Wounded love, the open nerve
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
प्रीतिभंग माझा केला पांडुरंगा । भक्तिरस सांगा कां जी तुह्मीं ॥1॥
ह्मणऊनि कांहीं न ठेवीं चि उरी । आलों वर्मावरी एकाएकीं ॥ध्रु.॥
न देखों चि कांहीं परती माघारी । उरली ते उरी नाहीं मुळीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आला अंतरासी खंड । तरि माझें तोंड खविळलें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You have broken my love, O Panduranga. Why did You reveal the bhakti-rasa, sir? Therefore I keep nothing in reserve. I have come to the vital point suddenly. I see nothing going back at all. Whatever remainder remained is not there at the root. Says Tuka, a rupture has come to the inner being. And so my face has grown bitter.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You have broken my love, Panduranga. Why did you ever show me the sweetness of bhakti, tell me that? So now I keep nothing back in reserve. All at once I have come to the raw and vital spot. I see nothing of me turning back; whatever was left in me is not there at the root anymore. Tuka says: a rupture has come to my inmost being, and so my mouth has turned bitter.
What it means
Tukaram is accusing God of cruelty for a strange reason: God let him taste devotion in the first place. Once the sweetness of bhakti was shown, the longing it woke could not be unfelt, and now its breaking cuts to the nerve. He says he has held nothing in reserve and has nowhere to retreat; the very root of him has been emptied out. The bitterness in his mouth is not turning away from God but the wound of a love that has been opened and not yet answered.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
More in this theme →