Adoration, the giver who plays at needing
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
सकळ सत्ताधारी । व्हावें ऐसें काय हरी ॥1॥
परि या कृपेच्या वोरसें । कुढावयाचें चि पिसें ॥ध्रु.॥
अंगें सवाौत्तम । अवघा चि पूर्णकाम ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे दाता । तरि हा जीव दान देता॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You are the master of all powers. What more could You possibly need, O Hari? Yet out of overflowing compassion, You feign a longing to give even more. In every way You are supreme, complete in all things. Says Tuka, You are the giver, and yet this jiva offers its very life as a gift in return.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You hold all power, Hari. What could You possibly need? And yet, out of overflowing compassion, You act as if You long to give still more. In every way You are the highest. You are complete; You lack nothing. Tuka says: You are the giver, and so this jiva gives back its own life as the gift.
What it means
Tukaram looks at a God who already has everything and asks the obvious question: why would such a one want anything? His answer is that the wanting is itself a kindness. The Lord pretends to a hunger to give, because pure giving is how His grace overflows. Since God is the giver of all, the devotee has only one thing left that is truly his own to offer back, and that is his very life. The poem turns the logic of a gift inside out: the complete one stoops to receive, so that the empty one may have something to give.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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