page_title: Bahinabai
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Bahinabai / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of the god Vishnu as en:Vithoba. Takpithya (Imitation) Vithoba, Pandharpur.
context_page_description: Bahinabai or Bahina or Bahini is a Varkari female-saint from Maharashtra, India. She is considered as a disciple of another Varkari poet-saint Tukaram. Having been born in a brahmin family, Bahinabai was married to a widower at a young age and spent most of her childhood wandering around Maharashtra along with her family. She describes, in her autobiography Atmamanivedana, her spiritual experiences with a calf and visions of the Varkari's patron deity Vithoba and Tukaram. She reports being subjected to verbal and physical abuse by her husband, who despised her spiritual inclination but who finally accepted her chosen path of devotion. Unlike most female-saints who never married or renounced their married life for God, Bahinabai remained married her entire life.
  Bahinabai's abhanga compositions, written in Marathi, focus on her troubled marital life and the regret being born a woman. Bahinabai was always torn between her duties to her husband and her devotion to Vithoba. Her poetry mirrors her compromise between her devotion to her husband and God.
context_section_description: In Kolhapur, Bahinabai was exposed to Hari-Kirtana songs and tales from the scripture Bhagavata Purana. Here, Bahinabai's husband was gifted a cow, who soon gave birth to a calf. Bahinabai reports a spiritual encounter with the calf. The calf, in Varkari literature, symbolises a person who has attained the highest state of yogic concentration in the previous birth, but due to some fault, is forced to take birth as a calf. The calf followed Bahinabai wherever she went. Bahinabai with the calf also attended the Kirtana of the famed swami Jayaram. Jayaram patted heads of the calf and Bahinabai. When Bahinabai's husband heard of the incident, he dragged Bahinabai by her hair, beat and tied her up in the house. Following this, the calf and the cow gave up food and water leading to the former's death. At its burial, Bahinabai fainted and lay unconscious for days. She awoke with her first vision of the Varkari's patron deity Vithoba and later of her contemporary poet-saint Tukaram. Following the incident, she had another vision of the duo that revived her from the sorrow of the calf's death. In these visions, Tukaram fed her nectar and taught her the mantra "Rama-Krishna-Hari". Thereafter, Bahinabai pronounced Tukaram as her guru. In her visions, Tukaram initiated her into the path of bhakti (devotion) and instructed her to recite the name of Vithoba. Some people considered her behaviour as a sign of madness, while others considered it a mark of sainthood.
  Bahinabai's husband dissuaded her by saying that she being of a Brahmin, should not listen to the lower caste Shudra Tukaram. However, Bahinabai did not find happiness in the life of a dutiful wife and turns to bhakti, at the same time serving her husband. As her fame spread, her husband is portrayed to have been jealous of the attention Bahinabai received. Her hot-tempered husband is reported to have abused, beaten and confined Bahinabai to the cattle-shed. When all methods fail to deter her, he decided to leave Bahinabai, who was three months pregnant at the time. However, he could not do so as he suffered a burning limbs sensation lasting a month, on the day of departure. Finally, he repented and was convinced of Bahinabai's faith and devotion to God. At the same time, Bahinabai realised her neglect of her husband and decided "serving him was more important than devoting herself to (another) god." Bahinabai writes: 
  I'll serve my husband – he's my god ...
  
  My husband's my guru; my husband's my way this 
  
  is my heart's true resolve. 
  
  If my husband goes off, renouncing the world,
  
  Pandurang (Vithoba), what good will it do me to live among men? ...
  
  My husband's the soul; I'm the body ...
  
  My husband's the water; I'm a fish in it.
  
  How can I survive? ...
  
  Why should the stone god Vitthal (Vithoba)
  
  and the dream saint Tuka (Tukaram)
  
  deprive me of the happiness I know?
  The family of Bahinabai went to Dehu, the home-town of Tukaram and paid their respects to him. Here, the brahmin Bahinabai's acceptance of the lower caste Sudra Tukaram as her guru, agitated local brahmins, which led to harassment of the family and threatening of ostracism. In Dehu, Bahinabai gave birth to a daughter, who she named Kasibai. But, she was distressed and mediated suicide. Tukaram in her vision, stopped her and blessed her with poetic powers and prophesied that she would have a son who was a companion in her previous birth, thus Bahinabai is believed to have started composition of poetry, the first of which were dedicated to Vithoba. Consequently, she had a son, who she named Vithoba, the exact time of his birth is not provided, but he is mentioned in a later part of her autobiography.
  Finally the family moved to Shirur, where Bahinabai practised a vow of silence for a while. In 1649, on Tukaram's death, Bahinabai revisited Dehu and fasted for eighteen days where, according to the traditional account, she was blessed with a vision of Tukaram again. She then visited the saint Ramdas and stayed in his company until his death in 1681. Afterwards she returned to Shirur.
  In last sections of her autobio
caption: Bahinabai reported visions of the Varkari's patron deity Vithoba, pictured
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