Jñāndev or Jñāneśvar (also Dnyaneshwar, Dnyandeo, Jnanadeva, and Gnyaneshwar) is remembered as a poet-saint who was born in Alandi (or possibly Apegav, east of Paithan on the Godāvarī River), in what is today Maharashtra, sometime in the third quarter of the 13th century CE. Born to a Deshastha Brahman family, he is said to have mastered Sanskrit and much of its philosophical literature as a child. He is remembered as one of the first mast…