Prayer, testing the rescuer
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आपण चि व्हाल साहे । कसियाला हे धांवणी॥1॥
भाकिली ते उरली कींव । आहे जीव जीवपणें ॥ध्रु.॥
आहाच कैंचा बीजा मोड । प्रीति कोड वांचूनि ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे दंडिन काया । याल तया धांवणिया ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Will You Yourself become the touchstone? Why this running about for a test? The mercy I have pleaded for still remains. Life persists in its nature of being alive. From where can the seed sprout without the nurture of love and longing? Says Tuka, I shall punish this body. Come then to rescue it.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Will you yourself become the touchstone that tests me? Why all this running about for a test? The mercy I begged for is still owed to me. My life goes on, still alive in its own way. Without love and longing, how can any seed sprout? There is none. Tuka says: I will punish this body. Then come running to rescue it.
What it means
Tukaram turns his pleading into a kind of dare. He asks why God keeps testing him when the mercy he has already prayed for has never arrived, and his bare life simply persists. He insists that nothing grows without love and longing, so a heart left untended will not flower on its own. Then he names his stake bluntly: he will torment his own body until God is forced to come running to save it. It is the prayer of a devotee who will hold God to His promise by any means.
Prayers
Direct appeals to God: for protection, guidance, strength, and mercy.
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