Playful reproach of the butter-thief Krishna
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
चुराचुराकर माखन खाया । गौळणीका नंद कुमर कन्हया ॥1॥
काहे बडाई दिखावत मोहि । जाणत हुं प्रभुपणा तेरा खव हि ॥ध्रु.॥
और बात सुन उखळसुं गळा । बांधलिया आपना तूं गोपाळा ॥2॥
फेरत वनबन गाऊ धरावतें । कहे तुकयाबंधु लकरी लेले हात ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Stealing and eating butter, bit by bit: this is Nandakumar, the child Krishna. Why do You show off before me? I know Your lordship and all Your ways. And hear this too: Your neck was bound to the mortar, and You tied it there Yourself, O Gopala. Says Tuka's friend, You who wander through forests grazing cows, You have taken a stick in Your hand.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Stealing butter and eating it, little by little: this is Nandakumar, the child Krishna. Why do you show off your greatness before me? I know your lordship and all your ways well enough. And hear this too: your own neck was tied to the mortar, and it was you, O Gopala, who let yourself be bound. You wander from forest to forest, making the cows graze. Tuka's friend says: you have taken a herding stick in your hand.
What it means
Tukaram speaks to Krishna as a familiar, teasing the great Lord by reciting his childhood smallness. This is the same God of all greatness, yet here he is stealing butter, getting tied to a grinding mortar, and walking the woods behind cattle with a stick. The poet says, in effect, do not put on lordly airs with me, because I have seen you in these humble, human plays. The tenderness of the abhanga is the point: the supreme God chose to become a small cowherd boy who could be bound, and that nearness is what the devotee loves and claims to know.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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