Devotion, the pampered child's plea
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
केली सलगी तोंडपिटी । आह्मी लडिवाळें धाकुटीं॥1॥
न बोलावें तें चि आलें । देवा पाहिजे साहिलें ॥ध्रु.॥
अवघ्यांमध्यें एक वेडें । तें चि खेळविती कोडें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे मायबापा । मजवरि कोपों नका ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
We have been bold and impudent, for we are small and pampered children. Words that should not have been spoken have come forth; You must bear it, O God. Among all the others, one is the fool, and everyone plays with him for amusement. Says Tuka, O my mother and father, do not be angry with me.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I have been bold, talking back too freely. We are small, pampered children. Words that should not have been spoken have come out. You must bear it, God. Among everyone, there is one fool. That is the one they all play with for fun. Tuka says: my mother, my father, do not be angry with me.
What it means
After speaking too freely to God, Tukaram pleads not as an equal but as a small child before a parent. He owns the overstepping, the bold talk that came out as it should not have, and asks God simply to bear it because that is what a parent does. He casts himself as the one fool everyone teases, the one taken least seriously, which is exactly why he can be forgiven. Calling God his mother and father, he asks only that the affection not turn to anger; the closeness that let him be impudent is the same closeness he trusts to absorb it.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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