Ecstasy, grace, not invention
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
खेळतों ते खेळ पायांच्या प्रसादें । नव्हती हीं छंदें नासिवंतें ॥1॥
माझा मायबाप उभा विटेवरी । कवतुकें करी कृपादान॥ध्रु.॥
प्रसादाची वाणी वदें ती उत्तरें । नाहीं मतांतरें जोडियेलीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे रस वाढितिया अंगें । छाया पांडुरंगें केली वरी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The sport I play is by the grace of Your feet; these joys are not fleeting or perishable. My mother and father stands upon the brick, bestowing the gift of grace with delight. The words I speak are offered as Your blessing; they are not composed from any partisan school. Says Tuka, the flavor of devotion grows ever richer, for Panduranga has spread His sheltering shade above me.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The sport I play is by the grace of your feet. These joys are not fleeting; they do not perish. My mother and father stands on the brick, giving grace with delight. The words I speak come as your gift. I have not pieced them from any school of opinion. Tuka says: the taste of devotion keeps growing in me, for Panduranga has spread his shade above me.
What it means
Tukaram is careful to say where his joy and his words come from. The play he plays is not his own doing but the grace of God's feet, and so, unlike worldly pleasures, it does not perish. He keeps the image of Vitthal standing on the brick at Pandhari, the same mother and father who gives grace gladly. The point he insists on is that his verses are received gifts, not opinions stitched together from rival schools of thought; he is not arguing a position but reporting grace. The taste of devotion only deepens, he says, because Panduranga has stretched a sheltering shade over his head.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
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