Sant Namdev

Sant Namdev Ji a spiritual person and one of the pioneers of the Bhakti movement was born on October 26, 1270 in Narsibamani village of Maharashtra state, in Satara district (presently called Narsi Namdev). His father Damasheth Relekar was a cloth printer/tailor and his mother's name was Gonai(Gonabai). Namdev was born to Gonabai as a result of her worship of Vitthala. After his birth, his family moved to Pandharpur in the Solapur district of Maharashtra.
Sant Namdev was a prominent religious poet of Maharashtra and was one the earliest writers in the Marathi language. He also wrote some hymns in the Hindi and the Punjabi languages. 61 of his compositions are included within Sikhism's holy scripture, the Shri Guru Granth Sahib.
At age eleven, Namdev was married to Rajai(Rajabai), a daughter of Govindrao Sadavarte. Namdev and Rajai had four sons and a daughter. Since childhood, Namdev was an ardent devotee of Vithoba like his parents.
According to a legend, when Namdev was five years old, his mother once gave him some food offering for Vithoba and asked him to take it and give it to Vithoba in the Pandharpur temple. Accordingly, young Namdev took the offering and placed it before Vithoba's idol in the temple, asking Vithoba to partake of the offering. When he saw that his request was not being met, he told Vithoba that unless his request was met, he also will not take anything. Vithoba then appeared in a personal form and partook of the offering and feed Namdev with his hands in response to the utter devotion of young Namdev. The place where Namdev had waited for Vithoba to partake of the food offering is currently identified in that temple as "Namdev Payari".
Namdev traveled through many parts of India, reciting his religious poems. He is said to have lived for more than twenty years in the village of Ghuman in the Gurdaspur district of Punjab. In Punjab he was known as Bhagat Namdev. Most of the spiritual messages of Bhagat Namdev emphasized the importance of living the life of a householder (grihast jeevan) and that through marriage and having a family one could attain enlightenment.
Namdev is regarded to have had a significant influence on the later, 17th century religious poet Tukaram of Maharashtra. Namdev's devotional compositions ("abhangaas") have been collected in the document known as Namdev's Gaathaa. His work titled "Teerthaavalee" contains his compositions concerning his travels in the company of Sant Dnyaneshwar.