Devotion, I gave You a home
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
सोसोनि विपत्ती । जोडी दिली तुझे हातीं ॥1॥
त्याचा हा चि उपकार । अंतीं आह्माशीं वेव्हार ॥ध्रु.॥
नामरूपा केला ठाव। तुज कोण ह्मणतें देव ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे हरी । तुज ठाव दिला घरीं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
By enduring hardship, I have placed my earnings into Your hands. This alone is the return on the investment: that in the end, our dealings are with You. I have given name and form a dwelling place. Otherwise, who would call You God? Says Tuka, O Hari, I have given You a home in my own house.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
By bearing hardship, I earned, and I placed the earnings into Your hands. This is the only return on it: that in the end my dealings are with You. I gave Your name and form a place to stand. Otherwise who would call You God? Tuka says: O Hari, I have given You a home in my own house.
What it means
Tukaram describes his devotion as hard-won earnings, gathered through suffering and then handed straight over to God, with the only profit being that he now has dealings with God alone. Then he turns the relationship around with daring intimacy: it is the devotee who gives the formless Lord a name and a form to inhabit. Without someone to worship Him and house Him, who would even call Him God? The closing line makes it personal and tender: I have given You a home in my own house. Love makes the worshipper the keeper of the One he worships.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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