Longing, the abandoned child crying out
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पडियेलों वनीं थोर चिंतवनी । उसीर कां आझूनि लावियेला ॥1॥
येई गा विठ्ठला येई गा विठ्ठला । प्राण हा फुटला आळवितां ॥ध्रु.॥
काय तुज नाहीं लौकिकाची शंका । आपुल्या बाळका मोकलितां ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे बहु खंती वाटे जीवा । धरियेलें देवा दुरी दिसे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I have fallen in the forest in great anguish. Why have You delayed so long? Come, O Vitthala, come! My very prana breaks as I call to You. Have You no regard for what the world will say, abandoning Your own child like this? Says Tuka, great sorrow weighs upon this jiva. O God, You who were held so close now appear far away.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I have fallen in the forest in great anguish. Why have you delayed so long? Come, O Vitthala, come! My very breath breaks as I call to you. Have you no fear of what the world will say, abandoning your own child like this? Tuka says: great sorrow weighs on this soul. O God, you who were held so close now seem far away.
What it means
Tukaram cries out as one lost in a wilderness of anguish, asking why God has stayed away so long. He calls Vitthala's name until his breath itself seems to break with the strain of calling. Then he presses God with a sharp question, like a child to a parent: does the Lord not care how it looks for him to abandon his own child? The grief lands in the last line, where the God he once held close now appears unbearably far, and the soul is left weighed down with sorrow.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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