Autobiography, suffering as rescue
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बरवें बरवें केलें विठोबा बरवें । पाहोनि आंत क्षमा अंगी कांटीवरी मारविलें ॥१॥
शिव्या गाळी नीत नाहीं । बहु फार विटंबिलें ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे क्रोधा हातीं । सोडवूनि घेतलें रे ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Well done, well done, Vitthoba, you have done well. Seeing the patience within me, you had me beaten on thorns. Abuses and curses rained without end; I was thoroughly humiliated. Says Tuka, you rescued me from the hands of anger.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Well done, well done, Vithoba, you have done well. You looked at the patience inside me and had this body beaten on the thorns. Curses and abuse came without stop; I was disgraced again and again. Tuka says: you pulled me free from the hands of anger.
What it means
Tukaram is thanking God for an ordeal, which is the strange turn of the poem. He praises Vithoba for what looks like cruelty: having seen the patience hidden in Tukaram, God put it to the test by letting him be beaten on thorns, cursed, and humiliated over and over. The point lands in the last line. The whole humiliation was a rescue, prying him loose from the grip of anger, the inner enemy that abuse usually feeds. Read as self-examination, it asks whether the insults we suffer might be the very thing that frees us from our own rage, rather than proof of how wronged we are.
Autobiography
Tukaram's own account of his life, struggles, awakening, and mission.
More in this theme →