Janabai

{{short description|Indian poet and saint}}

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Sant Janābāi was a Marāthi religious Sant and poet in the Hindu tradition in India, who was born likely in the seventh or the eighth decade of the 13th century. She died in 1350.{{cite book|title=Women and the Law|page=18|author=Dalbir Bharti|publisher=APH Publishing|year=2008}}

Janabai was born in Gangākhed 1258-1350, Mahārāshtra{{Cite book |last=Ranade |first=Ramchandra Dattatraya |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Ql0PUJJPp8C&dq=Jan%C4%81b%C4%81i+childhood&pg=PA1 |title=Mysticism in India: The Poet-Saints of Maharashtra |date=1983-01-01 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-87395-669-7 |language=en}} to a couple with first names Damā and Karund. Under the caste system the couple belonged to the matang. After her mother died, her father took her to Pandharpur. Since her childhood, Janabai worked as a maid servant in the household of Dāmāsheti, who lived in Pandharpur and who was the father of the prominent Marathi religious Sant and poet Nāmdev.{{Cite book |last1=Feldhaus |first1=Anne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ooV3Rz9zQvQC&dq=Jan%C4%81b%C4%81i+namdev&pg=PA213 |title=Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion: A Translation of the Pratyabhijnahrdayam with an Introduction and Notes, by Ksemaraja |last2=Feldhaus |first2=Professor of Religious Studies Anne |date=1996-01-01 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-7914-2837-5 |language=en}} Janabai was likely a little older than Namdev, and attended to him for many years.

Pandharpur has high religious significance especially among Marathi-speaking Hindus. Janabai's employers, Damasheti and his wife, Gonāi, were very religious. Through the influence of the religious environment around her and her innate inclination, Janabai was always an ardent devotee of Lord Vitthal. She was also a talented poet.{{Cite journal |last=Constable |first=Philip |date=May 1997 |title=Early Dalit Literature and Culture in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Western India |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/abs/early-dalit-literature-and-culture-in-late-nineteenth-and-early-twentiethcentury-western-india/468F09A8AEEB44059D82364859700620 |journal=Modern Asian Studies |language=en |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=317–338 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X00014323 |s2cid=144342657 |issn=1469-8099|url-access=subscription }} Though she never had any formal schooling, she composed many high-quality religious verses of the abhang (अभंग) form.{{Cite book |last=Novetzke |first=Christian Lee |date=2015-10-05 |title=5. Note to Self: What Marathi Kirtankars' Notebooks Suggest about Literacy, Performance, and the Travelling Performer in Pre-Colonial Maharashtra |url=https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0062/chapters/10.11647/obp.0062.05 |language=en |pages=169–184 |doi=10.11647/obp.0062.05|doi-access=free |isbn=978-1-78374-102-1 }}{{Cite book |last1=Feldhaus |first1=Anne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ooV3Rz9zQvQC&dq=Jan%C4%81b%C4%81i+namdev&pg=PA213 |title=Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion: A Translation of the Pratyabhijnahrdayam with an Introduction and Notes, by Ksemaraja |last2=Feldhaus |first2=Professor of Religious Studies Anne |date=1996-01-01 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-7914-2837-5 |language=en}} Some of her compositions were preserved along with those of Namdev. Authorship of about 300 abhang is traditionally attributed to Janabai.{{Citation |last=Pawar |first=Nitya |title=Janabai |date=2022 |encyclopedia=The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women's Writing in the Global Middle Ages |pages=1–4 |editor-last=Sauer |editor-first=Michelle M. |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76219-3_45-1 |access-date=2024-01-31 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-76219-3_45-1 |isbn=978-3-030-76219-3 |editor2-last=Watt |editor2-first=Diane |editor3-last=McAvoy |editor3-first=Elizabeth Herbert|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite journal |last=Glushkova |first=Irina |date=October 2021 |title=Janabai and Gangakhed of Das Ganu: Towards ethnic unity and religious cohesion in a time of transition |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00194646211041156 |journal=The Indian Economic & Social History Review |language=en |volume=58 |issue=4 |pages=505–532 |doi=10.1177/00194646211041156 |s2cid=239676576 |issn=0019-4646|url-access=subscription }}

Along with Dnyāneshwar, Nāmdev, Eknāth, and Tukaram, Janabai has a revered place in the minds of Marathi-speaking Hindus who belong especially to the wārakari (वारकरी) sect in Maharashtra.{{Cite journal |last=Glushkova |first=Irina |date=2000 |title="GIVE ME BACK MY BLANKET!" : VARKARI SAINTS STRIVING FOR THEIR BODIES (Metaphor and Metonymy in the Construction of Divinity) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41694605 |journal=Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute |volume=81 |issue=1/4 |pages=15–34 |jstor=41694605 |issn=0378-1143}}{{Cite journal |last=Glushkova |first=Irina |date=October 2021 |title=Janabai and Gangakhed of Das Ganu: Towards ethnic unity and religious cohesion in a time of transition |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00194646211041156 |journal=The Indian Economic & Social History Review |language=en |volume=58 |issue=4 |pages=505–532 |doi=10.1177/00194646211041156 |s2cid=239676576 |issn=0019-4646|url-access=subscription }} In accord with a tradition in India of assigning the epithet sant (संत) to persons regarded as thoroughly saintly, all of the above religious figures including Janabai are commonly attributed that epithet in Maharashtra. Thus, Janabai is routinely referred to as Sant Janabai (संत जनाबाई). She wrote many poems.