Narayan Wamanrao Tilak (1862-1919)

Narayan Wamanrao Tilak (1862-1919)

Early Life

Narayan Wamanrao Tilak was a renowned Marathi poet and a social reformer. He was born to a Hindu Chitrapavan Brahmin family in karajgaon village in Ratnagiri district of Maharastra, India on 6th December 1862 some of the literature say that He was dislike by his father, because he was born feet first, But loved all over Maharastra by people as a poet of children and flowers. During his education he had learn Sanskrit of which he was well verse. He was married to Manakaranika Gokhle who after marriage was known as Lakshmibai Tilak. Tilak work as teacher, Hindu priest and a press compositor, after all this He was still looking for a job and for that purpose he was travelling from Nagpur to rajanandgaon Sansthan which was princely state in the central province of India in that time. During this journey he met a Christian missionary in the train who gave him a Bible, and whispered prophesy in Tilak’s ears that He would come under the grace of savior Jesus in less than two years. 

And in the mean time Tilak was very disappointed with the caste system, the rituals and the ceremonies of the Hindu religious system. At the same time he was drawn towards the teaching of Jesus Christ and after some times He decided to follow Jesus in the year 1895. When his wife Lakshmi Bai heard about Tilak’s conversion she decided to separate. But after some time Lakshmi Bai develop interest towards the teaching of Christ as she was studying Bible and so also decided to follow Jesus in 1900 which resume the couple’s marriage life again. After Tilak got converted he mostly lived in Ahmadnager and served the local church as preacher for 24 year till his death in 1919.

Contributions

Tilak introduce using ‘Bhajans” and “kirtan”into the Marathi church enriching their devotion life by the art from familiar to them. He brought many Hindu cultural heritages in to the church. He wrote more the 2100 poems, some of them comprising over hundreds of lines. He also composed epic title “khristayana” describing the work of Jesus in Marathi, trying to present Jesus Christ in the native form. But he passed away before completing the epic, He died after completing only 10 chapters and the epic was completed by his wife by adding 64 chapters on her own. Lakshimi Bai also wrote her auto biography called the ‘Smruti Chitre’ which was a master piece in matrathi literature.  Tilak touch many lives with the love of Christ by making the Christ easily understandable in our own Indian cultural and traditional Hindu style.