The leap of love, devotion that needs no teacher
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
अगी देखोनियां सती । अंगीं रोमांच उठती ॥1॥
हा तो नव्हे उपदेश । सुख अंतरीं उल्हासे ॥ध्रु.॥
वित्तगोतांकडे । चित्त न घाली न रडे ॥2॥
आठवूनि एका । उडी घाली ह्मणे तुका ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Seeing the funeral fire, every hair on the sati's body rises with joyful anticipation. This is not something taught from outside; the happiness swells from within. Her mind does not turn toward wealth or family, nor does she weep. Says Tuka, remembering her beloved alone, she leaps into the fire.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The sati sees the funeral fire. Every hair on her body rises with joy. No one taught her this. The happiness rises from inside her. Her mind does not turn to wealth or family. She does not weep. Tuka says: thinking only of her beloved, she leaps into the fire.
What it means
Tukaram uses the image of the sati to name what real love does when it meets its hour. She does not weigh her wealth or her family, and she does not weep, because the joy moving through her was never put there from outside; it swelled up on its own. This is the point: true devotion is not a thing learned or argued into a person, it is an answer of the whole being. Remembering her beloved and nothing else, she leaps. The poem holds up that single-minded surrender as the mark of the genuine.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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