Maharashtra as a Holy Land: A Sectarian Tradition Author(s): Anne Feldhaus Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African

Studies, University of London, Vol. 49, No. 3 (1986), pp. 532-548 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/617829 Accessed: 23/12/2009 01:59
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MAHARASHTRA AS A HOLY LAND: TRADITION

By ANNE FELDHAUS

A SECTARIAN

The first manifestation of the regional cultures of India as we know them today was, in most cases, the literature produced by the medieval bhakti (devotional) movements.1 Composed in the regional languages, the bhakti literature provides evidence of early forms of these languages. Further, by its very existence, it marks the genesis of pride in the languages, of acceptance of them as appropriate vehicles for literary expression. Often addressed to local or regional deities (who are sometimes identified as local manifestations of gods worshipped throughout India), this literature clearly served to articulate and focus regional devotion to such deities. In addition, it is also possible that the bhakti literature provides evidence of the process by which people began to think of the regions as regions (i.e., their genesis as cognitive regions), began to identify themselves as belongingto the regions, and began to take pride, not just in the languages or deities of the regions, but in the regions themselves.2 This is the process which led ultimately, in very recent times, to the formation of the states of modern India. For Maharashtra.the Marathilanguage region of western India, ' the growth of regional consciousness' (McDonald, 1968) has been seen by some historians as essentially a phenomenon of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (McDonald, 1968; Cohn, 1967). But the historian M. G. Ranade, one of the late nineteenth/early twentieth-century Maharashtriansheld to be responsible for this modern regional consciousness, found much earlier roots for his MAarathi 'nationalism': the seventeenth-century Maratha hero Sivaji; the 'Maharashtra dharma' preached by Sivaji's guru Ramdas; and, ultimately, the religious spirit fostered from the thirteenth century on by the Varkari poetsaints (Ranade, 1900). These Varkarl poet-saints were devotees of the god Vithoba of Pandharpur, and authors of the medieval Marathi bhaktiliterature best loved and best known in Maharashtratoday. The regular pilgrimage of the Varkaristo Pandharpurprovides one of the clearest symbolic expressions of the unity of Maharashtra, bringing together as it does pilgrims of many different castes from all parts of the Marathi-speaking region (Deleury, 1960; Karve, 1962; Turner, 1973; Turner, 1974, 193-4). In the present paper, I plan to trace a tradition of Maharashtrianregional consciousness earlier than that of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and distinct from those of Ramdas and the Varkaris. The tradition I plan to discuss is that found in the Old Marathi literature of the Mahanubhavas. Like the Varkaris, the Mahanubhavas are a Maharashtrian bhakti sect founded in the thirteenth century which has survived to the present day.3 Unlike the Varkaris, the Mahanubhavas never became a widely popular movement. They have hardly been heard of in many parts of Maharashtratoday, and their thoughts about Maharashtracannot be said to have had political consequences. But the
1 The major exception is the Tamil region, whose literature includes some much earlier than that of the bhaktimovements of the region. See Zvelebil (1973). ' 2 An early, clear statement of this possibility is found in Stein (1967, 46): I would certainly argue that the " sense " of region and the manipulation of symbols, behaviors, and movements in most cases goes back to the twelfth century in the activity of bhakti sects where regionalism was a genuine issue.' The literature on the connexions between religion (including bhakti)and regionalism in other parts of India includes Spencer (1970), Sopher (1968), Stein (1977), Eschmann et al. (1978), and Hardy (1983, 256-61). 3For a general description of the Mahanubhavas and their beliefs, see Raeside (1976).

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large body of Old Marathi literature they produced (Raeside, 1960) provides valuable evidence about the social and religious life of medieval Maharashtra, as well as about some of the religious meanings of the region. The present paper is based on the thirteenth and fourteenth-century Mahanubhavahagiographical literature; on the late thirteenth or early fourteenth-century text of the founder's aphorisms, and its later commentaries; and on the religious-geographical literature (texts describing and glorifying holy places) produced by members of the sect between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Initially, the literature of a bhakti movement might seem one of the least promising sources of evidence about religious attachment to a region, for one of the favourite themes of bhaktiliterature is that God is everywhere, and that hence there is no special sanctity attached to any particular place. For instance, Devara Dasimayya, a tenth-century Virasaiva saint from Karnataka, proclaimed: To the utterly at-one with Siva ... his front yard is the true Benaras (Ramanujan (tr.), 1973, 105). Lalla, in fourteenth-century Kashmir, wrote, 'I, Lalla, went out far in search of Shiva, the omnipresent Lord; having wandered, I found him in my own body, sitting in his house' (Raghavan, 1966, 144).4 And among the Varkaris of Maharashtra,the seventeenth-century poet Tukaram was perhaps the most forceful in his denigration of pilgrimage places and their stone gods: Tirthas have but rocks and water; God's really found in good people. (Tukaram, 1950, no. 114). In keeping with this theme of bhakti literature, as well as with an earlier tradition of ascetic renunciation, the first generation of Mahanubhavas were encouraged by their founder, Cakradhar,not only to shun holy places, but to avoid attachment to any place at all. In the sect's early literature, Cakradharis reported to have prescribed for his followers a life of constant, solitary wandering. The very first sutra of the relevant section of the Sutrapatha, the late thirteenth or early fourteenth-century collection of Cakradhar's sayings (Feldhaus, 1983), enjoins, ' Renounce your attachment to your own land; renounce your attachment to your own village; renounce especially your attachment to your relatives' (XII.1). Instead, says another sutra, ' Stay in places where you know no one and no one knows you' (XII.22). Other satras command Cakradhar'sfollowers to avoid important places, staying away from cities and towns (XIII.20) and places of pilgrimage (XIII.19). Two satras (XII.25 and XIII.134) name particular pilgrimage places to avoid: MIatpur (Mahfr), Kolhapur, and Purusottamaksetra (Purl ?). Cakradhar'sfollowers are advised to keep, instead, to 'miserable little villages' (XII.36), to stay 'on hillsides and off the road ' (XII.35), and to sleep under a tree or in an abandoned temple outside a village (XIII.66). The most frequently repeated command, in this connexion, is to stay ' at the foot of a tree at the end of the land' (XII.26, XII.72, XIII.219; cf. XIII.43). Elaborating this command, one sttra specifiesthat the tree should not bear flowers or fruits (XIII.206), another sutra recommends a thorn bush
4 Cited in Sopher (1980b). I am indebted to Professor Sopher's article for pointing out the tension in the Indian tradition between two 'messages of place ', one attaching importance to specific places of pilgrimage and the other tending to transcend the importance of place.

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MAHARASHTRA AS A HOLY LAND

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(XII.73), and a third reminds the ascetic, whose life of wandering aims at eliminating not just attachments but habits (savaya), 'Do not get used to any one tree; do not get used to any one place ' (XII.37). The point, it seems, is to be nowhere in particular-and not to be there very long. In striking contrast to this theme of detachment from any place in particular, ' siatraXII.24 commands, Stay in Maharashtra', and the subsequent Mahanubhava tradition gives the region Maharashtra a positive religious value. It is this other theme in the Mahanubhavatradition, that of the religious importance of Maharashtra, which I intend to trace in the present paper. Two questions will order the discussion: what is Maharashtra, and why is it important to stay there ? The conceptof Maharashtra Karmabhumi, which the Sitrapdtha (X.210) defines as the 500 yojanas between the Himalayas and Setubandhu-that is, the Indian subcontinentis sometimes interpreted in later Mahanubhava tradition as the human body (Kolte, 1975, 57-8). But Mahanubhava literature consistently understands Maharashtrato be a place.5 What is difficult is to tell exactly what place it was, that is, what actual region Cakradharor the compilers of his sayings referredto as ' Maharashtra'. Although the Sutrapathadoes not give a complete answer, it does give some clues. The sutra enjoining, 'Stay in Maharashtra', follows immediately upon one which begins, ' Do not go to the Kannada country or the Telugu country ' (XII.23). This sutra names the lands to the south and south-east of Maharashtra, and by naming these regions for the languages spoken in them, implicitly gives a linguistic definition to Maharashtraas well. Maharashtra,that is, is the region in which Marathi is spoken and Kannada and Telugu are not spoken. A similarly linguistic definition is implicit in the commentators' interpretation of the recurring phrase 'the end of the land' (desdca sevata) as an area in which Marathi and another language intermingle (Kolte (ed.), 1982, 92; Acdra Sthala Mahdbhasya,i, 133-4).6
5 One exception is a passage in Visvanathbas Bidkar's Sutrapatha commentary Acdraba.mda (Kolte (ed.), 1982, 82-3). The passage presents an outline of the constituents of Maharashtra: How many divisions are there to Maharashtra ? One Maharashtra is insentient; the other is sentient. The insentient has five divisions: the land, villages, solitary places, sleeping places, and eating places. And the sentient is of two kinds: one stationary and the other moving. the impermanent-the deep-shading Among the stationary are the permanent-trees-and foliage(?). Next, the divisions of the moving-that means those who go on foot. Those men are Maharashtra who make everyone from tiny insects through humans free from fear [i.e., who practice ahimsd]. They are of two kinds. There is only one man (?) from enlightenment and discipleship to persuasion of sabda[-jidna-stages in the path to liberation]; or there are many who each have one virtue more than another: all these types together are one kind, and the other kind is anyone with a good heart. These two divisions, sentient and insentient, together are called Maharashtra. 6 As will be seen in the modern definitions cited in n. 8, below, it is not uncommon to give a linguistic, cultural, or even geometric definition of the south-eastern border of Maharashtra, while giving physical boundaries for the north and west. But it is nevertheless curious that, in its implied linguistic definition of Maharashtra, the Sutrapdthamentions only Maharashtra's southern and not its northern neighbours. Cakradhar himself is said to have been an immigrant to Maharashtra not from the southern lands where Kannada and Telugu are spoken, but from the north, from Gujarat. In the Llldcaritra, the early Marathi biography of Cakradhar, he is said to have been a Gujarati royal minister's son, who came to Maharashtra on a pilgrimage and did not return home. But nothing is said of his having to learn Marathi, which he spoke, or stop using Gujarati. Possibly his family were Maharashtrians resident in Gujarat; but his father's initial refusal to allow him to go on the pilgrimage suggests that they were not: according to S. G. Tulpule's edition (1972, ch. 7), Cakradhar's father said, ' That's a foreign land; one shouldn't go there.' According to V. B. Kolte's edition (1978, ' Pirvardha ' 20), Cakradhar's father's objections were that there was a state of war between the Gujara and Yadava kingdoms, and that the family were Ksatriyas (rdje) and so should send a Brihman on the pilgrimage instead of going themselves.

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Another sutra specifies not just a linguistic region but a physical-geographic one where Cakradhar'sfollowers are to stay: sutra XIII.83 commands, ' Stay on the banks of the Ganga ' (gaq.gatr7 rn. asije), i.e., in the valley of the Godavarl river.7 However, neither here nor in any other sutra does the Sutrapdtha specify whether or not the Godavari valley is to be understood as coterminous with ' Maharashtra'. It seems that ancient uses of the name' Maharashtra' referto a much smaller territory than that referredto in modern uses of the term.8 R. G. Bhandarkar (1957, 10) points out that ' Maharashtra' seems 'at one time' to have been restricted in referenceto ' the country watered by the upper Godavari and that lying between that river and the Krishna,' as distinguished from Aparanta (northern Kofikan), Vidarbha, and the valleys of the Tapi and Narmada rivers. And H. Raychaudhuri (1960, 36) concludes, It is obvious that early Hindu geographers used the name Maharashtra in a very restricted sense. The only region in the present Maratha country which does not seem to be expressly excluded by these authorities is the desh or open country behind the Ghats, stretching from the Pravara or perhaps the Junnar-Ahmadnagarhills to the neighbourhoodof the Krishna. However, as both Bhandarkar's and Raychaudhuri's sources predate the Sutrapdtha by several centuries, they cannot provide strong evidence of the ' in the Sutrapdtha,nor can they answer the specific reference of ' MIaharashtra question whether, for the Sutrapdtha,the Godavari valley is coterminous with Maharashtra. A source more nearly contemporary to the Sutrapathais the mid thirteenth-century Kdmasutra commentary (VI.5.29) cited by Sircar (1971, 94); this text 'locates Maharastrabetween the Narmada and Karnata ', that is, in a larger area than that indicated by Bhandarkar and Raychaudhuri. But again, this does not give a conclusive answer to the question of the meaning of ' Maharashtra' in the Su.trapdtha. Commentaries on the Sutrapdtha do give answers, but their answers disagree; and, as one of the commentaries currently in print is undated, and the other dates from the mid seventeenth century, it is impossible to tell how closely they reflect the usage of the Sutrapdthaitself. The undated commentary (Acdra M.likd MahdbhSsya,166) states in a rather off-hand manner that sutra
' 7 It seems likely that the term gaigttira ', as used in Mahanubhava literature, refers not literally to the whole length of the Godavari valley, but only to the upper part-presumably, that part lying in the Marathi-speaking rather than the Telugu-speaking territory. If this is so, the command to stay on the banks of the Godavari (sutra XIII.83) is consistent with the command to avoid the (Kannada and) Telugu country (sutra XII.23). 8 The modern state of Maharashtra dates from only 1960. Modern definitions of 'Maharashtra ' pre-dating the state include Grant Duff's (' Maharashtra is that space which is bounded on the north by the Sautpoora mountains; and extends from Naundode on the west, along those mountains, to the Wyne Gunga, east of Nagpoor. The western bank of that river forms a part of the eastern boundary until it falls into the Wurda. From the junction of these rivers it may be traced up to the east bank of the Wurda to Manikdroog, and thence westward to Mahoor. From this last place a waving line may be extended to Goa, whilst on the west it is bounded by the ' ocean.') and Elphinstone's (the land between the range of mountains which stretches along the south of the Narbada parallel to the Vindhya chain, and a line drawn from Goa, on the sea coast, the sea is on the through Bidar to Chanda on the Warda. That river is its boundary on the east as ' west.'), both cited in Raychaudhuri (1960, 36); and M. G. Ranade's (1900, 9: The country... forms a sort of a triangle of which the Sahyadri range and the sea, from Daman to Karwar, form the base; the Satpura range forms the perpendicular side, reaching to the east beyond Nagpur as far as the watershed of the Godavari and its tributaries extend, and the hypotenuse which joins these two ranges has been determined not so much by natural features as by the test of language.'). Sircar (1971, 82, 93-4) cites a Sanskrit text from perhaps the early eighteenth century, according to which ' Mahara.tra ... extended from Tryambaka to Karnata, and comprised Ujjayini, Marjaratirtha and Kolapura-nivasini [Kolhapur].'

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AS A HOLY LAND

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XIII.83, in commanding Cakradhar'sfollowers to stay in the Godavari valley, is referringto Maharashtra; 9 but the other commentary (Kolte (ed.), 1982, 18), in a different context, lists the Godavari valley as only one of five sub-regions which together make up Maharashtra: (khanda-mandalas) (a) the Marathi-speaking region south of Phaltan; (b) the region north of that, up to Baleghat; (c) the Godavari valley; (d) the region of [ ? from the Godavari valley to ?] Meghamkarghat; and (e) Varhad (i.e. Vidarbha). Another Mahanubhava text which explicitly defines Maharashtra is Krsnamuni Kavi Dimbh's Rddhipuramadhtmya. This early seventeenth-century (Raeside, 1960, 494) text gives two definitions of Maharashtrawhich are quite different from each other. In one passage (1967, verse 306), Krsnamuni identifies Maharashtra as the area 'from Tryambak to Kalesvar at Mathani, and from the Krtamala to the Tabraparni.'10 The mention of Tryambak, at the source of the Godavari river, and of 'Kalesvar at Mathani '-probably the Kalesvar at the confluence of the Godavari and the Pranhita, near modern Manthani, Karimnagar District, Andhra Pradesh (at the farthest eastern border of modern Maharashtrawith modern Andhra Pradesh)-makes the upper Godavari valley the northern limit of Maharashtra. But the rest of the definition extends Maharashtrafar to the south. The Krtamala-now the Vaigai (Schwartzberg (ed.), 1978, 328)-and the Tabraparni (=Tamraparni) rivers are both far beyond the Kannada and Telugu lands which the Sutrapdtha explicitly distinguished from Maharashtra. By Krsnamuni's other definition (1967, vv. 103-4), Maharashtra extends less far south, but farther north. By this definition, Maharashtrais the region south of the Vindhya mountains,1' north of the Krsni river, and west of the ' ' jhddt mandala ' to the Kofkan. The 'jhadi mandala ' is, literally, the treeful region,' the forested region comprising the present-day districts of Canda and Bhandara (Date, Karve, et al. 1934/1353). By this definition, then, too, Maharashtra extends a good bit beyond the Godavari valley, though not into any territory explicitly excluded by the Sutrapatha. But, again, this definition does not give firm evidence about the Sutrapdtha's use of the term ' Maharashtra ', since the Sutrapa.tha was composed a full three centuries earlier than Krsnamuni's text. From Mahanubhava literature more closely contemporary with the Sutrapatha, it appears that early Mahanubhavas thought of the Godavari valley as a region distinct from and in some sense opposed to Vidarbha.12 Although Cakradhar'sactivities were centred in the Godavari valley, his guru, Gundam IRul, lived in Vidarbha (Varhad), and Cakradhar'sdisciples went to Vidarbha to stay with Gundam Raul after Cakradhar'sdeath. In one episode related in the late thirteenth-/early fourteenth-century Mahanubhava hagiographies, Gundam Raul and one of the immigrant disciples have an amusing misunder9 This commentary is primarily concerned, at this point, to contrast the Godavari valley (which it calls madhya desa ' the middle of the land ') with ' the end of the land ' (desacd sevata). In order to reconcile sutra XIII.83's command to stay in the Godavari valley with the Sutra' pdtha's more frequent command to stay at the end of the land ', this commentary says that it is men who are to go to the end of the land, while women are to stay in the Godavari valley. 10The base manuscript of Pathan's edition has kdjalesvarafor kdlesvara,which is the reading of the other four manuscripts used for the edition. I am grateful to Professor S. G. Tulpule for first reading this text with me. 11One of the five manuscripts used for Pathan's edition names the Sahyadris here instead of the Vindhyas. 12 cf. M. S. Mate's identification of these as the two ' nuclear areas ' in which Marathi culture arose (1975, 79).

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standing because of differences between their Godavari valley and Varhadi dialects of Marathi. Gundam Raul's petulance about his food in this episode is typical of his behaviour toward his servant-devotees: One day Mahadaisem asked the Gosavi, 'Lord, Gosavi, I'll give you a dh7darer [to eat] today. Don't go out to play, Gosavi.' The Gosavi accepted her offer. He was delighted, and said, ' Oh, drop dead ! She'll give me a dhidarem,I tell you ! ' He didn't go out at all to play. 'Oh,' he said, 'she'll give me a dhidarem, I tell you. I should eat it... I shouldn't eat it, I tell you.' Then Mahadaisem prepared a dh7daremand put it onto a plate. She prepared a seat. The Gosavi sat in the seat, and Mahadaisem offered him the dh.darem. She poured ghee into a metal cup. Then the Gosavi looked at the dhTdarem.And he said, ' Hey, this isn't a dhldarem,I tell you. This is an dahtd,I tell you. Come on! Bring me a dhUdarem ! Bring me one, I tell you! ' And he acted angry. ' Lord,' said Mahadaisem, 'in the Galngavalley, where I come from, they call it a dhldarem. Here in your Varhad they call it an dhTtd.' ' Oh, bring me a dhldarem,'he said. ' Bring me one ! Bring me one, I tell !' he acted angry. And you Mahadaisem began to think, and suddenly she had an idea. So she put some fine wheat flour into milk. She mixed it up. She sponged some ghee onto the earthen griddle. She poured [the batter] onto it in a phallic shape. (According to some, she poured it in the shape of a conch.) On top she sprinkled powdered cardamom, black pepper, and cloves. When one side was done, she turned it over and took it off. She put it onto his plate. It looked different to him, and he said, 'This is what I want. Now it's right, I tell you. Oh, it's good, I tell you.' So Mahadaisem,delighted, served him more. In this way, the Gosavi accepted the meal (Kolte (ed.), 1972; Feldhaus (tr.), 1984, ch. 88; cf. Kolte (ed.), 1978, ' Pfrvardha' 585). In two other episodes in this same text, residents of Varhad express their identification of Gundam Raul as belonging to their region, and their resentment of the immigrant devotees. On one occasion, when Gundam Raul has destroyed the arrangementsfor the Navaratra festival, the residents of his town, Rddhipur, hold the immigrants responsible for his misbehaviour (Kolte (ed.), 1972; Feldhaus (tr.), 1984, ch. 102). And, on another occasion, when the devotees are about to take Gundam Raul to the Godavari valley (=Sivana, sTvanadesa), Varhadi bards come to dissuade him from leaving: The devotees were taking the Gosavi to the Ganga valley when they met some bards on a plain to the west of a village. [The bards] prostrated themselves; then they said, 'No, Lord, our Varhad deity must not go to the Sivana country. If these people from Sivana take you away, Lord, Varhad will be orphaned. The Raiil is our Mother. The Riail is our Father. Without the Raiil, everything is desolate. We're subject to calamities and afflictions, Lord. Please turn back, Gosavi.' So the Gosavi agreed to their request. Then the Gosavi said, ' Oh, turn it around! Turn it around! ' and made the palanquin turn back (Kolte (ed.), 1972; Feldhaus (tr.), 1984, ch. 235). Two other passages in early Mahanubhava texts contrast Varhad/Vidarbha and the Godavari valley in more cryptic fashion. SutrapdthaXI.132, 'An old

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woman on the banks of the Gafnga, and a prostitute in Varh.d ', is interpreted by several commentaries to mean that the people of the Godavari valley are stingy and those of Varhad generous (Deshpande (ed.), 1961, 203; Prakarnavasa, 184; Vicdra Milikd Mahabhdsya, 206).13 For an ascetic mendicant, that is, Varhad is easier, but not necessarily better, since the ascetic's life does not aim at ease. In Smrtisthala,a text from the early fourteenth (Tulpule, 1979, 320) or the early fifteenth century (Raeside, 1960, 499), Cakradhar'ssuccessor Nagdev makes a statement which seems to have a similar point: ' Varhad is our maternal home, and the Godavari valley our in-laws' house ' (Deshpande (ed.), 1960, ch. 246). This aphorismtakes the point of view of a woman in a virilocal society like India's: while she may-and typically does-have a lifelong sentimental attachment to the home in which she grew up, and while she may make many pleasant visits there, it is in her in-laws' house that she really lives out her life. Thus, the point is once again that, although ascetics may like Vidarbha more, they should spend most of their lives in the Godavari valley.14 Some of the passages contrasting the Godavari valley with Vidarbha may thus be interpreted, along with SutrapathaXIII.83, as expressing a preference for the Godavari valley from the point of view of the ascetic life. But none of the passages identifies the Godavari valley exclusively as Maharashtra. It seems more likely that, at the time of the Sutrapdtha, ' Maharashtra' included both the Godavari valley and Vidarbha, understood as contrasting parts of a larger whole. How much else this whole included is not clear. The religiousimportanceof Maharashtra Whatever Cakradhar meant by Maharashtra, why did he command his followers to stay there ? And how is this command to be reconciled with the command to be in no place in particular-' at the foot of a tree at the end of the land ' ? One important answer is that such geographicalrestriction is a necessary consequence of Cakradhar's-and his first successor, Nagdev's-use of and insistence on Marathi, the language of Maharashtra. Smrtisthala, for instance, reports that Nagdev responded angrily to two fellow disciples who asked him a question in Sanskrit: I don't understand your 'asmdt' and 'kasmdt' [Sanskrit pronouns]. Sri Cakradhartaught me in Marathi. That's what you should use to question me (Deshpande (ed.), 1960, ch. 66). As with other medieval Indian bhaktimovements, the Mahanubhavas'use of the vernacular makes their teachings much more broadly accessible-to all classes and to both sexes-than the Sanskrit tradition, while at the same time restricting them to a more limited geographical area. Thus Cakradhar'scommand to stay in Maharashtramust be seen as, at least in part, a case of legislating the obvious, once the importance of Marathi is established. The Sutrapdtha,however, does not give this, or, directly, any other reason for the command to stay in Maharashtra. But the sutra preceding the command to stay there does give a reason for its command to avoid the Kannada and Telugu lands: 'Do not go to the Kannada country or the Telugu country.
13 Vicdra Mdlikd Mah&bhdsyagives two other interpretations besides the one cited here. See also Kolte (ed.) (1978, ' Ajnata Lila ' 159). 14 Professor S. G. Tulpule suggests (personal communication, September 29, 1983) that the reason for the Mahanubhavas' pleasant associations with Vidarbha and their unpleasant associations with the Godivari valley is that Cakradhar met his guru, Gundam Raul, in Vidarbha, and was killed in the Godavari valley. Cf. Kesiraj (1962, vv. 268-84).

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Those regions are full of sense pleasure. There ascetics are honoured ' (XII.23). Thus, the Kannada and Telugu lands present a twofold danger to the ascetic life: not only the temptations of sense pleasure, but also the more subtle temptation of complacence; for there those who avoid sense pleasure are given honour. Since this rationale for avoiding the Kannada and Telugu lands is followed immediately by the sutra enjoining, 'Stay in Maharashtra',the implication is that Maharashtrais a place where sense pleasures are few and ascetics not particularly honoured. The preference for Maharashtra over the Kannada and Telugu country would thus be analogous to that for the Godavari valley over Vidarbha. If this is indeed the reason for the Sutrapdtha'scommand to stay in Maha' rashtra, that command is consistent with the command to stay at the foot of a tree at the end of the land '. Maharashtrais not recommendedfor any positive qualities, but because-like the side of the road, the foot of a tree, the end of the land, and so on-it is a good place to practise asceticism. Subsequent Mahanubhava literature does not value Maharashtra for its insignificance, inconvenience, or lack of comforts, but ascribes positive qualities to the region. The two published Sitrapdtha commentaries which explain the command to stay in Maharashtra do mention the danger, in other lands, of being honoured and provided with sense pleasures (Kolte (ed.), 1982, 82-4; Acdra Sthala Mahabhasya, I, 126-9); 15 but the commentaries' overwhelming emphasis is on the physical and psychological benefits of living in Maharashtra, and the moral superiority of Maharashtrato other places. Both of these commentaries are actually sub-commentaries on a text whose relevant passage is as follows: ' Maharashtra' means ' great (mahanta)land (rdstra)'. 'Land' (rdstra) means ' country ' (desa), but [this one is] blissful and beneficial. Other lands are sorrowful and harmful. ' Great' (mahanta)means ' large ' (thora). Some countries are large in land; 16 some countries are large in [numbers of ? size of ?] men; 17 some countries are large in grandeur (aisvarya); 18 some countries are large in power;19 some countries are large in crookedness and lust.20 (witchcraft ? kautf&lya) In some countries one gets diseases and faults. One becomes sullied. One gets the itch. In some countries one is troubled by deities (adhidaivTka tdpa); in some countries one is troubled by the elements (adhibhautika tapa); in some countries one gives oneself trouble (adhydtmTka tdpa). In some countries the people poison foreigners (desantariya). In some countries they put foreigners to the sword. They sacrifice them to a deity. In some countries they take foreigners prisoner; they sell them; they make slaves of them. In some countries they give them honour; they do homage to them; they subject them to sense pleasure. In some countries the people are rajasic; in some countries they are tdmasic. The soil of some countries is rdjasic; some countries' is tdmasic. The food and water, fruits, leaf vegetables, trees, temples, houses, orchards(?), and all the [holy] places (sthanemr) of some countries are rajasic-everything,
15The command is not explained in Niruktasesa (Deshpande (ed.), 1961, 4), Prakarnavasa (p. 17), or Vicdra Acdra Prakarndcd Vacana SambamdhaArtha (p. 73). 16 The sub-commentary Acdra Sthala Mahdbhasya gives Marvada as an example. 17 Accra Sthala Mahdbhdsya gives Gujarat and Panjab as examples. 18 Acdra Sthala Mahabhdsya gives ' Arabasthan ' (= Arabia) as an example. 19Acdra Sthala Mahdbhdsya's example is the Kofikan. 20 Acdra Sthala Mahdbhdsya gives Gaud Bengal as an example of a land great in kautalya, and the Kannada and Telugu countries as examples of lands great in lust.

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LAND

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living and non-living, is rajasic. In some countries, everything is tdmasic. One's body and mind are harmed just from proximity to such things; so how much worse must it be to make use of them ? Maharashtra is sdttvic. The living and non-living things in it are also sattvic. No bodily or mental harm comes from being there. Being in Maharashtra cures bodily and mental afflictions which have arisen in other countries. Its food and water are curative. Its herbs are curative. Its wind, rainstorms, and showers are also sdttvic and cure all afflictions. 'Great' means faultless and virtuous. Some countries are faultless but not virtuous. Maharashtra is faultless and virtuous. It is faultless and virtuous itself, and it makes others also faultless and virtuous. It is faultless because it does not do harm; it is virtuous because it does good. When one is there one does not think of doing wrong, and if one does think of it one doesn't get to do it. Maharashtra does no wrong itself, and allows no one else to do wrong. Maharashtra is [where] dharmagets accomplished. To make his point, the commentator uses the traditional methods of etymology and of classification by means of the three gunas (sattva, 'purity',
being the best; morals. tamas, ' darkness ', the worst;

between). He also uses a good bit of hyperbole. But the basic message is simple: one should stay in Maharashtra because it is good for one's health and one's Another kind of importance for Maharashtra,one more specifically religious, is implicit in Mahanubhava pilgrimage practices. These find a sacrality in Maharashtralike that which Christians find in 'the Holy Land' and Krsnaites in Braj. Starting in the time of Nagdev (Deshpande (ed.), 1960, ch. 115), Mahanubhavas have made of Maharashtraa vast network of pilgrimage places, each sanctified by the former presence of Cakradhar,Gundam Raul, or another of the human incarnations of God.21 The greatest numbers of these holy places are in Vidarbha and along the Godavari river, with several others in between, and a scattering elsewhereinside and outside of the present state of Maharashtra. Precise information is not available, but my impression is that, for Mahanubhava monks and nuns, the aimless wandering enjoined by the Sutrapdtha has by now been replaced in part by peregrination from one to another of these holy places. (A majority of Mahanubhava monks and nuns now spend most of their time living in monasteries-although the monastic life is not recommended, or even referredto, in the Sutrapdtha.) Lay Mahanubhavas also (whose way of life is likewise not recognized by the Sutrap.tha) make pilgrimages to these places. A good deal of Mahanubhavaliterature is devoted to the description and glorification of such places,22in terms of the deeds (l.lds) the incarnations did in them and the power (sakti) they deposited in them, and sometimes also in terms of the pre-Mahanubhavamythological traditions of the places. For these
21 Mahanubhavas hold that there is a single supreme God, whom they call Paramesvara. Paramesvara has had a number of incarnations. Of these, five are considered the most important: (1) Dattatreya and (2) Krsna, who are gods for other Hindus; (3) Cakradhar,the Mahanubhavas' founder; (4) Cakradhar's guru, Gundam Raul; and (5) Gundam Raul's guru (and a previous incarnation of Cakradhar), CfangdevRaul. For a discussion of the structure of this pantheon, see Feldhaus (1983b). The vast majority of the Mahanubhava pilgrimage places are associated with either Cakradhar or Gundam Raul, or both. For a more detailed examination of Mahanubhava ideas about their pilgrimage places, and in particular of the types of significance attached to the chief such place, Rddhipur, see Feldhaus (forthcoming). 22 This literature includes Tirtham.likd, a text in verse listing places visited by the incarnations; Sthtnapothi, a prose text giving detailed descriptions of the places; and a number of ' verse texts entitled X-mdhdtmya ' or ' X-varnana ', glorifying one or another of the places.

and rajas, ' passion ', in

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texts, and for the pilgrimage tradition which they reflect, Maharashtra is not merely beneficial, but holy. It is the playground of God. Maharashtra's holiness as the locus of the activities of the Mahanubhava incarnations is a purely sectarian holiness, one which, although of the greatest importance among Mahanubhavas, cannot be expected to carry much weight outside the sect.23 But one of the Mahanubhava pilgrimage authors, the early seventeenth-century Krsnamuni Kavi Dimbh, describes the holiness of Maharashtra in terms drawn from and relevant to the wider Indian tradition. For instance, in a passage in his Rddhipuramahatmya,Krsnamuni explains the greatness of Maharashtraas follows: 307. Brahma said to Narada,' I'll tell you clearly why it is called Maharashtra 308. The Mahatma Sri Datta, at whose lotus feet are all holy places, lives in the Saihyadris; and so, in the family of rsis famous from the purcnas, it is called Maharashtra. 309. There are twelve jyotirlingas; six of them are in Maharashtra. Nine of the twelve mahalingas are there. 310. Phalasthal destroys the sin of killing a woman; Atmatirtha destroys the sin of killing a Brahman; Sarvatirtha provides liberation to one's ancestors; Vijnanesvar gives the state of liberation. 311. And on both banks of the Ganga (Godavari) is a crowd of all holy places. This is why Maharashtrais at the crown of all lands.' The ' crowd 'of holy places in the last verse of this passage could be the numerous Mahanubhava holy places along the Godavari; but there are also many non-Mahanubhavaholy places there, and these may be included in the ' crowd '. Similarly, since Dattatreya is one of the Mahanubhava incarnations, places touched by his ' lotus feet' (v. 308) are holy for Mahanubhavas; but such places are also holy for non-Mahanubhavas, since Datta is a god for orthodox Hindus as well. The places Krsnamuni names in verse 310 are Mahanubhava holy places, but the reasons he gives for their importance are drawn from Brahmanical orthodoxy. And, most strikingly, in verse 309 Krsnamuni points out that Maharashtrianplaces predominate in one of the most important sets of non-Mahanubhava pilgrimage places located throughout India and visited by pilgrims from all over India: the twelve jyotirlingas, ' lihgas of light '. Earlier in his work, Krsn. amuni provides a more detailed discussion of the jyotirlingas, as well as of the mahaliigas (' great liingas'). First, he has the sage Devala list for his questioner Asita the twelve jyotirlingas of all of India (vv. 123-6): Tryambak, Ghusamesvar (==Ghrsnesvar)in Yelaur (=Ellora), Somanath in Saurastra, Vaidyanath in Paral., Naganath in Amvadhe or Amardaka, Bhismesvar (=Bhimasankar) in Dakini, Visvanath in Kasi, Kedar(nath) (near) Badri(nath), Kalesvar at Mathani, Mahakal in Ujjain, Ramesvar 'at Setubandhu in the South ', and the jyotirlinga at Mandhata (on the Narmada).24 Of these, the six that verse 309 refers to as being in Maha23 Some of the Mahanubhava pilgrimage places are reputed to have special power to cure ghost possession; these places are of importance outside the sect as well as within it. See Stanley (forthcoming). 24 I have taken ' .dmvadhe ndgandthaamardakatapovana ' in verse 124 to refer to a single place, as ' Amardaka ' is identified by Kolte (1978, 807) as an older name of Aumdhe, a village in Parbhani District, Maharashtra. The Bhdratiya Samskrtikosa (Joshi (ed.), 1965, 685) identifies this village as the location of the Darukavana (= Tapovana ?) in which the Sivapurdna places Naganath. This list then differs from the Sivapurdna list cited and explicated in the Bhdratiya Samskrtikosa only in substituting ' Kalesvar in Mathani ' for Mallikarjun on Srisaila mountain (in present-day Andhra Pradesh). Mallikarjun, it will be noted, appears as the first of the ' great below. lingas ' listed in the next three verses of the .Rddhipuramdhdtmya,

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rashtra must be Tryambak, Ghusamesvar, Vaidyanath, Naganath, Bhismesvar, and Kalesvar. The others are located outside of Maharashtra.25 Devala then proceeds to give another list of twelve lingas, calling these not ' lingas of light (jyotirliitgas) but great liigas' (mahaliigas): Another twelve lingas have been established on earth by lordly sages. I will tell you about them; listen carefully in your heart. Know these to be the twelve great lilgas: 1. Mallikarjun; 2. Mahabalesvar; 3. Bhimasankar [=Bhismesvar in Dakini of the previous list]; 4. Gangasagar; 5. Madhyamesvar on the bank of the Gafga (Godavari) [in modern Nasik District]; 6. Ghatasiddhanath [also on the Godavari, in modern Ahmadnagar District]; three famous liingasin Pratisthan (Paithan): 7. Dhoresvar, 8. Pimpalesvari, and 9. Siddhanath; also 10. Vijnanesvar, established by Sri Datta; 11. Ambanath in Alarkavati (Amaravati); and 12. Hatakesvar in Rddhipur. Ten of these, rather than the nine claimed by verse 309, would belong to Maharashtraby either of Krsnamuni's definitions of Maharashtra (see map 2). Gangasagar is in distant Bengal, and Mallikarjun at Srlsaila in less distant Andhra Pradesh. The set of mahaliigas is by no means as famous, as a set, as the jyotirlintgas.26 It appears to be a replica of the set of jyotirlihgas, a way of enabling twelve more liUiga temples to share as a set in a religious importance analogous to that of the jyotirlihgas. That Maharashtracontains almost all of these mahalingas, as well as half of the twelve jyotirlihgas, shows Maharashtra'simportance to a major pilgrimage tradition of all of India. With respect to another very important set of pilgrimage places located throughout India and visited by pilgrims from all over India, Krsnamuni makes a claim that is similar, but clearer and bolder. The set is that of the seven liberation-(moksa-)grantingcities (saptapuri), and Krsnamuni's claim is that there is a complete replica of this set to be found in Maharashtra. After listing (v. 138) the saptapuri of all of India-Ayodhya, Mathura,Maya (= Gaya), Kanti (=Kfaicipuram), Kasi (=Varanasi, Banaras), Dvarka/Dvaravati, and Avanti (=Ujjain) 27-Krsnamuni claims that the bases or abodes (adhisthdnem) of these seven are in Maharashtra(v. 139). Thus,
25 By the definition of Maharashtra given by Krsnamuni in Rddhipuramdhdtmya 306, Ramesvar too would be included in Maharashtra, which by that definition extends as far south as the Tamraparni river. 26 I have not been able to locate any other references to the set of mahlizngas. Sopher (1980a, p. 312, n.) refers to another pair of sets of lingas, this time found in distinct, rather than overlapping, parts of India: ' The creation of an artificial symmetry between a mythic North (including Bengal and perhaps Orissa) and South (including Maharashtra) is also found in a listing of a dozen northern and a dozen southern loci of jyotirlinga (sic) . ..'. 27 This list agrees with the standard one given by Eck (1982, 38) and Bharati (1970, 97), except that Maya is more usually identified as Hardvar than as Gaya. That Krsnamuni identifies it as Gaya is seen from verse 145, below.

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140. Chinnapapis called Ayodhya; Alkapur (=Amaravati) is called Mathura; Vanki on the bank of the Sina [in modern AhmadnagarDistrict] is the tTrtha 1ayTa. 141. Phalasthal (=Phaltan) is called Kanti; Pratestan (=Pratisthan, Paithan) is called Kasi; Rddhipur, Dvaravati; [and] Avanti, Yelaur (=Ellora). These identifications are then supported by a series of analogies and mythological connexions between each pair of places: 143. Because Rama made Dasaratha's funeral offerings there, Chinnapap's name is Ayodhya [Rama's capital]. 144. Krsnanath went to Alarkavati on his way to Rukminl's engagement ceremony; He made an offering (vidd) to Ambinath; therefore it's known to be Mathura [Krsna's home town]. 145. Gaya is calledMaya because the demon Maya was burned to ashes there. Since the demon Bhasma was burned to ashes (bhasma) at Vaniki, the tirtha Vanki is Maya.28 146. Just as Rukmafigada was released through the Ekadasi vow [at Kanti ?], Rama was released [at Phalasthal ?] from the sin of killing a woman.29 Therefore Phalasthal is called Kanti. 147. The Bhogavati [river ?] 30 came from the underworldto meet the Gautami (= Godavari) at Pratisthan; Therefore[Pratisthan] is said to be a mite better than Kasi [India's holiest city]. 148. Just as the jyotirliinga Mahakal resides in Ujjain, the jyotirlinga Ghusamesvar is in Yelaur. Therefore Yelaur's name is said to be Avanti. 149. Descending in the Kali Age, the Lord showed Dvarka to the Brahman Laksmidhar [in Rddhipur].31 Therefore Rddhipur is called Dvaravati. All seven of the Maharashtrian places are pilgrimage places for Mahanubhavas because of the places' connexion with the lives of the Mahanubhava incarnations. But for only one of the seven identifications-Rddhipur the equivalence rest on an exclusively Mahanu=Dvarka/Dvaravati-does bhava story. The story of Krsna and Rukmini (in connexion with which Alarkavati is here identified with Mathura) is told by both Mahanubhavas and nonMahanubhava Hindus. The other stories and analogies Krsnamuni uses are not, as far as I know, otherwise at all prominent in the Mahanubhavatradition. Thus, although the seven Maharashtrianplaces which Krsnamuni identifies with the seven liberating cities are of sectarian importance to Mahanubhavas, the reasons he gives for the identifications are overwhelmingly non-Mahanubhava.
28 The demon Maya may be Maya, Namuci's brother, a Dinava. Anyone who put his hand on the head of the demon Bhasma was turned to ashes. The demon was destroyed when Viniu got him to place his own hand on his head (Citrav, 1932). 29 On Rukmangada's devotion to the Ekadasi vow, see Ndrada Purdna 2.36 (Vefikatesvara Press edition). By killing Ravana, Rama incurred brahmahatyd(the sin of killing a Brahman), not strihatyd (the sin of killing a woman). Perhaps the reference is to Rama's having Laksman cut off the nose and ears of gurpanakha, Ravana's sister. 30 Bhogavati = Sarasvati, according to Godbole (1928, 262). The Gautami Mdhdtmya, ch. 41 (in the Venkatesvara Press edition of the Brahmd Purdna), tells of the marriage of a princess Bhogavati to a snake (a creature of the underworld) at Pratisthan. 31 This story is widely known in Rddhipur today. In Mahinubhava literature it is found in Krsnamuni's .Rddhipuramdhdtmya, vv. 639-94, and it forms the basic story of Mahesvarapandit's fourteenth-century(?) .Rddhipuramdahtmya.Both of these are elaborations of a story found in the biography of Gundam Raul, ch. 213 (Kolte (ed.), 1972; Feldhaus (tr.), 1984). VOL. XLIX. PART 3. 37

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The stories, that is, are found in the purdnic Hindu tradition, though not necessarily in connexion with the places where Krsnamuni locates them. More fundamentally, the seven liberating cities, and the twelve jyotirlingas as well, are as irrelevant to Mahanubhava theology as they are important to non-sectarian (and, in the case of thejyotirliitgas, Saiva) Hindu pilgrimagetraditions. According to Mahanubhava theology, only the one, absolute God (Paramesvara) grants liberation; no place can grant liberation, nor can any merely relative deity (devata)like Siva, the deity worshipped in lirga temples (Feldhaus, 1980). It is thus something of a mystery where Krsnamuni got the idea of making these identifications, and what audience he intended them for. Were they intended to convince non-Mahanubhavas? It might appear so. But if, like was copied and other Mahanubhava texts, Krsnamuni's Rddhipuramahdtmya written codes secret in in (Raeside, 1970), it would have preserved manuscripts been available only to Mahanubhavas until the early twentieth century, when the codes were revealed outside the sect. Was, then, the exclusivism of Mahanubhavas less strict in the early seventeenth century than it is in our own time or than it was at the beginnings of the sect ? Or was Krsnamuni himself just an anomalous liberal ? In any case, Krsnamuni's work has been preserved-and thereby, implicitly, accepted-by the Mahanubhavatradition. And what Krsnamuni has done here is to assert that Maharashtrareplicates the religious geography of all of India. He is able in this way to identify the religious importance of Maharashtraas that of all of India, and thus to give the fullest possible rationale for the command to stay in Maharashtra. One should stay in Maharashtra because every place worth going to is there. Maharashtrais a microcosm of India.32 Thus, with the claims of Krsnamuni, the positive valuation of Maharashtra is carried far beyond the moral and physical benefits ascribed to it in some Sutrapdthacommentaries, beyond the reverence for it implicit in the Mahanubhava pilgrimage tradition, and into a whole other realm of values from that of Cakradhar'sunexplained or negatively motivated command to stay in Maharashtra. From having been equivalent (or almost so) to the ' end of the land ', Maharashtrahas here become the totality of the world-at least, of all of the world that matters. Unfortunately, given the incomplete state of our knowledge of the chronology of Mahanubhava literature, it is impossible to be certain that this logical progression of ideas culminating in Krsnamuni's claim correspondsto a chronological development of Mahanubhavas' thinking about Maharashtra. But it is possible to see that the ideas outlined here constitute a consciously articulated sense of pride in Maharashtrawhich was in existence by the early seventeenth century. The Mahanubhavas had, that is, a tradition of ' regional consciousness '. This tradition seems never to have had any political significance; it seems not even to have been widely known outside the sect; but it undoubtedly illustrates the religious significance that a region can have within a bhakti sectarian tradition.33
32 Not only is this a claim which assumes the importance of non-Mahanubhava Hindu pilgrimage places; it is also a typically Hindu sort of claim. Compare, for example, the ubiquitous notion of ' sarvatirtha'-a tirtha (holy place, often one at or near water) which includes all tirthas within it; and the idea that Kasi (Banaras)-which numerous holy places all over India claim to replicate-contains within it all the other holy places of India (Eck, 1982, 144 and passim). 33I am grateful to Surinder Mohan Bhardwaj, Joel Gereboff, Lee Schlesinger, Shankar Gopal Tulpule, and Eleanor Zelliot for their careful reading and helpful comments. I am also grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities and to Arizona State University for the grants which enabled me to read through the published Mahanubhava religious-geographical literature during 1982 and 1983.

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MAHARASHTRA

AS A HOLY LAND

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