Devotion, the holy claim on God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
माझी आतां सत्ता आहे । तुह्मां पायां हे वरती ॥1॥
एकाविण नेणें दुजा । पंढरिराजा सर्वांगें ॥ध्रु.॥
पुरवावी केली आळी । जे जे काळीं मागण तें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे सुटसी कैसा । धरूनि दिशा राहिलों ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
My authority now rests entirely at Your feet. I know no one else but You, O King of Pandhari, with my whole being. Fulfill whatever plea I make, at every turn. Says Tuka, how will You escape me? I have taken my position in every direction.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Now I hold a right; it rests here, upon Your feet. I know no second one. O King of Pandhari, You fill my whole being. Grant the demand I have made, whatever I ask, whenever I ask it. Tuka says: how will You get free of me? I have taken hold of every direction, and there I stay.
What it means
Tukaram turns surrender into a kind of loving siege. Because he knows no one but the King of Pandhari and has placed himself wholly at His feet, he claims that very surrender as a right: God now owes him an answer to every plea. The closing lines are playful and fierce at once; he has blocked every exit and asks how Vitthal could possibly escape him. The stakes are the devotee's confidence that total dependence is not weakness but a hold on God that He cannot shake off.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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