Muktabai

Muktabai or Mukta or Muktai Vitthalpant Kulkarni was a saint in the Varkari Movement. She was born in a Deshastha Brahmin family and was the younger sister of Dnyaneshwar, the first Varkari saint. She wrote forty-one abhangs throughout her life.

==Early life== Muktabai's father's name was Vitthalpant Kulkarni, and her mother was Rukminibai Kulkarni. She had 3 elder brothers named Sopan, Dnyaneshwar (also known as Gyaneshwar Mauli), Nivrutti. Folk stories says that these children studied Vedas. Nivruttinath, Dnyandev, and Sopandev Brothers of Saint Muktai- thumb|The siblings Muktabai, Sopan, Dnyaneshwar and Nivrutinath seated on the flying wall greet Changdev seated on a tiger. In the centre, Changdev bows to Dnyaneshwar. Nivruttinath: The eldest brother of Muktabai, Nivrutti was an authority on the philosophy of the Nath. Gahininath, one of the nine Nath gurus, accepted Nivrutti as his disciple and initiated him into the Nath sect, instructing him to propagate devotion to Shri Krishna. Dnyaneshwar accepted his elder brother as his own guru. After the early samadhi of Dnyaneshwar, Nivrutti travelled with his sister Muktai on a pilgrimage along the Tapti River, where they were caught in a thunderstorm and Muktai was swept away. Nivrutti obtained samadhi at Tryambakeshwar. Around 375 abhangs are attributed to him but the authorship of many of them is disputed due to difference in writing style and philosophy. Dnyaneshwar (1275–1296): The second of the siblings was a 13th-century Marathi sant, poet, philosopher and yogi of the Nath tradition whose Dnyaneshwari (a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita) and Amrutanubhav are considered to be milestones in Marathi literature. Sopan: Her younger brother, attained samadhi at Saswad near Pune. He wrote a book, the Sopandevi based on the Marathi translation of the Bhagavad Gita along with 50 or so abhangs.