The Name on the lips, self forgotten
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कोणी एकी भुलली नारी । विकितां गोरस म्हणे घ्या हरी ॥१॥
देखिला डोळां बैसला मनीं । तो वदनीं उच्चारी ॥ध्रु.॥
आपुलियाचा विसर भोळा । गोविंद कळा कौतुकें ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे हांसे जन । नाहीं कान ते ठायीं ॥३॥
करूनी आइत सत्यभामा मंदिरीं रे । वाट पाहे टळोनि गेली रात्री रे ।
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
A certain woman, lost in devotion, went to sell buttermilk but called out: take Hari, take Hari, instead. Having seen him with her eyes, he settled in her mind, and so it was his name her lips uttered. In innocent forgetfulness of herself, she displayed the art of Govinda's enchantment. Says Tuka, the people laugh, but she has no ears for them.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
A certain woman, lost in him, went to sell buttermilk but called out instead: take Hari, take Hari. Having seen him with her eyes, he settled in her mind, and so it was his name her lips spoke. In her innocent forgetting of herself, she showed the art of Govinda's enchantment. Tuka says: people laugh, but she has no ears for them.
What it means
A woman goes to market to sell buttermilk and finds the wrong cry on her lips: not her wares but the name of Hari. Tukaram shows how a single sight of God displaces everything else, so that the Name rises of itself even in the middle of ordinary work. Her self-forgetting is not a mistake but the visible effect of Govinda's enchantment working on her. The crowd laughs at the foolish-seeming saleswoman, and the closing line gives the measure of her absorption: she does not even hear them, because nothing of the world reaches her now.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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