The nature of God, worship of the boundless
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुज घालोनियां पूजितों संपुष्टीं । परि तुझ्या पोटीं चवदा भुवनें ॥1॥
तुज नाचऊनि दाखवूं कौतुका । परी रूपरेखा नाहीं तुज ॥ध्रु.॥
तुजलागीं आह्मी गात असों गीत । परी तूं अतीत शब्दाहूनि ॥2॥
तुजलागीं आह्मीं घातियेल्या माळा । परि तूं वेगळा कतृनत्वासी ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे आतां होऊनि परमित । माझें कांहीं हित विचारावें ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I seat You in a shrine and worship You with offerings, yet fourteen worlds are contained within Your belly. I make You dance as a spectacle, yet You have neither form nor outline. I sing songs for You, yet You transcend all words. I garland You with flowers, yet You stand apart from all doership. Says Tuka, now please be gracious, and consider what is truly good for me.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I set You in a shrine and worship You with offerings, yet the fourteen worlds lie inside Your belly. I make You dance for sport, yet You have no form, no outline. I sing songs to You, yet You are beyond all words. I hang garlands on You, yet You stand apart from all doing. Tuka says: now be gracious, and consider what is truly good for me.
What it means
Tukaram holds two things at once: the small acts of worship and the immensity of the One they reach toward. He seats God in a shrine, yet that same God holds fourteen worlds in His belly; he makes the image dance, yet the Lord has no form to confine. Every devotional act is shadowed by its own impossibility: songs offered to what is past all words, flowers hung on what stands outside all action. He is not mocking worship but confessing how far the act falls short of its object. So he ends with the only sane request: since You are this boundless, You alone know what is good for me, so decide it.
The Nature of God
Explorations of God's character, power, grace, and relationship to the world.
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