Mhatre CK | Bahinabai

The Autobiography of Sant Bahinabai (2023)

Edited, translated, annotated and introduced by Chandrakant Kaluram Mhatre

Sant Bahinabai (1628–1700) endured prolonged domestic violence from an early age after being married off as a toddler to a thirty-year-old widower. The abuse continued even when she was three months pregnant. What makes her life and work extraordinary is that she gave voice to these experiences in her poems, producing what is perhaps the first autobiographical account by a woman in India. Her writings stand among the earliest literary testimonies of domestic violence and contain some of the most powerful critiques of patriarchy in premodern Indian literature. A contemperory and follower of Sant Tuakaram, she has also documented Tukaram's persecution at the hands of the caste-supremacists, which she herself witnessed during her stay in Dehu. Bahinabai also translated the Vajrasuchi Upanishad, an anti-caste Sanskrit text, into Marathi, making her one of the earliest known women translators in India.

Featured Poem
मौनस गोत्र माझ्या पित्याचे वरिष्ठ

Source Text

मौनस गोत्र माझ्या

पित्याचे वरिष्ठ

भ्रतारही श्रेष्ठ

गौतम तो

शिवपूर नाम

तेथील ज्योतिषी

मायबापे त्याशी

समर्पिले

द्वितीय संबंधी

वरुषा तिसाचा

नोवरा भाग्याचा

ज्ञानवंत

बहेणी म्हणे त्याशी

कन्यादान केले

आंदण दिधले

सर्व काही

●🙙🙛●

Target Text

My father belongs

To the great Maunas clan,

To the revered Gautam clan*

My husband.

An astrologer

Based in Shivpur,

My parents gave me

In marriage to him.

Widower he was

Thirty years old,

My blessed husband

A learned man.

Baheni says in marriage

To him I was given away

Dowry was given

Of all kinds.

●🙙🙛●

*This throws light on the heartless inner workings of the caste system in India - not only there are castes and subcastes that consider themselves superior to others; but even within a subcaste, there are clans (गोत्र) that consider themselves superior to others! For example, Gautam clan is considered to be of much higher social standing than the Maunas clan. It was perhaps this social-climbing on part of Bahinabai’s parents that led them to marry off their three years old daughter to a 30-year-old widower.