Devotion, love over qualification
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
गौळीयाची ताकपिरें । कोण पोरें चांगलीं ॥१॥
येवढा त्यांचा छंद देवा । काय सेवा भक्ती ते ॥ध्रु.॥
काय उपास पडिले होते । कण्याभोंवते विदुराच्या ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे कुब्जा दासी । रूपरासी हीनकळा ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
What were the milkmaids but women with buttermilk vessels, and what were their children but ordinary ones? Yet what an obsessive passion they had for God; what great devotion did they perform? What feast had Vidura prepared? Just coarse grain and husks. Says Tuka, and Kubja was a hunchbacked maidservant, devoid of beauty or art, yet the Lord gave himself to her.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What were the cowherd women but ordinary milkmaids with their pots of buttermilk, and their children but ordinary children? Yet what a wild passion for God they had; and what formal worship did they ever perform? What feast did Vidura set before the Lord? Only coarse grain and husks. Tuka says: and Kubja was a hunchbacked servant girl, plain and without grace, yet the Lord gave himself to her.
What it means
Tukaram piles up examples to make one point: God is won by love, not by qualification. The cowherd women were unlettered milkmaids, Vidura offered the Lord nothing but coarse grain, Kubja was a deformed servant with neither beauty nor accomplishment, and yet each received God fully. None of them had status, learning, or correct ritual; all of them had overwhelming devotion. The lesson is aimed straight at anyone who feels too low or too unqualified to approach God. The only credential that has ever mattered is the heart's passion.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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