Longing, the child running home
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
होइल कृपादान । तरी मी येईन धांवोन ॥1॥
होती संतांचिया भेटी । आनंदें नाचों वाळवंटीं ॥ध्रु.॥
रिघेन मातेपुढें । स्तनपान करीन कोडें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे ताप । हरती देखोनियां बाप॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
If the gift of grace is bestowed, I will come running. There will be the meeting with the saints; I will dance with joy in the open fields. I will rush to the Mother and suckle at Her breast with delight. Says Tuka, all suffering vanishes when one sees the Father.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
If the gift of grace is given, then I will come running. I will meet the saints, and dance with joy on the open sand by the river. I will rush up to the Mother and gladly drink at Her breast. Tuka says: all the burning vanishes the moment I see the Father.
What it means
Tukaram makes his coming conditional on one thing: let grace be given, and the rest follows by itself. He pictures the reward in plain bodily images, not abstractions: the meeting with the saints, the dancing on the sandbank where the pilgrims gather at Pandhari, the child rushing to nurse at the mother. Here God is both Mother and Father, and the saint stays a small child before them. The last line names the stakes simply: every fever and torment of the soul is gone the instant the Father's face is seen, so the whole weight of the poem rests on that one sight.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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