Devotion, the test of the tongue
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
जयाचिये वाचे नये हा विठ्ठल । त्याचे मज बोल नावडती ॥1॥
शत्रु तो म्यां केला न ह्मणें आपुला । जो विन्मुख विठ्ठला सर्वभावें ॥2॥
जयासी नावडे विठोबाचें नाम । तो जाणा अधम तुका ह्मणे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I do not care for the words of one whose mouth does not utter Vitthala's name. I have made an enemy of him. I do not call my own anyone who has turned away from Vitthala with their entire being. Says Tuka, know that the one who does not love Vithoba's Name is the lowest of the low.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I do not like the words of anyone whose mouth does not bring out this Vitthal. The one who has turned away from Vitthal with his whole being, I have made my enemy; I do not call him my own. Tuka says: know that the one who does not love Vithoba's Name is the lowest of the low.
What it means
Tukaram measures people by one thing: whether the Name of Vitthal lives on their tongue. He speaks bluntly of making an enemy of those who have wholly turned away from God, and of refusing to count them as his own. The harshness is aimed at the turning-away itself, the deliberate rejection of the Name, not at a person to be looked down on for any other reason. For Tukaram the love of the Name is the dividing line of worth, and he will not soften where that love is absent.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
More in this theme →