दासोपंत दिगंबर: Dasopant Digambar- Translation of the Dasopant Charitra (An Old and Rare Book)

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My Readers may perhaps ask the question, why I have chosen, as the subject of this fourth book in the series of the Poct saints of Maharashtra a saint so little known, even in the Maratha country, as Dasopant Digambar. To be truthful, my reply is that I had already made a study of the little that is known of him, and had made a partial translation of the Dasopant Charitra for the American Oriental Society's Journal (A.O.S.J. Vol. 42 p. 251). It required only to complete the translation, and the manuscript would be ready for the Press.

But the above is far from being my only reason for translating the story of his life. The Bhakti school of thought has always represented God as very near to His bhaktas, ready at any moment to rush to their rescue when they were in trouble. This thought appears as early as the Bhagavadgita. Dnyaneshvara, the first of the Maratha Poet-Saints, about A.D. 1290, in his commentary of the Bhagavadgita, popularly known as the Dnyaneshvari, makes this nearness of God to bhaktas very plain. (See Chap. 8, 27-31). Translated freely he says, representing God as speaking, "When the hour of their death comes, let them remember me. If I do not make myself present with them in that hour, what kind of Bhakti has there been? A man of low degree in distress pitiously calls to me, 'Run, Run to my help'. Can it be that I do not run to relieve his dis- tress? The very moment they remember me, that very moment I am present at their side. Their devotion puts me heavily in their debt. With this feeling of indebtedness to them, when my bhaktas lay aside their bodies in death, I serve them from a sense of gratitude."

This idea of God's nearness to man, and His ever readiness to come to their help, runs through all the Bhakti literature of the Marathas. It is so well illustrated in the story of Dasopant's deliverance, that it appealed to me as a helpful illustration of this belief, and hence I have chosen the story, though an incomplete one, for this fourth book in the Series.

The rather long Puranic story of Anusuya, from whom was born the Avatar Dattatreya, is somewhat out of place in the story of Dasopant, but it must be remembered that all the Maratha Saints, and all their biographers, have believed without a question in the reality of these Puranic stories. And unless these stories are kept in mind, it is im- possible to understand the passing allusions in Marathi literature, and impossible to put one's self at the same point of view which the Maratha saint held, as he thought of God and His manifestations in behalf of man in his needs. I have therefore retained the story of Anusuya.

It is unfortunate that the only manuscript of the Dasopant Charitra in known existence is incomplete. Perhaps some time the remaining portion may be found, and with it the name of the author. There have been guesses as to who wrote the Charitra, and when, but they are mere guesses, and lack evidence.