Longing, the child crying for the breast
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पाहें मजकडे भरोनियां दृष्टी । बहुत हिंपुष्टी जालों माते ॥1॥
करावेंसे वाटे जीवा स्तनपान । नव्हे हें वचन श्रुंघारिक ॥ध्रु.॥
सत्यासाटीं माझी शब्दविवंचना । जोडिल्या वचनाचें तें नव्हे ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे माझी कळवळ्याची कींव । भागलासे जीव कर्तव्यानें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Look at me with your full gaze, O Mother, for I have grown very weak and forlorn. My jiva longs to nurse at your breast. This is not romantic speech. It is a cry of truth. My words are not artfully constructed but wrung from sincerity alone. Says Tuka, this cry is born of anguish and deep compassion for my own condition. My jiva is exhausted by the demands of duty.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Look at me, Mother, with your full gaze. I have grown weak and worn out. My soul wants to nurse at your breast. This is not pretty, romantic talk. It is the truth I must say. My weighing of these words is for the sake of truth; they are not strung together for effect. Tuka says: this is the cry of my own pity for myself. My soul is worn down by duty.
What it means
Tukaram cries to God as a child to its mother, asking for one full look and for the milk of the breast, which here means the infant's helpless dependence on divine love. He is careful to set the tone: this is not the ornamental, romantic talk of a poet showing off, but words wrung from real distress. He says he weighs his words for truth's sake, not to make them sound beautiful. The closing is an honest confession of his state: worn out by the demands of duty, he feels pity for his own condition, and out of that exhaustion the cry rises on its own.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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