Adoration, the soul absorbed
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बरवा बरवा बरवा रे देवा तूं । जीवाहूनी आवडसी जीवा रे देवा तूं ॥1॥
पाहातां वदन संतुष्ट लोचन । जाले आइकतां गुण श्रवण रे देवा ॥ध्रु.॥
अष्टै अंगें तनु त्रिविध ताप गेला सीण । वणिनतां लक्षण रे देवा ॥2॥
मन जालें उन्मन अनुपम ग्रहण । तुकयाबंधु ह्मणे महिमा नेणें रे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful You are, O God. You are dearer to the soul than the soul itself. Gazing at Your face, the eyes are satisfied. Hearing Your virtues, the ears are fulfilled. All eight limbs of the body are soothed, and the threefold afflictions of life are dispelled when Your qualities are described. The mind has become absorbed beyond thought. Says Tukayabandhu, I cannot comprehend this glory.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful You are, O God. You are dearer to the soul than the soul itself, O God. Gazing at Your face, the eyes are content. Hearing Your virtues, the ears are filled, O God. The whole body in its eight parts is soothed, the threefold afflictions and weariness are gone, when Your marks are described, O God. The mind has passed beyond thought, an unmatched taking-hold. Tukayabandhu says: I do not know this glory.
What it means
Tukaram, here speaking in his brother's voice, traces beauty entering through every gate of the body until the mind itself dissolves. Sight is satisfied by the Lord's face, hearing by His qualities, and the whole frame is eased so that the three great afflictions and all tiredness lift away. The praise then crosses a threshold: the mind becomes unmana, gone past thought, seized by something beyond compare. The last line is the honest end of such an experience. Having been taken up entirely, the poet says he cannot comprehend the glory that took him; the experience outruns any account of it.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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