Belonging to the Lord, his and ours are one
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बहु काळीं बहु काळी । आम्ही देवाचीं गोवळीं ॥१॥
नाहीं विटों देत भात । जेऊं बेसवी सांगातें ॥ध्रु.॥
बहु काळें बहु काळें । माझें पांघरे कांबळें ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे नाहीं नाहीं । त्याचें आमचें सें कांहीं ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
So dark, so dark He is. We are the cowherds of the Lord. He never lets us go hungry; He seats us beside Him and shares His rice. So dark, so dark. My blanket is the one He wraps around me. Says Tuka, there is no difference at all between what is His and what is ours.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
So dark, so dark he is. We are the cowherds of the Lord. He never lets the rice go cold or lets us go hungry; he seats us beside him to eat. So dark, so dark. The blanket I wrap myself in is his. Tuka says: there is nothing at all, nothing, that is his and not also ours.
What it means
Tukaram sings as one of the Lord's own cowherds, fixing on Krishna's dark beauty and on the simple intimacies of his care: he feeds them, will not let them go hungry, seats them at his own side. The detail of the borrowed blanket says the closeness reaches into ordinary belongings. The last line lands the whole point: between Krishna and his devotee there is finally no line of mine and yours. The poem offers that erasure of separation, his is ours, as the real gift of belonging to God.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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