Longing, pleading through the saints
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुह्मी संतजनीं । माझी करावी विनवणी ॥1॥
काय तुक्याचा अन्याय । त्यासी अंतरले पाय ॥ध्रु.॥
भाका बहुतां रीती। माझी कीव काकुलती ॥2॥
न देखे पंढरी । तुका चरण विटेवरी॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
O saints, please make my appeal on my behalf. What wrong has Tuka done, that those feet have become distant? I beg in every manner, with pity and with pleading. Says Tuka, I cannot see Pandhari, nor those feet upon the brick.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You saints, make my appeal for me. What wrong has Tuka done, that those feet have grown distant from him? I beg in every way; I plead, full of pity for myself. Tuka says: I cannot see Pandhari, nor those feet upon the brick.
What it means
Tukaram feels cut off from Vitthal and turns to the saints to carry his case, as though he no longer trusts his own voice to reach. He cannot name a crime, only the fact of the distance: the feet that should be near have moved away, and he does not know why. So he pleads in every register he can find, openly pitying himself before the very ones he asks for help. The ache at the center is concrete: he cannot see Pandhari, the holy town, nor the feet set level on the brick, and that absence is the whole of his sorrow.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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