The Name, free for all
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुझें नाम गाऊं आतां । तुझ्या रंगीं नाचों था था॥1॥
तुझ्या नामाचा विश्वास । आह्मां कैंचा गर्भवास ॥ध्रु.॥
तुझे नामीं विसर पडे । तरी कोटी हत्या घडे ॥2॥
नाम घ्या रे कोणी फुका। भावें सांगतसे तुका ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Now I will sing Your Name and dance with abandon in Your color. With faith in Your Name, how can the womb ever hold us again? If I forget Your Name for even a moment, a crore of sins would come upon me. Take the Name, everyone, it is free. Says Tuka, this is what I tell you with all my being.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Now I will sing Your Name. I will dance in Your color, tha tha. I trust Your Name. So how can the womb hold me again? If I forget Your Name even once, a crore of killings fall on me. Take the Name, anyone, it is free. Tuka says: I tell you this with all my heart.
What it means
Tukaram makes the Name the whole of his practice and names what it costs and what it spares. Trusting it, he says, ends the round of rebirth: no more being held inside a womb. But he holds himself to a sharp standard, that forgetting the Name even for a moment would be a vast load of sin, so the singing must not stop. Then he turns to everyone and presses the point: the Name asks no price, it is free for the taking. He says this not as a teacher reporting a fact but as a man pleading with all his being for others to take what is offered.
The Power of the Name
The supremacy of nama-smarana: God's name as the highest practice.
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