Longing, where is your protection
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काय म्यां मानावें हरिकथेचें फळ । तरिजे सकळ जनीं ऐसें ॥१॥
उच्छेद तो असे हा गे आरंभला । रोकडें विठ्ठला परचक्र ॥ध्रु.॥
पापाविण नाहीं पाप येत पुढें । साक्षसी रोकडें साक्ष आलें ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे जेथें वसतील दास । तेथें तुझा वास कैसा आतां ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
What fruit of Hari's story should I believe in, if it is said that all people are thereby saved? For destruction has already begun, and the enemy's invasion stands before us in plain sight, O Vitthala. Sin does not arrive without prior sin; the evidence has come as a living witness. Says Tuka, where your devotees reside, how is it that your presence there can be so questioned now?.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What fruit of Hari's story should I believe in, if it is said all people are saved by it? For the destruction has already begun, and the enemy stands before us in plain sight, O Vitthala. No sin comes without an earlier sin; the proof has come now as a living witness. Tuka says: where your servants live, how can your presence be in doubt now?
What it means
Tukaram is pressing God with a hard question born of catastrophe. The teaching promises that Hari's story saves everyone, yet ruin has already begun and an enemy stands openly before them, so he asks what fruit that promise is supposed to have. He half answers his own doubt with the law that no calamity comes without prior wrong, the present disaster being its living evidence. But the real ache is the last line: the devotees live here, and they were told God lives where his devotees live, so how can that presence now seem absent? It is a believer's protest, demanding that God make good on his own word.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
More in this theme →