Devotion, the ghost of Pandhari
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पंढरीचें बा भूत मोटें । आल्या गेल्या झडपी वाटे॥1॥
तेथें जाऊं नका कोणी । गेले नाहीं आले परतोनि ॥2॥
तुका पंढरीसी गेला । पुन्हा जन्मा नाहीं आला ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The spirit of Pandhari is a mighty one; it seizes all who pass by on the road. Let no one go there, for those who went never came back. Tuka went to Pandhari and never returned to be born again.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The spirit of Pandhari is a mighty one. It pounces on everyone who comes and goes along the road. Let no one go there. Those who went have not come back. Tuka went to Pandhari, and was not born again.
What it means
Tukaram plays at warning you away from Pandhari with the language of a haunting, but the warning is an invitation in disguise. He calls the presence at Pandhari a great spirit that seizes every passerby, and says darkly that no one who went ever returned. Then he reveals the real meaning: not coming back means not being born again, the end of the cycle of birth and death. So the thing to fear, if you cling to this world, is exactly the thing to want. Going to Pandhari, to Vitthal, is what releases the soul for good.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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