Devotion, God hungers only for love
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
ऐका महिमा आवडीचीं । बोरें खाय भिलटीचीं ॥१॥
थोर प्रेमाचा भुकेला । हा चि दुष्काळ तयाला । अष्टमा सिद्धींला । न मनी क्षीरसागराला ॥ध्रु.॥
पव्हे सुदामदेवाचे । फके मारी कोरडे च ॥२॥
न म्हणे उच्छिष्ट अथवा थोडे । तुका म्हणे भक्तीपुढें ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Hear the glory of pure love: the Lord eats the wild berries offered by the tribal woman Shabari. Such is his hunger for devotion; this is the only famine he knows. He does not regard the eight supernatural powers or the ocean of milk. He devours the dry, flattened rice of his friend Sudama, eating it by the fistful. Says Tuka, he does not consider whether it is leftover or too little; before true devotion, nothing else matters.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Hear the glory of pure love. The Lord eats the wild berries the tribal woman Shabari offers him. He is hungry for great love, and this is the only famine he knows. He pays no heed to the eight powers or to the ocean of milk. He eats Sudama's dry flattened rice, taking it by the fistful. He does not ask if it is leftover or too little. Tuka says: before true devotion, nothing else counts.
What it means
Tukaram is naming what God actually wants. He recalls two well-known acts: the Lord eating Shabari's tasted wild berries and devouring Sudama's poor handful of dry rice. The point is that God is not drawn by the eight siddhis or by the ocean of milk, the grand and the luxurious; his one hunger is for love, the only thing he ever lacks. So he never weighs whether an offering is leftover, impure, or small. The poem says plainly that before real devotion, all the powers and riches a person could offer mean nothing.
Sacred Stories
Abhangas drawing on mythological narratives to illuminate spiritual truths.
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