Lowliness, the saint and the wrongdoer
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
माझा स्वामी तुझी वागवितो लात । तेथें मी पतित काय आलों ॥1॥
तीथॉ तुमच्या चरणीं जाहालीं निर्मळ । तेथें मी दुर्बळ काय वाणूं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे तुह्मी देवा द्विजवंद्य । मी तों काय निंद्य हीन याति ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
My master treads upon your feet with His stride; what place have I, a lowly wrongdoer, in all of this? All the sacred waters have become pure through contact with your feet; how can I, so lowly, presume to speak? Says Tuka, you who are revered by God and by the twice-born, what am I, of a despised caste, to say anything?
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
My master keeps your feet with His own step. What place have I, a fallen man, here? The holy waters became pure at your feet. What can I, so weak, presume to say? Tuka says: you are revered by God and by the twice-born. What am I, of a despised caste, to say anything?
What it means
Tukaram is placing himself at the very bottom before someone holy, measuring the distance between a saint and a man counted as fallen. He says his own Lord holds these feet close, and that even the sacred waters are made pure by touching them, so what standing could he, a wrongdoer, have in such company. He calls the listener revered by God and by the twice-born alike, and himself a man of a despised caste with no right to speak. The posture is real humility before holiness, and it also lets the despised man stand in the same scene as the honored one, before the God who reveres saints rather than ranks.
The Saints
The character and service of true saints: softer than butter, harder than diamond.
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