Reproach, the shameless thief
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
लाज ना विचार । बाजारी तूं भांडखोर ॥1॥
ऐसें ज्याणें व्हावें । त्याची गांठी तुजसवें ॥ध्रु.॥
फेडिसी लंगोटी । घेसी सकळांसी तुटी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे चोरा । तुला आप ना दुसरा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You have no shame and no discretion; You are a brawler in the marketplace. Only one who deserves such treatment should tie his fate with Yours. You strip off even the loincloth and swindle everyone. Says Tuka, You thief, You have neither self nor other.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You have no shame and no sense; You are a brawler in the marketplace. Only someone who wants such treatment should tie his fate to Yours. You strip off even the loincloth; You leave everyone bankrupt. Tuka says: You thief, You have no self and no other.
What it means
Tukaram keeps up the lover's quarrel, calling God a shameless market brawler who picks fights and robs whoever comes near. The warning is half a joke: only someone ready to lose everything should bind his life to this one, because God takes even the last covering, the loincloth, and leaves the devotee with nothing. The closing line turns the insult into the truth it was hiding: this thief has no self and no other, no inside and no outside, so to be robbed by God is to be emptied of the very line between mine and not-mine. The harshness points at how total surrender feels from inside, not at any flaw in God.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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