Exhortation, choose the Name over debate
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
ऐका ऐका भाविकजन । कोण कोण व्हाल ते ॥1॥
ताकिकांर्चा टाका संग । पांडुरंग स्मरा हो ॥ध्रु.॥
नका शोधूं मतांतरें। नुमगे खरें बुडाल ॥2॥
कलिमध्यें दास तुका । जातो लोकां सांगत ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Listen, listen, O faithful ones. Who among you will come? Abandon the company of cynics and logicians. Remember Panduranga. Do not go searching through various doctrines; you will drown without finding the truth. Says Tuka, in this age of Kali, this servant goes about telling the people.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Listen, listen, you faithful ones. Which of you will come along? Drop the company of arguers and logic-choppers. Remember Panduranga. Do not go hunting through this doctrine and that; you will drown without ever reaching the truth. Tuka says: in the age of Kali, this servant goes about telling people just this.
What it means
Tukaram calls out to the faithful and asks who will walk this road with him. His instruction is blunt: leave the company of the clever debaters and remember Panduranga instead. He warns that wandering from one doctrine to another does not arrive anywhere; you sink before you ever touch the truth. He names his own task in the age of Kali: he is a servant going from person to person saying exactly this. The poem sets simple remembrance of the Name against endless intellectual searching, and chooses the Name.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
More in this theme →