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The Genius of Dnyaneshwar
philosophical thoughts appears to have occurred not only in the northwest but in the east and south of India as well. The main texts in Sanskrit dealing with philosophy or religion are called the Vedas, from the root ‘vid’ to mean ‘to know’ in Sanskrit. There are four main Vedas, the last of which is Atharva, which is perhaps the most modern because it deals with a variety of subjects, for example, cosmogony3, the nature of this world, marriage, agriculture, politics, medicine, war, witchcraft and occult practices. It was because of the last three that it remained shunned by the then priestly class and was only later assimilated in the main body of the Vedas. The Atharva Veda from its internal references was certainly articulated in the east or south or both in India. These parts were covered by dense forests unlike the northwest which had vast plains. The Atharva, for example, mentions elephants while the other Vedas mention other animals, mainly horses. The elephants, to an emerging agricultural community (and even otherwise because of their size and wild habitat), were a scourge4 if not a nuisance. It was therefore customary to propitiate5 this animal as an animistic God. Even a tiger was so propitiated. It was only later when man learnt to use the elephant to do his work that its value came to be realized. This is how a half-man halfelephant idol probably came to be constructed. According to a tradition in India the elephant is the most intelligent of the terrestrial animals and its head (thus fitted) served a purpose. This then is the Ganesha. It is in the Atharva that one finds a long hymn praising the elephant God Ganesha, which is used as a model to describe the various branches of knowledge then existent. Dnyaneshwar uses this reference in the Atharva to eulogize Ganesha at the beginning of his narration. Dnyaneshwar picks up this reference because he belongs to the Atharva school, the more indigenous of the four Vedas, though by the time he narrates his commentary on the Geeta, at least 1200 years have elapsed since the Geeta was compiled and all the four Vedas had become one body of work. But traditions, schools, cults persist. And as Dnyaneshwar gets ready to speak on the Geeta which attempts to summarize almost all that there was in terms of knowledge, culture and customs he reminds his listeners to what school he belongs and who his guru