The Name, the open road for all
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
लागोनियां पायां विनवितों तुम्हाला । करें टाळी बोला मुखें नाम ॥1॥
विठ्ठल विठ्ठल म्हणा वेळोवेळां । हा सुखसोहळा स्वगाअ नाहीं ॥ध्रु.॥
कृष्ण विष्णु हरि गोविंद गोपाळ । मार्ग हा प्रांजळ वैकुंठीचा ॥2॥
सकळांसीं येथें आहे अधिकार । कलयुगीं उद्धार हरिनामें ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे नामापाशीं चारी मुक्ति । ऐसें बहुग्रंथीं बोलियेलें ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I fall at your feet and entreat you all: clap your hands and speak the Name with your mouths. Say Vitthal, Vitthal, again and again; this festival of bliss is not found even in heaven. Krishna, Vishnu, Hari, Govinda, Gopal: this is the straight road to Vaikuntha. Everyone here has the authority for this; in the age of Kali, deliverance comes through Hari's Name. Says Tuka, beside the Name dwell all four forms of liberation; so it is declared in the great scriptures.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I fall at your feet and beg you all: clap your hands, speak the Name with your mouths. Say Vitthal, Vitthal, again and again. This festival of joy is not found even in heaven. Krishna, Vishnu, Hari, Govinda, Gopal: this is the straight road to Vaikuntha. Everyone here has the right to it. In the age of Kali, the rescue is Hari's Name. Tuka says: beside the Name stand all four kinds of liberation. So the great scriptures have declared.
What it means
Tukaram is calling everyone into the one practice he trusts above all others. He bows to his listeners and pleads with them simply to clap and chant the Name aloud, because that shared joy outstrips even heaven. The chanting of Krishna, Vishnu, Hari, Govinda, Gopal is the straight, unobstructed road to Vaikuntha, and his radical claim is that everyone holds the right to walk it: no caste, learning, or rank is required, for in the Kali age the Name itself is the rescue. He closes by saying the Name carries all four forms of liberation along with it, and grounds this not in his own authority but in what the scriptures already declare.
The Power of the Name
The supremacy of nama-smarana: God's name as the highest practice.
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