Renunciation, pride spat out for the Name
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
थुंकोनियां मान । दंभ करितों कीर्तन ॥1॥
जालों उदासीन देहीं । एकाविण चाड नाहीं ॥ध्रु.॥
अर्थ अनर्थ सारिखा । करूनि ठेविला पारिखा ॥2॥
उपाधिवेगळा । तुका राहिला सोंवळा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Spitting upon pride, I devote myself to kirtan, abandoning all pretense. I have become indifferent to this body; I have no attachment to anything but the One. Gain and loss have become equal to me; I have made all worldly things foreign. Says Tuka, free from all disturbance, I remain pure.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I spit on honor and give myself to kirtan, throwing away all pretense. I have grown indifferent to the body; I care for nothing but the One. Gain and loss have become the same to me; I have made all worldly things strangers. Tuka says: free of every disturbance, I stay pure.
What it means
Tukaram lays out the inner cost and reward of his path. He despises social honor and the urge to perform, so he sings kirtan with the pretense stripped out. He has stopped caring about the body and wants nothing but God alone. With that, gain and loss flatten into one indifferent thing, and the whole world becomes foreign to him. Cut loose from these entanglements, he says he is left clean and undisturbed, the purity here being inward freedom, not ritual cleanness.
Renunciation
The case for letting go of worldly attachments and turning wholly to God.
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