Bahina Bai : A Translation of Her Autobiography and Verses (An Old and Rare Book)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

I take special pleasure in introducing to English readers the Saint and Poetess, Bahina Bai, for, until recently, her autobiography and verses have been known to but a few. A few manuscript copies of her works exist. The first printed edition, edited by Dhondo V. Umarkhane, appeared in 1914, and was soon out of print. Another edition, print- ed from another manuscript, edited by V. N. Kolharkar, was issued in 1926. It is probably true that there are not many Marathi readers of her poetry. To introduce Bahina Bai to a larger circle of readers in India, and to introduce to the West a name there absolutely unknown, but worthy of being known, I consider a privilege of no mean order.

I have not attempted to translate all her verses, for the translation of the whole, with the text, would make too bulky a volume. I have, therefore, chosen such portions as seemed best adapted to give to the English reader the thoughts of this Indian woman that found expression in her verses nearly three hundred years ago.

I do not hesitate to acknowledge many unusual difficulties in translating her language and thought. Her style is exceedingly elliptical. Her vocabulary and grammatical contructions, belonging to the Marathi of three hundred years ago, create many difficulties for me, a foreigner. Her allusions to customs and traditional stories require a wide reading to prevent those mistranslations that would bring a smile to the Marathi reader. I acknowledge my debt there- fore to Pandit Narhar R. Godbole for information and suggestions that have enabled me to avoid many a pitfall.

Copyists of Marathi manuscripts were not always careful copyists. There are differences, therefore, between the two printed texts mentioned above. I have in the main followed Kolharkar's text, because it is now the only text available. I have gone into the question of the respective merits of these texts.

I may also add here that Bahina Bai’s verses require considerable illumination for the Western reader. Her allusions to Puranic stories, customs, to philosophic thought, to religious observances and the like, are outside the Westerner's ken. But to make the necessary explanations in notes and footnotes would take so much space and lead me so far afield, that I have limited myself to the most necessary explanations in footnotes and glossary, have left it to the Western reader to gain further information as best he can, if he feels an interest in doing so.

To the Rev. J. F. Edwards of Bombay, I owe a debt of gratitude for his assistance in seeing this volume through the Press.

The Maratha people can point with pride to many of their poet-saints who were women of literary ability, wise in philosophy and godly in character. Such have been Mukta Bai, Jana Bai, Venu Bai, Baya Bai, Amba Bai. Chima Bai, and Bahina Bai. But poetry is natural to Indian women. As in the early morning they grind the flour for the day's meals, they sing aloud, often composing words to fit the metres they enjoy. The subjects of their song may be philosophy, religion, personal sad or happy experiences, a prayer, or words that have little sense, but please the ear. All through the centuries the women have sung at their handmills, before the sun has risen, and while their men folk were fast asleep. They were too modest to record their own verses, the men folk too indifferent to do so, but all the same all through the centuries Indian women have composed verses and sung them down to the present day.

Bahini, is believed by Maratha scholars, to have been born in 1628 and died in 1700, at the age of 72. Her autobiograpry, unique in Marathi literature, supplies all that is known of her. Her name is mentioned with respect by later poets, but she alone has furnished the details of her life.* Her autobiography covers only the details of the early years of her life. For her later years with their mental struggles, temptations, perplexities, and thoughts of approaching death, one has to gather from her verses such details as she has made possible.

While Bahiņi was a girl of tender age, living in Kolhapur, she became deeply interested in the poems of Tukaram. * Tukaram was then a young man of about 30 years of age, but his fame had already spread far and wide. Bahini became very desirous to go to Dehu, a village not far from Poona, where Tukaram lived, and was performing his inspirisg kirtans. Her husband opposed her in this desire as he was a Brahman, and Tukaram was a Shudra. In a dream, however, Tukaram placed his hand on her head and gave into her ear the mantra that had come down to him from the past ages, the six syllable mantra "Rama-Krishna- Hari." From that moment Bahini regarded herself as Tukaram disciple, and her whole life came under his in- fluence and inspiration, as her guru.

Her verses show her to have been a most thoughtful woman. By tradition and by her own thinking she was a believer in the Vedantic philosophy, but she was not with- out doubts, and she passed through such mental strains that she even contemplated suicide. She felt the handicap of being a woman, and not allowed the freedom of study and speech that men enjoyed. As she approached the end of her life, at the age of seventy-two, her bark floated on peaceful waters, and she was ready to face the hour of death, that would take her to the great Beyond.

One is impressed by Bahini's high moral ideas, and one cannot but think that she lived as she thought. Living and dying in her little distant village of Devgav, where her town still stands, there was, however, no poet there to sing her praises. If there had been, one may be sure his imagination would have supplied the Chariot-of-Light [viman] that the gods were accustomed to send to take to heaven the souls of the specially godly. The Chariot-of-Light would surely have had its load of flowers also, to shower on this saint, as she took her seat, to pass from this life into the next.