The Song of the Grinding Stone: Bahinabai's Poems of Domesticity and Nature

This week in Daak:

The second in this two-part series by our Reading Intern, Sakshi Nadkarni, delves into the writings of Bahinabai, the second woman Bhakti poet-saint from Maharashra she explored.

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1. The Song of the Grinding Stone: Bahinabai’s Poems of Domesticity and Nature

How did an unlettered woman from Khandesh in the interiors of Maharashtra become part of school syllabus and an inspiration for naming one of the biggest universities in the state? Bahinabai Chaudhari, who lived from the mid 18th to the mid 19th century, wrote with deceptive simplicity, disguising a wealth of philosophy and practical life lessons with quotidian subject matter and metaphors. Her poems, in the traditional ovee metre, are tuned to the rhythms of domestic chores and mundane activities such as the whir of the grinding wheel or the pendular motion of the swing. They explore themes of nature, farming, God, the human mind and soul, her maaher (maternal home), her family and village life. 

These character sketches and observations of domestic life became profound reflections on Advaitic, non-dual appearance of God in nature and on the human condition. These poems, written in the Ahirani dialect of Marathi which softens the harsh sounds of the language, are deeply sensitive and show compassion towards the suffering of women, animals, trees and marginalized people, all the while exuding a tone of optimism. 

In the following excerpt, Bahinabai meditates upon the manifestation of God in the natural environment, and cherishes her relationship with it as one of intimacy:

माझी माय सरसोती माले शिकवते बोली
लेक बहिनाच्या मनी किती गुपित पेरली 
माझ्यासाठी पांडुरंगा तुझ गीता –भागवत
पावात समावत आणि मातीमधी उगवत 

Sarsoti is my mother
She teaches me my tongue
How many secrets she has planted
In daughter Bahina’s mind! 
For me, dear Panduranga
Your Geeta and your Bhagwat
Come together in the rain
they sprout from the soil! 

(Translation by Anjali Purohit)

In another poem, she compares “sansaar” — which may be interpreted as the domestic life of a married couple, the worldly life of a householder or the world at large — to a pan on her stove, using the objects around her to convey the life lesson of hardwork:

अरे संसार संसार, जसा तवा चुल्ह्यावर
आधी हाताला चटके, तेव्हा मिळते भाकर 

This sansar, o this sansar 
Is like a pan on a stove
You must burn your hands
Before you earn the bread

In yet another poem, Bahinabai speaks of the nature of the human mind — wild, unpredictable and unsteady — and questions God about this creation of his:

मन वढाय वढाय
उभ्या पीकातलं ढोर
किती हाकला हाकला
फिरी येतं पिकांवर
… देवा आसं कसं मन?
आसं कसं रे घडलं ?
कुठे जागेपनी तूले
असं सपनं पडलं !

The desirous, desirous heart
Is like a pack of cattle in a field
No matter how much you drive it away
It comes back and settles on the crop
…God, what exactly is this heart
How was it fashioned?
Did you dream of it
While fully awake?

Finally, here is an excerpt in which she reminisces on the nature of marriage, and the distinction between the maternal home of her parents and the matrimonial home of her in-laws:

लेकीच्या माहेरासाठी 
माय सासरी नांदे

It’s for her daughter to experience a maternal home
that the mother lives happily in her matrimonial home! 

Bahinabai’s poems present a philosophy that is humanitarian but not anthropolocentric, showing deep compassion for animals, trees and the socially excluded, such as bahurupis or servants, combined with a sensitive intelligence which celebrates the simple joys of life and extracts meaning from the mundane.

By Sakshi Nadkarni

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