વૈષ્ણવ જન તો

This hymn defines the ideal human being not by ritual piety but by compassion and humility. Narsinh Mehta strips away all outward markers of devotion — caste, prayer, pilgrimage — and asks a single question: do you feel the pain of others? The answer to that question, he suggests, is the only measure of a life well lived.

Across its five stanzas the pada builds a complete moral portrait, moving from the social virtues outward to the inner discipline beneath them. The opening verses praise the one who serves without pride, bows to all, and slanders no one — blessing not the saint but his mother, ધન ધન જનની તેની. Then the demands sharpen: equal vision and the renunciation of craving, every woman honoured as a mother, no untruth on the tongue, no hand on another's wealth. The fourth stanza turns fully inward — મોહ માયા વ્યાપે નહિ જેને — untouched by delusion, firm in renunciation, so fused with the divine name that સકળ તીરથ તેના તનમાં: all the pilgrimage places dwell within his own body, making the outward journey unnecessary. The final stanza closes with the poet's traditional છાપ or signature — ભણે નરસૈંયો, "so says Narsaiyo" — and the astonishing promise that the mere sight of such a person redeems seventy-one generations, કુળ એકોતેર તાર્યાં.

Gandhi adopted this bhajan as the opening prayer of his ashram, and it became inseparable from the independence movement. Its radical simplicity — a 15th-century poet declaring that empathy outranks every other virtue — resonated with a nation seeking moral clarity in the face of colonial injustice.