Release, the bondage cut
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
अखंड मुडतर । सासुरवास करकर ॥1॥
याची जाली बोळवण । आतां न देखों तो शीण ॥ध्रु.॥
बहुतांची दासी । तये घरीं सासुरवासी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे मुळें । खंड जाला एका वेळें॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The endless drudgery and torment of worldly bondage has at last been bid farewell. Now I shall see that misery no more. Like a servant in someone else's household, the soul endured suffering under many masters. Says Tuka, the root has been cut in a single stroke, and all bondage is severed.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The endless drudgery, the constant nagging of a hard household, is over. I have said goodbye to it. Now I will not see that weariness again. Like a servant girl in another's home, the soul lived under many masters. Tuka says: the root has been cut in one stroke, and the whole thing is finished at once.
What it means
Tukaram tells of liberation through the image of a married woman freed from a cruel in-laws' house, the endless thankless drudgery and nagging at last bid farewell. The bondage he means is worldly existence itself, where the soul lived like a servant girl in someone else's home, bowing under many masters and never her own. The release is not gradual; he says the root was cut in a single stroke and the whole thing finished at once. The frame the poem leaves unspoken is grace's suddenness: what years of weary service could not end, the meeting with God severs in one cut, and the misery is simply not seen again.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
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