep the promise you gave me." Eknath proposed that Hari cook the food himself, and they would both eat. Hari, out of respect, agreed.

The next day the widow swept and cleaned her house, and Hari went and cooked. Eknath came uninvited, like the Lord going to Vidura. He said "Janardan is the enjoyer of this," poured water on her hands, made his offering, and ate with great relish, though he refused nothing, and Hari watched, red-eyed, gnashing his teeth, and thought, "If this was his intention, why did he let my hands be scorched in cooking?" But he held his anger, and ate. After the meal, Eknath asked him to clear away the two leaf plates, for the widow was alone. Hari picked up his father's plate on top of his own, and there was another. He took that up, and another. He lifted more than a thousand, and still they did not end. He fell at his father's feet. "I became proficient in six sciences and did not know your greatness. Eat wherever the purpose is pure, and read the Marathi books." The widow, with the thousand plates on her head, told the people of Paithan what had happened, and gave them to the Godavari. Hari became his father's devotee, and sat at his kirtans.

Gavaba and the Ramayana

A poor village Brahmin had a last son who was dumb and could not even say "Keshava Narayana", and called him Gavaba. One day he asked his mother for stale puranpoli, which he had had at a festival, and she slapped him. Then she took pity, led him to Eknath, and said, "He is nine, and cannot speak, but he asks for dainty food. Take him." Eknath kept him, and Girjabai fed him. One day, in the god-room, Eknath tried to get him to repeat the name of Rama, and could not. "What is my name?" he asked. And the boy said "Eknath." Eknath gave him that name to repeat, and tied knots in a cord for a rosary. From then on the dumb boy forgot to play and repeated the name all day. He spoke to no one else.

One day, in the god-room, Rama himself, the husband of Janaki, appeared to Eknath and woke him. "Write a Marathi commentary on Valmiki's Ramayana, and call it the Bhavartha Ramayana. I will dwell in your heart and give you the words. The age of Kali and Death are under your control." Eknath said he doubted if his life would last. "Do your daily duties more lightly," Rama said. Eknath began, completing the Balakanda, Ayodhyakanda, Aranyakanda, Kishkindhakanda and Sundarakanda, and then began the Yuddhakanda and finished forty-four chapters. But the time of his departure was near. The people said, "When Krishnadas came, you held back Death for eleven days. Do it again." Eknath said, "To punish Death for the sake of finishing my poem seems to me unworthy. Gavaba will complete the Yuddhakanda and the Uttarakanda." They said, "That mute!" Eknath put his hand on Gavaba's head, gave him his pen, and said, "May the gift in me pass to you." Gavaba took the paper and wrote a chapter, exactly in Eknath's manner. He finished the rest of the book later.

The river

In the month of Phalgun, on the night of the fifth of the dark half, Eknath gave a kirtan, handed out sweets, and said, "Tomorrow I leave. Come to the Ganga after your baths and see me off, then go home." The next morning his friends gathered at the house, and his family were close to fainting. A few scoffers said, "The path of death is the same for him as for anyone. His body will be carried on men's shoulders." The pious said, "Let your death be unlike other men's." At that Eknath, who had been lying as if unconscious, sat up as if from sleep, and the crowd cried "Victory."

He asked Uddhava for water, bathed with mantras, put on clean clothes, drew the marks of clay, put on his garland of tulsi, said the names of Janardan, took his lute on his shoulder and, repeating the names of Vitthal, left his house. At every step the people worshipped him with flowers and powder. A great crowd followed him, and from the sky the gods showered flowers. At a spot in the Godavari called Lakshmitirtha, he told them to quiet their minds and listen to the names of Hari. He sang of devotion and of the power of the Name. "In this age there is no way but the Name. Be kind to every creature. I came to this world of mortals for your good; otherwise I am beyond illusion."

Someone asked him if he would be born again. He answered with a verse: "When righteousness is lost and unrighteousness lifts its head, I must return to this world. Whatever form Hari takes, I take. To see God in all creatures is the aim of devotion. Is there any difference between God and his devotee? Eka Janardan says: I see Govinda in the form of the universe. He who sees a difference is more contemptible than the most contemptible." Uddhava wrote it down.

Then he sang a last hymn of lights, bowed down in the sand, joined his hands to the people and said, "Let your kind thought rest on me." He waded into the river. When the water reached his navel, he stood still. He made everyone say the names of Hari aloud, and in that sound his life left him, while the gods rained flowers. The people mourned, and then they burned his body, as is the custom, and went home.

The next day his son and the people came to gather the ashes. They saw a tulsi plant sprouting from them, and a young asvattha tree, with tender green leaves. They said, "He has shown himself in the form of the asvattha." They built a stone platform around it and set up Eknath's sandals in a shrine. The tree, it is said, stays as small as it was, so the platform is not broken, and on the sixth of the month a great festival is held there at Paithan, where he shows himself in the form of the tree.