Part 5.11 - Aradhya Dev Varunavatar

As Gujarat state shares a proximity with Sindh some literary sources in Gujarati are also found about Lord Jhulelal. This book is divided into twelve small chapters, each chapter with a heading. After the prose matter, a small section is devoted to poetry which includes Jhulelal Stuti, some Bhajans and an Arti. The script and language both are Gujarati, with a purpose to reach the Gujarati speaking followers of Lord Jhulelal. The prose part is in the Gujarati language, whereas for Jhulelal Stuti and Arti the language is Hindi and the bhajan Damadam Masta Kalandar is in the Sindhi language.

Due to captions given to each chapter, it becomes easy to know the contents of the chapters and one can revisit a specific chapter to find any reference when needed. The book starts with the chapter titled ‘Sindh Desh-Sindh Nadi’, giving some information about geographical location of Sindh, Sindhu river and Mohenjo-daro. This is followed by a brief history of Sindh starting from first century A.D. till the recent times of independence and partition of India in 1947. Staring with chapter two until chapter ten, the entire life story of Lord Jhulelal is narrated in an interesting manner that it would attract the readers of any age group to read the contents. Use of right size of the font, simple language and maintaining the good flow the book is a good publication for the Gujarati population to understand the deity.

As stated earlier, Lord Jhulelal is also Iṣhṭadev of Lohana community. The Kutchi Lohana community uses Gujarati script and Gujarati language due to the absence of Kutchi script, whereas the other two Lohanas also use Gujarati script and Gujarati language. As such this book would serve as a good source of information for Lohana community and the contribution by this book needs to be appreciated.

Chapter ten in the book gives information about Pugar Saheb, a cousin brother and first disciple of Lord Jhulelal.