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Gurudeo Shri R. D. Ranade, who was Professor of philosophy and Vice-Chancellor of Allahabad University for some time, was a great devotee and critic of spiritual literature of Dnyaneshwar and four other eminent mystic Sants of Maharashtra. Gurudeo himself was a self-realized Sant from the tradition of Nath Sampradaya. He wrote about Dnyaneshwar in following words.
”Dnyaneshwar was not merely one of the greatest saints of Maharashtra, but also certainly one of the greatest interpreters of Bhagwad Geeta that ever lived….The most distinguishing feature of this interpretation of Bhagwad Geeta - Dnyaneshwari, is his unique contribution of philosophy, poetry and mysticism. Its philosophy is of a higher order no doubt, but its poetry is of a still higher order. And when the mysticism is combined with philosophical insight and poetical imagination, one can easily see how Dnyaneshwari stands, supreme.”


About the style of Dnyaneshwari, Gurudeo Ranade has written as follows.


“As regards style of Dnyaneshwari, there rarely has been even in other languages another work which shows the same flights of imagination that Dnyanadeva shows in his Dnyaneshwari. The employment of analogy at every step in the exposition of any philosophical problem was the most characteristic method in Dnyanadeva’s time. Wide world-experience is evinced by Dnyanadeva at every step; it is really wonderful how at the young age of fifteen or nineteen, such a work should have been composed. Whence could the author have acquired such a vast experience of the world?”


Gurudeo Ranade had studied all the available works on philosophy in all major languages of the world of his time and then sometime in 1933 certified Dnyaneshwari as unique contribution in philosophy and mysticism.


Let me now site a quote from Father Felix Machado’s book “Jnaneshvari-Path to Liberation published in 1998. Father Machado is presently Arch Bishop at Vasai in Maharashtra. He writes:


“The Jnaneshvari has been an unsurpassed literary piece in the Marathi language both from the point of view of high literary excellence and of an elevating philosophy of life. Jnaneshvar opened the hidden treasure and made it easy of access not only to the learned but also to the peasants and farmers and thus brought self respect and dignity to the common people. He couched the commentary in Marathi making the language acceptable in the field of scholarship and also lovable. The uniqueness of the Jnaneshvari is that it is more than a mere reproduction of the Sanskrit Bhagwad Gita into Marathi. Jnaneshvar’s command on both Sanskrit and Marathi enabled him to blend soul of the two languages into a flexible and poetic style which meets the needs of both, the man of learning and layman.”


Having seen old and recent views on the style and importance of Dnyaneshwari, let us now enter into its heart.


The first and very important ovi (couplet) commencing the composition of Dnyaneshwari invokes Aumkar (Pranava) as form of Atman, for realization of which, Lord Krishna had imparted spiritual knowledge to Arjuna in the form of Bhagwad Geeta, even in the midst of battlefield. The Ovi in Marathi and its literal meaning in English is as under: