Lament, word-knowledge wrecks the path
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कैसी करूं आतां सांग तुझी सेवा । शब्दज्ञानें देवा नाश केला ॥1॥
आतां तुझें वर्म न कळे अनंता । तुज न संगतां बुडूं पाहें ॥ध्रु.॥
संध्या स्नान केली आचाराची नासी । काय तयापासीं ह्मणती एक ॥2॥
बुडविली भक्ति म्हणीते पाषाण । पिंडाचें पाळण स्थापुनियां ॥3॥
न करावी कथा ह्मणती एकादशी। भजनाची नासी मांडियेली ॥4॥
न जावें देउळा ह्मणती देवघरीं । बुडविलें या परी तुका ह्मणे ॥5॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
How shall I serve You now? Tell me. Word-knowledge has destroyed the true path. Now Your secret is beyond my grasp, O Ananta. Without Your guidance, I am drowning. Some have ruined the practice of daily prayers and ablutions. What can be had from them? They have sunk devotion by calling the image a mere stone and establishing the worship of the body alone. They say do not attend kirtan and do not observe Ekadashi. They have laid waste to all devotional practice. They say do not go to the temple but worship only at home. Says Tuka, in this way everything has been sunk.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
How shall I serve You now? Tell me. Word-knowledge has destroyed the true path. Now Your secret is beyond me, O Ananta; without Your guidance I am sinking. Some have ruined daily prayer and ablution. What is to be had from such people? They drown devotion by calling the sacred image a mere stone, and set up the worship of the body alone. They say, hold no kirtan, keep no Ekadashi, and they lay waste to devotional practice. They say, do not go to the temple, worship only at home. Tuka says: in this way everything has been sunk.
What it means
Tukaram laments a clever, debunking knowledge that has talked the simple devotional life to pieces. He lists what it dismisses: daily prayer and bathing, the worshipped image treated as just stone, kirtan, the Ekadashi fast, going to the temple. The danger he names is that each dismissal sounds reasonable yet together they drown actual devotion and leave only the worship of the body, the self. Disoriented and feeling himself sinking, he turns back to God and asks to be told plainly how to serve, since the secret of the path is now beyond his own reasoning.
Prayers
Direct appeals to God: for protection, guidance, strength, and mercy.
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