Devotion, the Vaishnava's badge of war
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
गोपीचंदन मुद्रा धरणें । आह्मां लेणें वैष्णवां ॥1॥
मिरवूं अळंकार लेणें । हीं भूषणें स्वामीचीं ॥ध्रु.॥
विकलों ते सेवाजीवें । एक्या भावें एकविध ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे शूर जालों । बाहेर आलों संसारा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
To wear the sandal-paste marks and the sacred seal is our adornment as Vaishnavas. We parade these ornaments and jewels; they are the insignia of our Lord. We have sold our lives in single-pointed service to Him alone. Says Tuka, I have become a warrior who has emerged victorious from the battlefield of worldly life.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
To wear the sandal-paste mark and the sacred seal is our adornment, ours as Vaishnavas. We carry these ornaments and jewels; they are the insignia of our Lord. We have sold our very lives into service, with one feeling, single and undivided. Tuka says: I have become a warrior, and I have come out of worldly life victorious.
What it means
Tukaram turns the outward signs of the devotee into the regalia of a soldier. The sandal-paste marks and the holy seal are not decoration but the insignia of the Lord whose army the Vaishnavas belong to. To wear them is to have sold one's life into single-pointed service, undivided in heart. The closing image names the stakes: worldly life is a battlefield, and the devotee who serves wholly is the warrior who walks off it victorious. Devotion here is not retreat but conquest, the sign worn openly as a banner.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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