Devotion, the debt is Yours now
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुझें ह्मणवितां काय नास जाला । ऐकें बा विठ्ठला कीर्ती तुझी ॥1॥
परी तुज नाहीं आमचे उपकार । नामरूपा थार केलियाचे ॥ध्रु.॥
समूळीं संसार केला देशधडी । सांडिली आवडी ममतेची ॥2॥
लोभ दंभ काम क्रोध अहंकार । यांसी नाहीं थार ऐसें केलें ॥3॥
मृित्तका पाषाण तैसें केलें धन । आपले ते कोण पर नेणों ॥4॥
तुका ह्मणे जालों देहासी उदार । आणीक विचार काय तेथें ॥5॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
What loss have I suffered by calling myself yours? Listen, O Vitthal, to your own glory. Yet you owe me no small debt for having given your name and form a firm standing in this world. I have uprooted the entire household of worldly attachment and abandoned the fondness of possessiveness. Greed, pride, lust, anger, and ego have all been driven out with no place left to stand. I have made gold and wealth no different from clay and stone; I know neither mine nor another's. Says Tuka, I have been generous even with this body; what further consideration can there be?.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What have I lost by calling myself yours? Listen, Vitthal, this is your own glory. But you owe me no small debt: I gave your name and form a firm place in this world. I have torn up the whole household of worldly attachment by the root and thrown away the fondness of possessiveness. Greed, pride, lust, anger, ego: I have left them no place to stand. I have made gold and wealth the same as clay and stone; I no longer know mine from another's. Tuka says: I have been generous even with this body. What more is there to weigh?
What it means
Tukaram makes a bold, almost teasing claim before Vitthal: in becoming wholly God's, he has lost nothing and has actually done God a service by spreading the Name and form through the world. He lists the price he has paid, uprooting attachment, driving out greed, pride, lust, anger, and ego, treating gold as worthless as clay, dissolving even the line between mine and yours. Having surrendered the body itself, he says there is nothing left to bargain over. The sharpness is devotional intimacy, the lover reminding the beloved how completely he has given himself.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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