Sant Gnaneshwar Maharaj

Pranams at the lotus feet of Sant Gnaneshwar Maharaj!

Chapter – 9

The people of the village Alandi was extremely happy to hear the return of Nivriththinath, Gnandev, Sopan Dev and Mukthabai.  Gangadhar Shastri made all the preparations to receive these young saints.  The whole village was decorated with flowers, people assembled from all villages to see them.  Thus Gnandev and his siblings were received with great honor to their village.  Radha’s father was displeased at the initiative taken to receive the young saints back to Alandi.  His wicked mind was racing for finding an opportunity to humiliate these young saints.  He invited the illustrious Saint Changdev in Alandi and revealed his distress upon the arrival of young saints.  He  narrated unpleasantly “Gnandev who is a son of Sanyasin discarded from the village has returned,  he has fame and great respect in the villages,  he made a buffalo recite Veda, and brought a dead man alive, in this way he is performing all supernatural activities. Gurudev, you have to teach him a lesson.” Yogi Changdev was extremely happy to hear about the capabilities of the young saint, he expressed his desire to meet Gnandev in person, but his followers discouraged him saying that it would affect his reputation, later he also felt that it is absolutely right, the young saint should come to meet an elderly Saint who has performed several years of Tapasya and achieved greatest heights in spirituality.  Yogiraj Chang Dev sent a messenger with a plain paper as an invitation to Gnandev.  The messenger arrived in the hermitage of Gnandev and handed over the letter, it was astonishing to note that there was no content in it.  The three brothers were surprised watching over the empty paper as an invitation; Mukthabai sarcastically replied: “Yogi Changdev did not attain any knowledge after a thousand and four hundred years of Tapasya.” Nivriththinath discouraged her saying “ Muktha, you are not aware of the spiritual practices of Changdev Maharaj.  He is an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva, he is an elderly saint lived in Siddhashrama and conducted penance for several years. He alleviated miseries, sorrows, and illnesses of several people, he is highly scholastic with great knowledge in all the Shashthras, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Veda, Vedanta, Jyothish, Dhanurvidhya, etc.. he has attained Ashtasiddhis.”  Mukthabai asked, “ How did he live for a thousand and four hundred years?” Nivriththinath replied “ Once in every hundred of years, he undertakes Nirvana, in this way he retained the soul in the body, I have learned about this illustrious Yogi from my preceptor Geheninath.”

Yogi Changdev decided to teach a lesson to Gnandev, he scared away all the  devotees of Gnandev by using his Manthrasiddhi, but Gnandev released them from the spell of Changdev with the recitation of sacred names of Lord.  It irritated Yogi Changdev, he realized that Gnandev is not an ordinary soul.  He decided to crush the fame of Gnandev.   It was believed that Gnandev who was born on the Ashtami Thithi is an incarnation of Lord Krishna.