Gangasati: String the Pearls in the Lightning

What is remarkable about the form

Every single bhajan is addressed to a named woman.

Panbai.

Not to God, not to the world, not to a general listener, not to a disciple whose name has been lost. To her daughter in law, by name, in every verse, fifty two times.

Which does not happen anywhere else in this literature.

And the relationship is worth pausing on. The saas and bahu relationship in Gujarat, then and now, is one of the most loaded in the culture, and the standard material on it is about authority, friction and endurance.

Here it is a woman teaching a woman, urgently, against a clock, everything she knows.

The clock

And that is the structural fact that produces the poetry.

Gangasati knew the number. She was not going to be there next month. There was no possibility of returning to a point, no next time, no leaving the difficult subject for later.

Which is why the bhajans are compressed and why none of them wanders.

The line

Vij ne chamkare moti parovo, Panbai.

String the pearls in the flash of the lightning, Panbai.

Which is the most quoted line in Saurashtra's devotional repertoire and is the whole of her teaching.

What it means

Threading a pearl needs light and precision. Lightning gives you light for a fraction of a second and then takes it away.

And the instruction is to do the work in that fraction.

Not to wait for the sun. Not to complain that the light is inadequate. Not to prepare, plan and be ready for the next flash. The next flash is not promised, and there is a pearl in your hand now.

Which is a teaching about clarity and a teaching about time at once, and Gangasati is saying it to somebody while counting down her own days, which is why it does not sound like advice.

Other lines everybody knows

Meru re dage pan jena man na dage.

Even if Mount Meru shakes, the one whose mind does not shake.

The subject is the steady practitioner, and the definition offered is negative and behavioural rather than experiential: not what they feel, but what does not move them.

And on what devotion costs

She is direct about it. The bhajans say repeatedly that bhakti requires becoming poor, becoming nothing, giving up the claim to be somebody, and she says it to a young woman in a landholding household who had a position to lose.

Because the bhajans are a curriculum rather than a collection, and it is possible to set out what is in them.

One. Steadiness before everything.

The recurring subject is the mind that does not move.

Not the mind that has visions, not the mind that is flooded, not the mind that weeps. The mind that stays where it is put when conditions change, and Gangasati is consistently more interested in the practitioner who is unimpressed than the one who is overwhelmed.

Two. Company.

Satsang appears constantly, and her position is practical rather than sentimental: you become the company you keep, the practice does not survive in the wrong room, and a person serious about it must arrange their company deliberately.

Which is the most immediately usable thing in the fifty two.

Three. Poverty of position.

Becoming rank, a pauper, is her repeated instruction, and it is not primarily about money.

It is about the claim to be somebody. The status, the recognition, the deference, the being known as a person who does this, and her argument is that the practice cannot proceed while any of that is being protected.

Four. No display.

Which is the whole premise of her situation.

Kahalji showed something and the consequence was that both of them had to leave. The bhajans return to it: do not exhibit, do not argue, do not prove, and do not accept the reputation.

Five. The guru, and the caution she pairs with it.

She teaches obedience to the teacher and she also teaches discrimination about the teacher, and both are in the fifty two, which is a more balanced position than most of the guru bhakti literature manages.

Six. Do it now.

Which the lightning line carries and which the whole structure enacts.

What is not in them

Worth saying because it explains the tone.

No mythology. No stories. No temples. No ritual instruction. No cosmology. No sectarian argument. No lists of names.

Fifty two bhajans containing almost no furniture, because a woman with fifty two days does not spend one of them on background.

Panbai

And the last thing worth noticing.

We know nothing about her.

She is the addressee of one of the most sung bodies of devotional verse in Gujarati, she is named in every one of them, and there is no account of her life, no work by her, and no record of what she did afterwards.

Which is the ordinary outcome for the women in this series, as the Salabega, Krishnananda, Sarada Devi and Dayaram entries have all recorded in different ways: the woman is in the record because of her relationship to somebody, and then the record stops.

The difference here is only that this time the somebody was also a woman.

Both of them ended their own lives, and this article is not going to report that and move on.

What the tradition says

That Kahalji took samadhi rather than live with a reputation for miracles, and that Gangasati, having completed Panbai's instruction on the fifty second day, took samadhi on the fifty third.

The tradition presents this as an achievement. It uses the word samadhi, which carries a whole set of meanings about absorption and completion, and it treats the timing as evidence of mastery: a person who can choose the day has authority over the body.

What this article says

That it is not available to you, it is not a model, and nothing in these fifty two bhajans requires anybody to do it.

Four things, and they are separable.

One. The historical claim is unverifiable.

We do not know when Gangasati lived, we have no external account of her death, and every detail comes from a devotional tradition many generations later. What actually happened at Samadhiyala is not recoverable, and a reader should hold the account as tradition.

Two. Even taken at face value, it is not a teaching.

Read the fifty two bhajans. They do not instruct anybody to end their life. They instruct steadiness, satsang, humility, non display and urgency. The manner of her death is the frame of the poems and is not their content, and the tradition itself has never proposed it as a practice for followers.

Three. The legal position, since people ask.

Attempting suicide is no longer generally a crime in India.

The Mental Healthcare Act 2017 provides that a person who attempts suicide shall be presumed, unless proved otherwise, to have severe stress, and shall not be tried or punished, and it places a duty on the government to provide care, treatment and rehabilitation.

Which means a person who has attempted is entitled to treatment, not prosecution, and a great many families do not know this and stay away from hospitals because of it. They should go.

And abetting or assisting another person's suicide remains a serious offence, so anybody encouraging a person toward it, for any reason including a religious one, is committing a crime as well as a wrong.

The status of religious voluntary death more broadly is contested in Indian law, including the litigation over the Jain practice of sallekhana, where a High Court ruling was subsequently stayed, and the position is unsettled. This entry notes that and does not adjudicate it.

Four, and this is the one that matters.

If you are thinking about ending your life, please talk to somebody today.

Not because the thought is shameful. It is extremely common, it is a symptom rather than a decision, and it is treatable.

These are free and they are answered

• Tele MANAS 14416, the national mental health helpline, free, all hours, in Indian languages
• AASRA 9820466726
• Vandrevala Foundation 9999666555
• iCall 9152987821
• 112 if the danger is immediate, or go to the emergency department of any hospital

And if it is somebody else

Ask them directly. Asking does not put the idea in anybody's head, which is the myth that keeps families silent, and the evidence is clear that asking plainly makes things better rather than worse.

Then: stay with them, remove what is dangerous from the house including medicines and pesticides, and get them to a doctor. Do not leave them alone and do not accept a promise instead of a plan.

Pesticide access is the single biggest modifiable risk factor in rural India, and locking the store or removing it from the house is a concrete intervention that has been shown to save lives.

What to keep from Gangasati instead

The lightning.

Vij ne chamkare moti parovo is not about dying.

It is about the fact that clarity is brief, that you will not always understand as well as you understand right now, and that the correct response to a moment of seeing clearly is to do the thing immediately rather than to admire the light.

Which is available to anybody with a pearl and a thread and no particular number of days.

Where to go

• Samadhiyala, near Palitana, Bhavnagar district, where the memorial is
• Palitana itself, and Shatrunjaya, which is a Jain site of the first rank and worth the climb
• Any santvani or all night bhajan in Saurashtra, where her verses are standard repertoire, and the previous entry describes how to attend one

A daily practice from this entry

• Any name your household uses
• And Gangasati's actual instruction, which is one line and needs no preparation: when you see it clearly, do the thing then

Who: Gangasati of Samadhiyala near Palitana in the Bhavnagar country of Saurashtra. When she lived is genuinely uncertain, with estimates running from the twelfth or thirteenth century to considerably later, the sources being the bhajans themselves and oral tradition with no external documentation. She was married to Kahalsang Gohil, called Kahalji, a landholder, and the two are treated in the tradition as practitioners together rather than as a devotee and a spouse, which is unusual, since most women in this series either did not marry, or the marriage is the obstacle, or the husband is absent from the account. They had a daughter in law, Panbai.

What happened: Kahalji made a public display of power, most commonly described as reviving a dead animal in front of people who had doubted him, and both of them regarded that as a failure. The problem was not that the power was fake but that it had been shown, because once it is shown the practitioner acquires a reputation and people come for the wrong thing, which is the position the whole tradition takes when it is being serious. Kahalji resolved on samadhi rather than live as a man known for miracles, and Gangasati intended to go with him, but he told her Panbai's instruction was not complete and she was to finish it. So she set a number: fifty two days, one bhajan a day sung to Panbai, and on the fifty third she would follow. That is the entire body of work.

The form: every single bhajan is addressed to a named woman, Panbai, not to God or the world or a general listener but to her daughter in law by name, fifty two times, which does not happen anywhere else in this literature. The saas and bahu relationship in Gujarat is one of the most loaded in the culture and the standard material on it is about authority and friction, while here it is a woman teaching a woman urgently against a clock. And the clock is what produces the poetry: she knew the number, there was no next time and no leaving a difficult subject for later, which is why the bhajans are compressed and none of them wanders.

The line: vij ne chamkare moti parovo, Panbai, string the pearls in the flash of the lightning. Threading a pearl needs light and precision, lightning gives you light for a fraction of a second and then takes it away, and the instruction is to do the work in that fraction: not to wait for the sun, not to complain that the light is inadequate, and not to prepare for the next flash, since the next flash is not promised and there is a pearl in your hand now. Other known lines include meru re dage pan jena man na dage, even if Mount Meru shakes, the one whose mind does not, and the repeated instruction that bhakti requires becoming rank, a pauper, said to a young woman in a landholding household who had a position to lose.

The curriculum: steadiness before everything, meaning the mind that stays where it is put when conditions change rather than the mind that has visions; company, since you become the company you keep and the practice does not survive in the wrong room; poverty of position, which is not primarily about money but about the claim to be somebody; no display, which is the premise of her whole situation; the guru paired with discrimination about the guru, which is more balanced than most guru bhakti literature manages; and doing it now. There is no mythology, no stories, no temples, no ritual instruction, no cosmology and no sectarian argument, because a woman with fifty two days does not spend one on background. And we know nothing about Panbai, who is named in every one of them and has no life, no work and no record afterwards.

The hard part: both of them ended their own lives, and the tradition presents this as an achievement using the word samadhi. This article says it is not available to you, is not a model, and is not required by anything in the bhajans. The historical claim is unverifiable, since we do not know when she lived and every detail comes from a devotional tradition many generations later. Even taken at face value it is not a teaching, since the fifty two instruct steadiness, satsang, humility, non display and urgency and never instruct anybody to end their life. Attempting suicide is no longer generally a crime in India: the Mental Healthcare Act 2017 presumes severe stress, forbids trial or punishment and requires the state to provide care, so a person who has attempted is entitled to treatment rather than prosecution, and families who avoid hospitals for fear of the law should go. Abetting another person's suicide remains a serious offence. And if you are thinking about ending your life, talk to somebody today: Tele MANAS 14416, AASRA 9820466726, Vandrevala 9999666555, iCall 9152987821, or 112 if the danger is immediate. If it is somebody else, ask them directly, because asking does not put the idea in anybody's head, then stay with them, remove medicines and pesticides from the house, and get them to a doctor, since pesticide access is the single biggest modifiable risk factor in rural India.