Adoration, the swift women of Hari
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
हरिरता चपळा नारी । लागवरी न रिघती ॥१॥
अवघ्या अंगें सर्वोत्तम । भोगी काम भोगता ॥ध्रु.॥
तुका म्हणे देवा ऐशा । देवपिशा उदारा ॥३॥
गौळणी आल्या वाज । म्हणती या गे राखों आज । सांपडवुनी माजघरांत धरुनी कोंडूं ।
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The women devoted to Hari are so swift that none can keep pace with them. With their whole being they are supreme, enjoying divine love in fullness. Says Tuka, such God-intoxicated souls are truly generous. The milkmaids came running, saying, let us catch him today and lock him inside the house.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The women devoted to Hari are so swift that none can keep pace with them. With their whole being they are supreme, enjoying his love to the full. Tuka says: such God-mad, God-intoxicated souls are truly generous. The milkmaids came running and said, let us catch him today, corner him in the inner room, hold him and lock him in.
What it means
Tukaram praises the women who love Hari so wholly that no one can match their pace, giving themselves over with their entire being. He calls them devapisa, God-mad, and treats that madness as the highest generosity rather than a failing. The closing scene of milkmaids plotting to corner Krishna and shut him in their house is the same love turned playful and bold: they want to seize and keep the Lord himself. The abhanga sets this reckless wholehearted devotion above any measured, careful piety.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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