The saints, who turn the earth into heaven
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पुनीत केलें विष्णुदासीं । संगें आपुलिया दोषी ॥1॥
कोण पाहे तयांकडे । वीर विठ्ठलाचे गाढे । अशुभ त्यांपुढें शुभ होउनियां ठाके ॥ध्रु.॥
प्रेमसुखाचिया रासी । पाप नाहीं ओखदासी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे त्यांनीं । केली वैकुंठ मेदिनी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The servants of Vishnu have purified offenders by the power of their own company. Who can stand against them? They are the mighty warriors of Vitthal. Before them, the inauspicious becomes auspicious and stands still. In those heaps of the joy of love, there is no sin, not even as a remedy. Says Tuka, they have turned this earth into Vaikuntha itself.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The servants of Vishnu have made offenders pure by their own company. Who can stand against them? They are the mighty warriors of Vitthal. Before them the inauspicious turns auspicious and stops. In those heaps of the joy of love there is no sin, not even a trace of it for medicine. Tuka says: they have turned this earth into Vaikuntha itself.
What it means
Tukaram praises the company of the Vaishnava saints as a purifying power; mere nearness to them makes the guilty clean. He calls them warriors, the strong men of Vitthal, because nothing inauspicious can hold its ground before them; what was ill-omened turns to blessing and is stilled. They are heaps of the joy of love, and in that joy there is not even a speck of sin left, not enough to use as medicine. The claim he lands is large and deliberate: by their presence the saints have made this ordinary earth into Vaikuntha, God's own heaven, here and now.
The Saints
The character and service of true saints: softer than butter, harder than diamond.
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