Jnaneshvari is a commentary on The Bhagavad Gita completed in 1290 AD by the poet-saint Jnaneshvar. It is a title in the Indian translation series of the United National Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

This Volume Has Two Parts, Surveys Of All The Languages And Selections From Three Languages Assamese, Bengali And Dogri.

The Bhagavad Gita embodies the essence of the Vedic Religion within a short compass and in the most popular form. That glorious dialogue between Nara and Narayana, Arjuna and Sri Krishna, is aptly described as Jnanamaya Pradipa - the Light of Knowledge. This is one of the best known commentaries from the discourses given by Jnanadeva Maharaj some seven hundred years ago.

The Present work is devoted to the philosophical teachings of Jnanadeva the well-known 13h century saint and genius of Maharashtra in whom we find a rare combination of poetry, philosophy and deep religious experience. The author has based his work mainly on Jnanadeva`s Amrtanabhava, but he has also taken into consideration other works of Jnanadeva. He gives a clear and lucid exposition of Jnanadeva's theory of Chidvilasa, which is approached by him through an acute criticism of the theory of Avidya. He also shows how Jnanadeva's philosophy culminates in his conception of natural devotion and forms a firm foundation of the Bhakti-cult in Maharashtra. The views of Jnanadeva are also compared with those of Eastern and Western thinkers. This is the first attempt to present in English the Philosophy of Jnanadeva in a systematic form and to convey a clear vision of his lofty and integral idealism.

Thirteenth-century India saw a huge revival of religious devotion among the common folk, similar to the waves of religious fervor that swept over late medieval Europe. One of the pillars of this revival was the poet-saint Jnaneshwar, author of an exquisite commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Like his contemporary Dante, Jnaneshwar was a poet of the vernacular, who wrote in Marathi, the language of ordinary villagers, rather than the Sanskrit of the brahmin orthodoxy. Over the centuries, the Jnaneshwari, as his commentary is known, has become a scripture in its own right. Expanding the Gita’s seven hundred verses to approximately nine thousand, and using the images of ordinary life to explain its lofty teachings, Jnaneshwar fashioned from human language one of the most sublime visions of the Absolute that has ever been put into speech. The Jnaneshwari is one of the marvels of world literature. The greatest study of the Jnaneshwar is still this work by the philosopher R. D. Ranade, originally published in 1933. In addition to being a renowned scholar, Ranade was also a mystic and an initiated disciple, and he brings all these broad currents of the Indian tradition to his analysis of the Jnaneshwari. Readers who are sometimes intoxicated by the richness of Jnaneshwar’s imagery, will appreciate the way Ranade has here uncovered the work’s inner structure, and how he has briefly summarized its approach to the Gita’s great themes: action vs. renunciation; devotion and dharma; the form and the formless aspects of God; and the subject dearest to Jnaneshwar’s heart, the nature of the spiritual Master. This book also includes Ranade’s study of Jnaneshwar’s abhangas, his religious songs, as well as an analysis of his magnificent Amritanubhav, “The Nectar of Self-Awareness,” an inspired synthesis of Samkhya and Shaivism.