Satire, God offered for free and refused
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
देव घ्या कोणी देव घ्या कोणी । आइता आला घर पुसोनी ॥1॥
देव न लगे देव न लगे । सांटवणेचे रुधले जागे ॥ध्रु.॥
देव मंदला देव मंदला । भाव बुडाला काय करूं ॥2॥
देव घ्या फुका देव घ्या फुका । न लगे रुका मोल कांहीं ॥3॥
दुबळा तुका भावेंविणें । उधारा देव घेतला रुणें ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Will someone take God? Will someone take God? He has come asking after the house, inquiring at every door. No one wants God, no one wants God. All the storage places are already full. God has gone slack, God has gone slack. Bhava has drowned. What shall I do? Take God for free, take God for free. No coin, no price is needed. Says Tuka the feeble, without bhava, I have taken God on debt.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Will anyone take God? Will anyone take God? He has come ready, asking at every door. No one wants God, no one wants God; all their storage spaces are already full. God has gone slack, God has gone unwanted; faith has drowned, what shall I do? Take God for free, take God for free; no coin, no price is needed. Tuka says: feeble and without faith, I have taken God on credit.
What it means
Tukaram stages God as a vendor going door to door, and the joke turns bitter: no one will take him even for free. The reason is given plainly: people's hearts are already crammed full of other things, with no room left, so God goes begging and unwanted while devotion itself has drowned. The price is nothing, not a single coin, which makes the refusal absurd and exposes how little the world actually wants God. At the close Tukaram puts himself in the picture too, calling himself feeble and faithless, saying he could only take God on debt, owning his own poverty rather than standing apart in judgment.
The Power of the Name
The supremacy of nama-smarana: God's name as the highest practice.
More in this theme →