Jnandev Studies, vols. I and II: Songs on Yoga: Teaching of the Maharastrian Naths; vol. III: The Conservative Vaisnava: Anonymous Songs of the Jnandev Gatha.

Novetzke, Christine Lee

Jnandev Studies, vols. I and II: Songs on Yoga: Teaching of the Maharastrian Naths; vol. III: The Conservative Vaisnava: Anonymous Songs of the Jnandev Gatha. By CATHARINA KIEHNLE. Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien, vols. 48.1 and 2. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1998. Pp. vi + 352; 123.

In two exceptional volumes Kiehnle packages three critically edited texts in Old Marathi, attributed to the thirteenth-century Marathi saint (sant) Jnandev, who is remembered as the author of the Jnanesvari, a commentary and translation of the Bhagavadgita in Old Marathi. In Songs on Yoga, Kiehnle offers a critical edition, apparatus and translation of the Lakhota, or "Sealed Letter," and the Yogapar Abhangamala, or "a collection of songs (abhang) on yoga." Both texts are about the experience and practice of yoga from the perspective of the Maharastrian Nath tradition. In The Conservative Vaisnava, Kiehnle assembles, critically edits, and translates fifty songs attributed to Jnandev in the Jnandev Gatha. She gives the collection the title Anusthanapath or "Litany of Observances." As this title implies, the Anusthana path deals with proper behavior within the Varkari tradition of Maharastra.

In a thorough introduction to Songs on Yoga, Kiehnle analyzes the problems of authorship, collation, and translation, while she explores the relationship of the broader Nath tradition to its particular manifestation in Maharastra. Through a detailed treatment of the language of the two texts, she produces something like a primer for the practical study of Old Marathi, adding texture and clarification to Alfred Master's A Grammar of Old Marathi. Perhaps most impressive is the exhaustive commentary Kiehnle sets alongside her translation of the Lakhota. She employs a wide range of sources, such as the Jnanesvari and the songs of other Marathi saints; she draws from unpanisadicv and siddhanta texts, Muktananda's Citsakti Vilas, and Kabir's Sakhi; and she makes use of accounts of Ramakrishna's yogic visions. As Kiehnle points out, the Lakhota is a "sealed letter," filled with enigmatic symbols and coded instructions. Her commentary provides a meticulous interpretation of the songs' possible meanings.

Part two contains a critical edition and translation of Yogapar Abhangamalu, a compilation of verses similar to the Lakhota in subject but not as ornate in poetics or concise in presentation. Kiehnle devotes less attention to it because she observes there a greater philological inconsistency, a higher occurrence of modern Marathi, and a paucity of old manuscripts available for critically editing this collection.

In The Conservative Vaisnava, Kiehnle constructs a text from anonymous songs of the Jnandev Gatha and names the collection the Anusthanpath, or "Litany of Observances." Kiehnle bases this compilation on twenty-seven songs published in the Marathi journal Mumuksy in 1927. To these she adds twenty three songs from the Jnandev Gatha. Kiehnle discovers that all fifty songs are absent from the Old Marathi manuscripts she consulted for Songs on Yoga, and hence her treatment of this text is quite different from that of the previous two texts. Whereas Songs on Yoga contains a philological analysis, Kiehnle uses anthropological categories in The Conservative Vaisnava. She invokes Turner structure, counter-structure, and anti-structure paradigms, as well as the analytical binary sets proposed by Ramanujan in his introduction to Speaking of Siva (e.g., sthavarajangama). Kiehnle applies these theoretical conventions to the language of the anusthanapath, as she might to an ethnographic study, in order to draw conclusions about its author, the Varkari religion, and Maharastrian Vasinavism in general.

More daring, Kiehnle's second book is also more problematic. Using Turner's ideas, she raises the question of bhakti's supposed failure as social protest, an issue other scholars have addressed. In particular, she finds the normative prescriptions of the Anusthanapath at odds with Jnandev as a Nath yogi and a Varkari devotee. She writes: "For such an individual, caste distinctions and the like should be ridiculous, and the question arises why such a destructive potential never led to social unrest or revolution" (p. 7). The answer to Kiehnle's question is predictable: "It is obvious that the anti- structure spontaneity caused by real experience is buried here under rules" (p. 29). Indeed, if Kiehnle wants to find anti-structure, she must look elsewhere than in a collection of songs devoted to correct "observance" of norms, that is, to "structure." Perhaps a better choice would have been her edition of the Lakhota, a deeply counter-structural text composed for an exclusive community of Maharastrian Nath yog is existing at the margins of brahminical orthodoxy.

Kiehnle seems to regard the Anusthanapath as mundane, particularly when set against the esoteric Lakhota and Yogapar Abhanigamala, As she writes, "the songs do not contain much more than a survey of ideas prevalent in the Varkari community" (p. 30). However, Kiehnle succeeds in lucidly depicting important features of Varkari religious practice through her application of Turner's categories. Moreover, the three texts placed together portray a religious ethos prevalent in the songs of other Marathi saints, that is, the experience of living between domesticity and detachment, akin to what Madan termed "non-renunciation." [1]

A persistent puzzle for Kiehnle in her study of Jnandev is authorship, which she addresses in a number of ways. She brings the two texts of Songs on Yoga to bear on the debate over whether the Jnandev who composed the Jnanesvari is also the author of the Haripath, Lakhota, and Yogapar Abhangamata. She points out that the Jnanesvari was composed in the ovi metre, a form Kiehnle believes is a precursor to the abhag metre. The Lakhota is primarily in the abhang metre, a poetic form described by another Marathi saint, Namdev (1270-1350). Kiehnle observes that in the Jnanesvari the word abhang means "without break" and does not refer to a type of singing metre. This leads her to suspect that the composer of the Jnanesvari was unaware of the metre of the Likhota. While his does not disprove that one author could have composed both collections, Kiehnle does cast doubt on the assumption that one Jnandev was responsible for both texts.

Kiehnle considers also the issue of authorship in The Conservative Vaisnava. Through her application of Turner's ideas, she suggests that the very different content of the Anusthanapath songs vis-a-vis the Lakhota and the Abhangamala songs points toward the possibility of multiple authors. She also finds the linguistic and philosophical sophistication of the Jnanesvari at odds with the "sometimes... clumsy and faulty expressions" of the Anusthanapath (p. 40). Kiehnle calls the author of the Anusthanapath, "the conservative Vaisnava" because she considers the prescriptions of the song to be socially and religiously conservative. Kiehnle concludes that the "conservative Vaisnava" could not have been the author of the Jnanesvari or of the Haripath and those collections similar to it, such as the Lakhota (p. 52). Hence she proposes the possibility of two Jnandevs (or more), who may or may not have been contemporaries. These ideas about authorship lead Kiehnle to suggest the existence of a "Jnandev school" where individuals who followed Janadev's teachings and styles of composition continued to Write in his name and "sign" verses with his mudrika or "little seal" (p. 2). Her arguments are compelling and might favor a study of Jnandev as a kind of religious and literary institution where authorship, authority, and continuity can be engaged as elements of an historical practice.

Songs on Yoga and The Conservative Vaisnava greatly extend our understanding of Jnandev and the legacy that surrounds his name, particularly the Maharastrian Nath religion and its relationship to other Nath sects of India. The study of Hinduism would benefit from a better understanding of Maharastrian religion, history, and literature. Kiehnle's Jnandev Studies are an important step toward realizing this ambition, which would be made more feasible by an inventory of available Marathi manuscripts. Kiehnle's exemplary critical endeavors and clear treatment of Old Marathi grammar will become indispensable to scholars of other Old Marathi texts. Her commentary on the Lakhota should serve as a model and resource for subsequent explorations of the Nath tradition remembered in song. Moreover, Kiehnle's scholarship provides readers with a meticulous exploration of Jnandev and his legacy and sets a high standard for the study of Maharastra's religious and literary history overall.

(1.) T. N. Madan, Non-Renunciation (Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press, 1987), 10.