Krishna's play, the Kaliya plunge
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
वरता वेंघोनि घातली उडी । कळंबाबुडीं यमुनेसी ॥१॥
हरि बुडाला बोंब घाला । घरचीं त्यांला ठावा नाहीं ॥ध्रु.॥
भवनदीचा न कळे पार । काळिया माजी थोर विखार ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे काय वाउग्या हाका । हातींचा गमावुनियां थिंका ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
He climbed up and leaped from the Kadamba tree into the depths of the Yamuna. Hari has drowned, cry out for help! His own family does not know his whereabouts. The river of existence is fathomless, and the serpent Kaliya within it is terribly venomous. Says Tuka, why raise vain cries when the one you held in your hands has slipped away?
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
He climbed up and leaped from the kadamba tree into the depths of the Yamuna. Hari has drowned. Cry out for help. His own family does not even know where he is. The river of existence has no far shore that you can see, and the serpent Kaliya in it is terribly venomous. Tuka says: what use are these empty cries, once the one you held in your hands has slipped away?
What it means
Tukaram retells Krishna's leap into the Yamuna to subdue the serpent Kaliya, but reads it as the soul's danger. The river is existence itself, fathomless, and the venom in it is the poison of the world. The cries of the watchers are vain because shouting from the bank saves no one. The blow lands in the last line and points back at the listener: while you had him in your hands you did not value him, and now that he has slipped from your grasp, no amount of noise will bring him back. The poem asks whether you are clutching God now, while you still can.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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