{{Redirect|Ovee|the former railway in Liverpool|Liverpool Overhead Railway}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2025}} {{Use Indian English|date=August 2025}}
'''Ovee''' ({{IAST|ovee}}, literally "strung together"<ref name="Novetzke2013"/>), also spelled '''{{Transliteration|mr|italic=no|owi}}''' or '''{{Transliteration|mr|italic=no|owee}}''', is a [[poetic metre]] used in [[Marathi language|Marathi]] poems for "rhythmic prose", generally used in narrative poems.<ref name="Mukherjee1998">{{cite book|author=Sujit Mukherjee|title=A Dictionary of Indian Literature: Beginnings-1850|date= 1998|publisher=Orient Blackswan|isbn=978-81-250-1453-9|page=270}}</ref> A poem using this metre is also called an ovee. Ovee is among the "oldest Marathi song genres still performed today".<ref name="Schultz2013">{{cite book|author=Anna Schultz|title=Singing a Hindu Nation: Marathi Devotional Performance and Nationalism|date=2013|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-973083-4|page=152}}</ref> It has been in use since the 13th century in written poetry; however, [[oral tradition]]s of women's ovee pre-date the literary ovee. While literary ovee is used by the [[Varkari]] saints in [[bhakti]] (devotional) literature, women's ovee is passed via the oral tradition through generations of women, who sing them while working or for pleasure.
==Forms and origins== [[File:Jnandev.jpg|thumb|Dnyaneshwaar was the first to use ovee in literature.]]
Two forms of ovee are popular today: the {{Transliteration|mr|granthik}} (literary) ovee and the women's ovee. The literary ovee is sung without {{Transliteration|mr|[[Tala (music)|tala]]}} (rhythm) by a {{Transliteration|mr|kirtankar}} in a {{Transliteration|mr|[[kirtan]]}}, a devotional call-and-response chanting form. This is generally used for {{Transliteration|mr|italic=no|ovees}} of saints like [[Dnyaneshwar]], [[Eknath]] and [[Namdev]]. The women's ovee is sung with {{Transliteration|mr|tala}}, when the women gather for work or pleasure.<ref name="Schultz2013"/><ref name="Novetzke2013"/>
The ovee metre originated in literature with the [[Varkari]] saint, Dnyaneshwar (1275–1296).<ref name="GaneshThakkar2005"/> Both his magnum opuses ''[[Dnyaneshwari]]'' and ''[[Amrutanubhav]]'' are composed in ovee meter.<ref name="Schultz2013"/> It is one of the two popular poetry metres used by Varkari saints, the other being {{Transliteration|mr|[[abhanga]]}} – attributed to the saint, [[Tukaram]] (1577–1650).<ref name="GaneshThakkar2005">{{cite book|editor1=Kamala Ganesh|editor2=Usha Thakkar|title=Culture and the Making of Identity in Contemporary India|date= 2005|publisher=Sage Publications|isbn=978-0-7619-3381-6|page=92|author=Vidyut Bhagwat|chapter=Heritage of Bhakti: Sant Women's Writings in Marathi}}</ref> While ovee is used for narrative poems, {{Transliteration|mr|abhanga}} meter is used for lyrical poems and devotional poems.<ref name="McConnell1989">{{cite book|author=Grant D. McConnell|title=Constitutional languages|date=1 January 1989|publisher=[[Presses Université Laval]]|isbn=978-2-7637-7186-1|page=352}}</ref>
The ovee metre is believed to be existed in folk song tradition even before Dnyaneshwar, which the saint adopted for his literary works.<ref name="Schelling2014"/> Though the ovee tradition pre-dates the Varkari bhakti tradition, there is little record of contents of early {{Transliteration|mr|italic=no|ovees}}. Women's {{Transliteration|mr|italic=no|ovees}} have been passed from generation to generation only through oral means.<ref name="Feldhaus1996">{{cite book|author=Anne Feldhaus|title=Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion|year=1996|publisher=[[SUNY Press]]|isbn=978-0-7914-2837-5|page=220}}</ref>
==Women's ovee== ovee is thought to be in the rhythm of songs sung by women on the [[grinding stone]] ({{Transliteration|mr|jata}}).<ref name="GaneshThakkar2005"/> The ovee is sung while women use the mortar and pestle or the {{Transliteration|mr|rahat}} (a manual [[water wheel]]) to pull water from the well. The women's {{Transliteration|mr|italic=no|ovees}} are "protest songs more than work songs" — complaints about the hard work, unhappy marriages and "despotic husbands".<ref name="Schelling2014"/> They contain sarcasm of the patriarchal society. They also contain elements of [[bhakti]] (devotion), where the singer implores God to save her from these bondages.<ref name="Schelling2014">{{cite book|author=Andrew Schelling|title=Love and The Turning Seasons: India's Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing|date=2014|publisher=Counterpoint LLC|isbn=978-1-61902-241-6|pages=126–7}}</ref>
==Literary ovee== An ovee poem has couplets (called {{Transliteration|mr|kadva}} or ''ovee'' itself). Each couplet is generally divided into four {{Transliteration|mr|charan}} (parts/lines). The first three {{Transliteration|mr|charans}} are rhymed and have same number of ''matras'' (instants) composed of six or eight letters (vary from eight to ten syllables), while the fourth is "open" (unrhymed with the rest), shorter with fewer {{Transliteration|mr|matras}} and generally has four letters (vary from four to six syllables). For example, the ''Dnyaneshwari'' has eight {{Transliteration|mr|matras}} in the first three {{Transliteration|mr|charans}} and four to six in the last {{Transliteration|mr|charan}}. It is thus called a couplet of three and a half {{Transliteration|mr|charans}}. In contrast, an {{Transliteration|mr|abhanga}} has four {{Transliteration|mr|charans}} with eight letters each.<ref name="Sharma2000">{{cite book|author=Arvind Sharma|title=Women Saints in World Religions|date=2000|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-4619-5|page=177}}</ref><ref name="Schultz2013"/><ref name="Wakankar2010">{{cite book|author=Milind Wakankar|title=Subalternity and Religion: The Prehistory of Dalit Empowerment in South Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ymCLAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA189|date=25 February 2010|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-16655-7|page=189}}</ref>
Example of an ovee from ''Dnyaneshwari'':
<poem> Devā Tūchi Gaṇeshū | Sakalārthamatiprakāshū | Mhaṇe Nivṛtti Dāsū | Avadhārijojē ||2||
देवा तूंचि गणेशु | सकलमति प्रकाशु | म्हणे निवृत्ति दासु | अवधारिजो जी ||2|| </poem>
The ovee was used by another saint, Eknath (1533–1599), too; however, while Dnyaneshwar's ovee has three and a half parts, Ekanath's ovee has four and a half parts. Dnyaneshwar's ovee is considered one of the foremost compositions in the ovee metre. The {{Transliteration|mr|abhanga}} metre is said to have originated from Dnyaneshwar's ovee metre.<ref name="Ranade1983">{{cite book|author=R. D. Ranade|title=Mysticism in India: The Poet-Saints of Maharashtra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qURxehvO4tUC&pg=PA36|year=1983|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-1-4384-1686-1|page=36}}</ref>
The {{Transliteration|mr|abhanga}} is often considered as a form of the ovee.<ref name="Novetzke2013">{{cite book|author=Christian Lee Novetzke|title=Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev in India|pages=275, 279|date=13 August 2013|publisher=[[Columbia University Press]]|isbn=978-0-231-51256-5}}</ref> [[Dilip Chitre]] considers the {{Transliteration|mr|abhanga}} tradition is strongly influenced by the women's ovee. S. G. Tulpule says the {{Transliteration|mr|abhanga}} "is nothing but a prolongation of the original ovee, its name signifying continuity of the essential ovee units". [[Janabai]]'s {{Transliteration|mr|abhangas}} borrow themes of women's household chores of grinding and pounding from the women's ovee tradition and asks [[Vithoba]], the patron god of the Varkari tradition, to help her in her chores.<ref name="Feldhaus1996"/>
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
[[Category:Hindu music]] [[Category:Hindu poetry]] [[Category:Poetic rhythm]] [[Category:Warkari]] [[Category:Marathi-language literature]] [[Category:Indian poetics]] [[Category:Stanzaic form]]