A Voice That Crossed Into Sikh Scripture

Namdev is unusual among Hindu bhakti poets for the afterlife his verses had outside his own tradition. Sixty one hymns attributed to him were included in the Adi Granth compiled by the Sikh Guru Arjan in 1604, later honored as the Guru Granth Sahib, alongside verses from other non-Sikh bhagats including Kabir and Ravidas, part of a deliberate editorial decision to gather devotional voices whose message the Sikh Gurus considered compatible with their own regardless of the poet's own community of origin. Their presence there means Namdev's words are recited today in Sikh gurdwaras far more often than in any Varkari temple, and it has made him, alongside Kabir, one of the primary points of contact between Hindu bhakti devotion and the Sikh tradition.

Hagiographic tradition holds that Namdev traveled widely beyond Maharashtra, including into Punjab, which later writers have connected to the inclusion of his verses in Sikh scripture, though the precise route by which his hymns reached the Adi Granth's compilers is not established with certainty. In Maharashtra his own memory runs through the Varkari pilgrimage itself: Namdev's samadhi, his memorial shrine, sits at the entrance steps of the Vitthal temple at Pandharpur, so that every pilgrim who climbs the temple steps passes over the ground where he is said to be buried before reaching the god he spent his life addressing.