ओवी आणि अभंग

The ovī

An ovī has four charans. The first three rhyme with each other; the fourth is shorter and left open, so that an ovī is sometimes called three and a half charans. In the Dnyāneshwarī the first three have about eight mātrās each and the last four to six.

The first ovī of the Pasāydān

आतां विश्वात्मकें देवें ।
येणें वाग्यज्ञें तोषावें ।
तोषोनि मज द्यावें ।
पसायदान हें ॥

देवें, तोषावें, द्यावें: the three rhymes carry the line forward, and the open fourth charan, पसायदान हें, lands on the gift itself.

• पसायदानPasaydan

At the grinding stone

The ovī is older than any book. Scholars hear in it the rhythm of the songs women sang at the grinding stone, the जात्यावरच्या ओव्या, which carried their own lives and were, as one translator puts it, ‘protest songs more than work songs’.

The abhaṅg

Abhaṅg means ‘unbroken’. It grew from the ovī: the scholar S. G. Tulpule called it ‘nothing but a prolongation of the original ovee, its name signifying continuity of the essential ovee units’. It became the measure of the Vārkarī saints and is sung on the pilgrimage to Paṇḍharpūr. Tradition credits Tukārām with some 4,500 abhaṅgs and Nāmdev with about 2,500.

Nāmdev’s verse that opens Ghālīn Loṭāṅgaṇ

घालीन लोटांगण वंदीन चरण ।
डोळ्यांनीं पाहीन रूप तुझें ।
प्रेमें आलिंगन आनंदे पूजिन ।
भावें ओवाळीन म्हणे नामा ॥

Four charans, and the poet’s name in the last: म्हणे नामा, ‘says Nāmā’.

• घालीन लोटांगणGhalin Lotangan

Why it matters when you sing

The measures are why these texts are so easy to sing and to remember. An ovī’s three rhymes carry the singer to the open fourth charan, where the meaning lands; an abhaṅg’s last charan brings the poet’s name. And when a printed line will not sing, a beat short or a beat long, that is often the first sign of a copying error.