God at Play

The oldest extant literature written in Marathi.God at Play, or Līḷācaritra, is a remarkable biography of the medieval religious figure Chakradhar Svami. His followers, called Mahanubhavs, understand him to be an incarnation of Parameshvar, the one supreme God. Mhaimbhat, a Brahmin goldsmith who became one of Chakradhar’s most important followers, compiled this astonishingly down-to-earth religious text around 1278. It records not only Chakradhar’s ethical and theological teachings, but also his travels and his everyday activities, including the foods he ate and the people he met. This rich, detailed account provides insights into economic conditions, political history, and society in medieval India. Manuscripts of the work were carefully preserved within the Mahanubhav community but were not known to outsiders until the early twentieth century. The second volume of God at Play portrays Chakradhar as a full-blown guru, teaching and leading a group of committed disciples. This new English translation of Līḷācaritra is accompanied by an emended Marathi text, based on Hari Narayan Nene’s edition, in the Devanagari script.