Krishna's refuge, hidden from the world
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
भलो नंदाजीको डिकरो । लाज राखीलीन हमारो ॥१॥
आगळ आवो देवजी कान्हा । मैं घरछोडी आहे म्हांना ॥ध्रु.॥
उन्हसुं कळना वेतो भला । खसम अहंकार दादुला ॥२॥
तुका प्रभु परवली हरी । छपी आहे हुं जगाथी न्यारी ॥३॥
नका कांहीं उपचार माझ्या शरीरा । करूं न साहती बहु होतो उबारा ।
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Blessed is the son of Nanda; he has protected my honor. Come forward, O divine Krishna. I have left my home for your sake. He is finer than the finest, and my proud and arrogant husband cannot compare. Says Tuka, Hari has accepted me. I am hidden from the world, set apart and his alone.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Blessed is the son of Nanda; he has guarded my honor. Come forward, O divine Krishna. I have left my home for your sake. He is finer than the finest. My proud and arrogant husband cannot compare. Tuka says: Hari has accepted me. I am hidden from the world, set apart and his alone.
What it means
Tukaram speaks as a woman who has left everything for Krishna and found in him the protector her own household could not be. She blesses the son of Nanda for guarding her honor and calls him finer than the finest, while the proud husband she left behind cannot stand the comparison. The frame the poem leaves unspoken is the gopi who abandons home and reputation for God, a figure for the soul that turns from worldly belonging to him alone. The claim it lands is in the close: Hari has accepted her, and now she lives hidden from the world, set apart and wholly his. What looks like loss to the world is the safest refuge there is.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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