Longing, awaiting the sign
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काय विनवावें कोणें तो निवाड । केलें माझ्या कोड वचनाचें ॥1॥
आहो कृपनिधी गुणांच्या निधाना । माझ्या अनुमाना नये चि हें ॥ध्रु.॥
बहुत करुणा केलेंसे भासेन । एक ही वचन नाहीं आलें ॥2॥
माझी कांहीं सेवा होईल पावली । नििंश्चती मानिली होती ऐसी ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे माझी उरली ते आटी । अभय कर कटी न देखें चि ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
How shall I plead, and who will decide? You have fulfilled my chitta's desire through Your word. O treasury of mercy, O storehouse of virtues, this is beyond my power to comprehend. Though I have pleaded at great length, not a single word of Yours has come in return. Perhaps some service of mine has reached You, and the certainty I held has been acknowledged. Says Tuka, my only anguish remains: I have not yet seen the hand of assurance at Your waist.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
How can I plead, and who will judge between us? You have already granted what my heart wished for, through your word. O treasury of mercy, O storehouse of every virtue, this is beyond my reckoning. I have pleaded long, yet not one word has come back to me. Perhaps some small service of mine has reached you, and the assurance I held has been honored. Tuka says: this one ache stays with me. I have not yet seen the hand of safety resting at your waist.
What it means
Tukaram is caught between a faith already answered and a sign still withheld. He believes the Lord has granted his heart's desire by promise, yet no spoken reply has come, so he is left reading the silence for meaning. He guesses that some service of his has been accepted, and that the certainty he carried is being honored. But the longing is not satisfied until he sees the gesture itself: the deity of Pandhari stands with hand on hip, and that hand at the waist is the very posture of fearlessness he waits to behold. The poem names how surrender can hold both trust and an unhealed ache at once.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
More in this theme →