Sant Jnaneshwar wrote the Gita in the people's tongue at fifteen: a lesson in translating strategy for the front line

A shunned family and a teenager's book

Sant Jnaneshwar (Dnyaneshwar), also called Mauli by his devotees, began life as an outsider. His father, Vitthalpant, had taken sannyasa and then, at his guru's bidding, returned to family life. Orthodox Brahmins shunned the family as the children of a sannyasi. Jnaneshwar was the second of four children, after Nivritti and before Sopan and Muktabai, and his traditional dates are 1275 to 1296 CE: widely accepted, though not independently documented.

The Varkari tradition gives his birthplace as Apegaon, near Paithan; Britannica gives Alandi. The parents died while the children were young, and the orphans went to the Brahmins of Paithan to seek acceptance, in the form of a certificate of purification. That is as much as needs saying about a painful episode, and nothing in it should be laid at the door of any community today.

His elder brother Nivrittinath initiated him into the Nath path. The closing verses of his great work trace that line from Adinath through Matsyendranath, Gorakhnath and Gahininath to Nivrittinath, so Jnaneshwar stands in the same lineage as Gorakhnath, whose chapter appears earlier in this series.

Around 1290, at Nevasa in today's Ahmednagar district, he completed the Bhavarthadipika, known everywhere as the Jnaneshwari: a Marathi verse commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, dictated so that ordinary people could read it. By the traditional chronology he was about 15. A pillar at Nevasa is still pointed out as the place where he dictated it. The Amritanubhava, a short work on non-dual experience, followed soon after.

With the saint Namdev he travelled to pilgrimage places in north India, and the two helped spark the Varkari movement centred on Vitthal of Pandharpur. Traditionally in 1296, on Kartik Vadya Ekadashi, he entered sanjeevan samadhi at Alandi on the Indrayani river, aged about 21; Varkaris believe he remains there in meditation. Every June his palkhi, carrying silver padukas, leaves Alandi for the Ashadhi wari to Pandharpur. Many abhangs carry his name, though some scholars argue that more than one Jnanadev wrote them, so this chapter rests on the Jnaneshwari and its closing prayer.

Out of Sanskrit, into the bazaar

To see why the Jnaneshwari mattered, picture who could read the Gita before it. The text was in Sanskrit, and Sanskrit learning was held by a small group. Jnaneshwar, Britannica notes, put the Gita's teaching into Marathi so that everyone, and not only Sanskrit scholars, could understand it. The Eco-Heritage centre's account of Alandi makes the same point.

That is a harder task than it sounds. Translation of this kind needs mastery of the source, a feel for how ordinary people actually speak and think, and the confidence to choose plain words without losing the idea. A boy from a family the learned had shunned did it for the Bhagavad Gita.

His teaching joins two paths that are often set against each other. Britannica describes his view that bhakti, devotion to Vitthal, and non-dual knowledge of the Self lead to the same goal. Feeling and understanding, in his hands, belong to one practice.

Two further ideas run through his teaching. One is svadharma, each person's own duty: he asks that the world see by the sun of its own dharma, so that duty done well becomes a path of light. The other is humility. Devotees recount that the yogi Changdev, proud of his powers, came to meet the young siblings riding a tiger and holding a snake as a whip; the siblings, sitting on a wall, made the wall itself move to greet him, and Changdev bowed and became a disciple. Maharashtra Tourism's account of the Changdev temple draws the moral that yogic powers count for nothing beside love and true knowledge. Jnaneshwar later wrote the 65-verse Changdev Pasashti to him.

The prayer that asked nothing for its author

Devotees recount that when Jnaneshwar reached the end of his commentary, he did what authors rarely do. He asked nothing for himself. The closing prayer of the Jnaneshwari, the Pasayadan, asks God for the good of the whole world, and it is still sung today.

He opens by asking the God who is the Self of all to be pleased with the book as an offering of words. Then comes the line that makes the Pasayadan unusual among prayers. He does not ask for the wicked to be destroyed.

May the wicked shed their crookedness.

Sant Jnaneshwar, Pasayadan, Jnaneshwari 18.1795 (Marathi, c. 1290); English rendering prepared for this series

The request is for a change in people, with no wish for their ruin. The same verse then widens to every creature.

May all beings form bonds of heartfelt friendship

Sant Jnaneshwar, Pasayadan, Jnaneshwari 18.1795 (Marathi, c. 1290); English rendering prepared for this series

The prayer goes on, in substance, to ask that every living being receive what it longs for and that the darkness of wrongdoing pass away. For a leader, the sequence of the work is the point. First the teenage author mastered a difficult source. Then he carried it into the language of ordinary people. And he closed by wishing good for everyone it might reach, adversaries included. The model in this chapter follows that order exactly.

Explainability is a translation problem

Much of the debate about AI in companies is a debate about explanation. People want to know why the model recommended this, why a function is being redesigned, and why some roles are changing while others are left alone. A transformation plan that nobody below the executive floor can explain in plain words will not earn the trust it needs, however good the analysis behind it.

Microsoft's 2026 Work Trend Index found that only one in four AI users surveyed (26%) say their leadership is clearly and consistently aligned on AI. If leaders are not aligned in their own language, the front line is left to translate on its own, and each team produces a different version.

There is evidence that clarity pays. Using employee survey data, Claudine Gartenberg, Andrea Prat and George Serafeim, writing in Organization Science in 2019, found that firms whose employees perceive both a strong sense of purpose and high clarity from management showed higher subsequent financial performance. Purpose without clarity, in Jnaneshwar's terms, is a Sanskrit text that most people in the building cannot read.

The Pasayadan adds something the explainability debate usually leaves out. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveyed 33,938 respondents in 28 countries, reports that “seventy percent are unwilling or hesitant to trust someone who has different values, facts, problem-solving approaches, or cultural background.” Edelman also finds employers are best positioned to broker trust across those divides. A company that explains its AI decisions clearly, and frames them to wish good even for the people who disagree, is doing what the teenage saint did at Nevasa.

The WCRC Pasayadan Translation Model

Created by Abhimanyu Ghosh · A proprietary model of Abhimanyu Ghosh and WCRC

WCRC calls this the Pasayadan Translation Model. It starts from a blunt premise: a strategy that only the boardroom understands has not yet become strategy. The diagram above draws the model as a funnel. Source knowledge is distilled to its meaning, carried into the language people actually use and tested until the front line can act on it, and what comes out at the end is goodwill for every stakeholder. Four moves drive it: master the source, translate it into the people's language, test it with the front line, and wish good for all stakeholders, including rivals and critics. Each move maps onto a step Jnaneshwar took between Nevasa and the Pasayadan.

The Pasayadan Translation Model holds that a strategy only the boardroom understands has not yet become strategy. A leader masters the source, translates it into the language people actually use, tests it with the front line, and ends by wishing good for every stakeholder, including the adversary.

The building blocks

1. 01Master the source

   Translation starts with deep understanding: the leader must know the strategy, its logic and its limits thoroughly before simplifying it.

   In practiceThe CEO can explain the strategy's reasoning, trade-offs and risks without slides.

2. 02Translate to the people's language

   As the Gita was carried from Sanskrit into Marathi, strategy is carried from boardroom terms into the words each team uses daily.

   In practiceThe CEO asks each unit head to restate the strategy in their team's own language and checks it for meaning, not jargon.

3. 03Test with the front line

   The Varkari movement carried his teaching on foot, among ordinary people. A translation is only proven when the front line can use it to make decisions.

   In practiceThe CEO asks front-line staff to say what the strategy changes in their work this month, and revises the message where they cannot.

4. 04Wish good for all stakeholdersPasayadan

   The plan is framed to seek the good of employees, customers, partners, communities and even competitors and critics, without wishing their ruin.

   In practiceThe CEO reviews major plans for their effect on every stakeholder, including rivals and critics, before announcing them.

If the chief executive cannot say it without slides

The first move is the one most leaders believe they have already made. Mastering the source means being able to explain the strategy's reasoning, trade-offs and risks with no slides, to a sceptical colleague, without hesitating. Jnaneshwar could translate the Gita because he knew it thoroughly. A CEO who reaches for a deck at the first hard question has found the edge of their own understanding.

The second move asks the CEO to let go of ownership of the words. Unit heads restate the strategy in their teams' own language, and the chief executive reads each version for meaning, not jargon. A logistics team, a sales team and a research team should not sound alike. If they do, the strategy has probably been copied and not understood.

The third move is where most translation fails: the front-line test. The test is simple. Ask front-line staff what the strategy changes in their work this month. Where they cannot answer, the message is revised, by the CEO if necessary. The model warns that testing staged with friendly audiences finds nothing, and every chief executive has been tempted by a friendly audience.

The final move is the one that separates this model from ordinary internal communication. Before a major plan is announced, its effects on employees, customers, partners, communities, rivals and critics are reviewed. The blind spot here is the reverse of harshness. Goodwill to all can become a reason to avoid choices some stakeholders will dislike. The Pasayadan asked for the wicked to change; it did not pretend there was no crookedness to shed.

The founder's private language

Every founder develops a private vocabulary. It starts as shorthand among three people at a kitchen table and ends, two years and eighty hires later, as a dialect only the early team speaks. New joiners nod and guess. The founder mistakes the nodding for understanding.

If you founded a company that has just passed fifty people, try the start-up version of the model at your next all-hands. Explain the strategy without slides, then ask a few people, including someone who joined last month, to say it back in their own words. What comes back will tell you more than any survey.

The Changdev story carries a second lesson for founders. In the devotees' telling, Changdev arrived with a display of power, riding a tiger with a snake for a whip, and left as a disciple of someone younger and humbler. Founders under pressure to impress investors and recruits are tempted to lead with their tigers. The people who matter most, the ones doing the work, are usually won by plain words and a willingness to be understood.

Jnaneshwar's svadharma teaching also applies. A founder's own duty changes as the company grows, from doing the work to explaining it. Founders who keep doing the work and stop translating it leave the company to guess.

Boards, regions and goodwill as a test

In a large group, the translation problem multiplies. A strategy approved in one language at headquarters has to work in a dozen languages, regions and cultures. The Jnaneshwari is a reminder that the most important translations are rarely word for word. They carry meaning across, into the idiom of the people who will use it.

The model's enterprise guidance asks for restatements maintained in each working language and region, and for strategy recall to be surveyed across the group every year. That gives a board something it seldom has: evidence of whether front-line understanding matches what was presented in the boardroom. Directors who see a gap between the two have learned something important about execution risk.

The stakeholder review belongs at board level too. Before a major plan goes ahead, the board should ask who gains, who loses and what hard choices remain. The Pasayadan's goodwill is a discipline here, not a softness. It asks directors to consider the effect on rivals and critics without wishing their ruin, and to proceed with a hard decision when it is right, having faced its cost honestly.

There is a reputational benefit as well. A company that is known to explain itself plainly, and to seek the good even of those who oppose it, earns a standing that advertising cannot buy. Jnaneshwar's palkhi still leaves Alandi every June, and the people who walk with it are carrying words that a fifteen-year-old put into their language more than seven centuries ago.

The business model

The operating model below begins with the strategy and its full reasoning, leaders who understand it deeply and front-line teams with their own working language. Those inputs pass through four habits: units restating the strategy in their own words, plain-language tests with front-line staff, a stakeholder goodwill review before launch, and revision of any message that fails the test. The outputs are a strategy people can explain and use, fewer misread priorities and plans checked against every stakeholder. Over time that produces faster, aligned execution, trust among staff, partners and critics, and a strategy that travels across regions and cultures.

The benefit model

The leader sees strategy carried out as intended, because people understand it in their own terms. Employees receive the reasoning in words they use, and so can act with judgement instead of waiting for instructions. Customers meet staff who can explain what the company stands for. Investors get a strategy that is executed at the front line as well as presented well, and society gains from a company that seeks the good even of rivals and critics. The benefit model below sets out each group.

How to implement the WCRC Pasayadan Translation Model

If you are the founder or CEO

1. 1

   Explain strategy without slides

   In the first week, explain the strategy's reasoning, trade-offs and risks to a small group without slides. Where you hesitate is the part you have not yet mastered.

2. 2

   Ask heads to restate it

   Ask each unit head to restate the strategy in their team's own language and review each version yourself for meaning, not jargon. In a small company, ask each team lead directly.

3. 3

   Hear the front line monthly

   Each month, ask front-line staff what the strategy changes in their work that month. Where they cannot answer, revise the message yourself.

4. 4

   Review effects on all stakeholders

   Before announcing a major plan, review its effects on employees, customers, partners, communities, rivals and critics. Write down the hard choices it still requires so goodwill does not become avoidance.

5. 5

   Return to the source

   Each quarter, re-read the full strategy and its reasoning so translation does not drift into dilution. Check that the simplified versions still carry the substance.

Rolling it out across the company

The execution roadmap

Four phases, each closed by a gate. Do not move on until the gate is met.

1. Days 0–30

   Phase 1 · Diagnose and commit

   Find out how much of the strategy survives the trip from boardroom to front line today.

   • Sample front-line staff across levels and regions and score their restatement of the top priorities against the board's version.
   • The CEO explains the strategy, its trade-offs and risks to a small group without slides and notes where they falter (Master the source).
   • Collect current strategy messages and mark the jargon a front-line employee would need translated.
   • Choose one unit, and the working languages its teams use, for the pilot.

   Deliverable

   A strategy recall baseline by level and region, and a jargon list.

   Gate to proceed

   Baseline recorded for every KPI, the CEO has explained the strategy without slides, and one unit head has agreed to pilot.

2. Days 31–90

   Phase 2 · Pilot and prove

   Prove that restating strategy in a unit's own language raises understanding without diluting substance.

   • The unit head restates the strategy in the team's own language, and the CEO checks it for meaning and trade-offs (Translate to the people's language).
   • Test the restatement with front-line staff who were not involved in writing it, sceptics included (Test with the front line).
   • Revise every message that fails the test and log the revision.
   • Run a stakeholder review on one plan, covering rivals and critics, and write down the hard choices it still requires (Pasayadan).

   Deliverable

   A tested and revised unit restatement and one completed stakeholder review.

   Gate to proceed

   Restatement accuracy in the pilot unit has improved against baseline, messages have been revised after tests with unfamiliar or sceptical audiences, and the stakeholder review records hard choices alongside goodwill.

3. Days 91–180

   Phase 3 · Embed and scale

   Make restatement and stakeholder review standard for every unit and every major plan.

   • Require each unit head to restate the strategy in each planning cycle.
   • Train managers with internal communications to translate and test messages themselves.
   • Make a documented stakeholder review a condition for announcing any major plan.
   • Translate restatements into the regional languages teams actually work in.

   Deliverable

   A restatement library by unit and language, and a stakeholder review template attached to major plans.

   Gate to proceed

   Every unit has a tested restatement on file, and every major plan announced in the period went through a documented stakeholder review.

4. Month 7 onwards

   Phase 4 · Sustain and renew

   Keep translation faithful to the source as the strategy changes.

   • The CEO re-reads the full strategy and its reasoning each quarter and checks restatements against it.
   • Repeat the recall test across levels, regions and languages each year.
   • Refresh restatements whenever the strategy shifts.
   • Review a sample of messages for dilution, checking that trade-offs and risks survived.

   Deliverable

   An annual translation quality report.

   Gate to proceed

   Restatement accuracy holds across regions after a strategy change, and the revision log shows testing is still finding gaps.

Implementation risks and how to handle them

By stage of company

Habits to start this quarter

1. 1

   Retire one piece of jargon a week

   Each week this quarter, pick one internal term you use often and replace it with plain words in everything you write and say. Notice who starts to join conversations they used to sit out.

2. 2

   Wish one adversary well

   Once a month, write a single sentence of genuine goodwill towards a competitor, a critic or a difficult colleague, and keep it private. The Pasayadan asks for the crookedness to go, never the person. The habit changes how you speak about opponents in public.

3. 3

   Take a young person's question seriously

   Ask someone at the start of their career, inside or outside the company, to tell you what they do not understand about your business. Answer without jargon. The Jnaneshwari was the work of a teenager.

4. 4

   Name your own svadharma for the week

   Every Monday, write down the one piece of work that only you should do this week, and protect time for it. Let go of the urge to do, or envy, someone else's role.

5. 5

   Ask instead of display

   In one important meeting each fortnight, resist demonstrating what you know. Ask questions instead and let others carry the answer. In the story, Changdev arrived on a tiger; he learned more after he stepped off it.

What to measure

Where the model goes wrong

• !Translation becomes dilution: the message is simplified until its substance is gone.
• !Front-line testing is staged with friendly audiences, so failures of understanding are never found.
• !Goodwill to all is used to avoid hard choices that some stakeholders will dislike.

Wishing the rival well

WCRC's view is that much of what is called an execution problem is a translation problem. Plans fail because people are unwilling far less often than because they were never given the meaning in words they could use. Jnaneshwar understood this at fifteen. He mastered a difficult text, carried it into the language of ordinary people and then asked for the good of everyone it might reach, even those who had done wrong.

Leaders who master the source, speak it plainly, test it honestly and wish good to everyone it touches will find their strategy travelling further than any deck could carry it. Say it so the front line can use it, then wish even your critics well.