Devotion, God as the only kin
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तू आह्मां सोयरा सज्जन सांगाति । तुजलागीं प्रीति चालो सदा ॥1॥
गण गोत मित्र तूं माझें जीवन । अनन्यशरण तुझ्या पांयीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे सर्वगुणें तुझा दास । आवडे अभ्यास सदा तुझा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You are our kinsman, our noble companion. May love for You flow on forever. You are my family, my relatives, my friend, my very life. I surrender wholly at Your feet. Says Tuka, with every quality I am Your servant. My constant joy is the practice of devotion to You.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You are our kinsman, our good companion. May love for you keep flowing always. You are my family, my people, my friend, my very life. I take refuge at your feet and nowhere else. Tuka says: in every quality I am your servant. The practice of devotion to you is my constant delight.
What it means
Tukaram folds every human tie into one figure: Vitthal is kinsman, friend, family, and life itself. By naming God as all relations at once, he quietly sets aside the ordinary network of relatives that usually defines a person, and rests his whole identity on this one bond. The phrase about taking refuge nowhere else marks that this is exclusive, not one loyalty among many. What he asks for is simply that the love keep flowing; the practice of devotion is not a duty here but his steady joy.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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