Some days ago I came across Pasaydaan sung by the artist Ganavya. It is a old Marathi prayer that is sung at the end of the Dnyaneshwari written by Jñānadeva. It is almost 800 years old. It has been sung by several popular singers in modern India. However, this version became popular recently. It featured in Barack Obama’s favourites list from 2025.

I admit, much of any appreciation for Jñānadev I have is received from some random conversations I had the luck of having with my grandmother over two decades ago.

I tried to look for some translations online. However, some of them did not seem to capture what my grandmother had told me about the Dnyaneshwari.

So I wrote a fictional account of Dnyaneshwar telling his sister Muktabai about his thoughts. These thoughts eventually become the poem “Pasaydaan”. 

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As Jñānadeva walked through the monsoon coolness, respite from the summer heat – walking towards Pandharpur those eight centuries ago. He observed his friends. They worshipped Vishnu. They had discarded their castes and became vagrants. They were becoming wandering fools through the Deccan.

Another wandering horde from the Deccan joined. They worshiped Shiva and decided to humanise him. They saw him more as a Guru like Buddha and less as a celestial being. 

Jñānadeva walked with these Deccan pilgrims, through to Pandharpur. He sat before a large tree offering shelter to everyone. Shaivite or Vaishnav or Atheist, all sheltered, offering nourishment from its fruits.

Muktabai, the younger sister of Jñānadeva, roused away his tiredness. “Break those vessels and share your truth my brother! Share it alike, with all of us like that tree above us”

Jñānadeva then wrote with his sister Muktabai for company, a prayer, a Pasaydaan that ends the Dnyaneshwari.

Invoking the cosmic divine, he called for the end of ignorance. Realisation for all people to know of their ties to each other, ties of soulful friendship.

Noticing that in this bliss – moons are without blemish, sun without heat. Saints become friends of all people.

Praying for all beings in all worlds be filled with joy, may they serve the cosmos. Muktabai, when this Pasaydaan of mine is granted by the divine, your Jñānadeva will rest in happiness, and joy that is benign.