Ecstatic dispute, I share what You are
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
अमर तूं खरा । नव्हे कैसा मी दातारा ॥1॥
चाल जाऊं संतांपुढें । वाद सांगेन निवाडें ॥ध्रु.॥
तुज नांव जर नाहीं । तर माझें दाव काई ॥2॥
तुज रूप नाहीं । तर माझें दाव काई॥3॥
खळसी तूं लीळा । तेथें मी काय वेगळा ॥4॥
साच तूं लटिका । तैसा मी ही ह्मणे तुका ॥5॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You claim to be immortal. How am I not the same, O generous Lord? Come, let us go before the saints and have this dispute settled with a clear verdict. If You have no name, then show me mine. If You have no form, then show me mine. If You dissolve Your play, how am I separate from that? If You are both true and false, says Tuka, then so am I.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You are truly immortal. How then am I not the same, O generous Lord? Come, let us go before the saints. I will lay out the argument and let them judge. If You have no name, then show me where mine comes from. If You have no form, then show me where mine comes from. If You dissolve Your play, how am I anything separate from it? You are at once true and false, Tuka says: and so am I, just the same.
What it means
Tukaram presses a lover's argument all the way to identity. He challenges Vitthal: if You are deathless, beyond name, beyond form, then I have no separate name or form either, because I have nothing that did not come from You. He even offers to take the case before the saints for a verdict, the way two disputants would seek a judge. The point is not pride but surrender carried to its limit: there is no line where God ends and the devotee begins. Whatever can be said of God, true and false alike, the devotee shares, because the devotee has no being of his own apart from God.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
More in this theme →