God spoke through him

This year, four centuries ago, was born Marathi poet Tukaram, one of the greatest mystics of India, comparable in reputation with Kabir. ...

This year, four centuries ago, was born Marathi poet Tukaram, one of the greatest mystics of India, comparable in reputation with Kabir. Like most Maharashtrian saint-poets, Tuka is associated with the worship of Lord Vitthala 8212; that is, Vishnu, in his temple at Pandharpur on the banks of the river Bhima in the district of Sholapur.

I first read Tuka8217;s verses, called abhangs in Marathi, as they appear in the first three chapters of a Bengali work on Mumbai entitled Bombai Chitra 1889 by Satyendranath Tagore 1842-1923, Rabindranath8217;s elder brother, who was an ICS officer in the city for over three decades. As Satyendranath says, some of these verses were translated by Rabindranath with his help.

Satyendranath took us closer to Tuka by giving details of Pandharpur in his Bengali autobiography Amar Valyakatha O Amar Bombai Pravas 1915. The book included pictures of the temple and even an image of Vitthala, the object of the saint8217;s adoration.

The position of Tukaram in our bhakti poetry ispre-eminent. In Maharashtra his work is mentioned as the third constituent of the Marathi Prasthanatraya, the two other works in the trio being Jnanadeva8217;s Jnaneswari and Eknath8217;s Ekanathi Bhagavat. Tuka looked upon his words as the words of God, the way the Hebrew prophets did in the Old Testament. In his abhang 1188, Tuka says: quot;These are not my words. God Panduranga speaks them through me.quot;

Tuka puts bhakti at the centre of his spiritual life. In one of his verses, he declares that Bhaktimarg is quot;the only way to God in this agequot;. Another provides a succinct statement of his philosophy of religion: quot;God has no form, nor any name, nor any place where he can be seen; but wherever you go, you see God.quot;

Tuka has a bhakta8217;s disregard for advaita when he says: quot;Advaitism pleases me not. Give me the service of thy feet. Reserve for me the relation between God and devotee and fill me with happiness.quot; Tuka8217;s rejection of advaita anticipateseighteenth-century Bengali poet Ramprasad Sen8217;s words: 8220;I do not want to be sugar because I love to eat sugar.quot;

At the same time, Tuka comes very close to the advaita experience when he says: quot;A union has obtained between name and form8230;As a dumb man eats sugar, so the mystic enjoys beatification. What now follows is utter spiritual silence.quot;

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Actually, in the spectrum of Tuka8217;s spiritual sensibility, we have a variety of shades and hues 8212; and often he seems to love a tension between dvaita and advaita. This may be true of all mystics.

Four centuries after Tukaram8217;s birth, it is time to free appreciation of his poetry from some of the fallacies in the Western scholars8217; approach to it. In his introduction to Psalms of Maratha Saints 1919, for example, Nicol Macnicol quotes a line from a Tuka verse, quot;God is their debtor nowquot;, and comments that quot;such audacity is beyond the reach of the Hebrew or the Christian penitent8217;. Macnicol has no conception of the reciprocity of love betweenGod and man and God waiting for man8217;s love.

Let us remember German mystic Eckhart8217;s words: quot;He can as little do without me as I can do without Himquot;. Or the words of Maria Rilke:quot;Hat wilt Thou do God, when I die.quot; Tuka comes very close to the sentiment of Rabindranath when he says in the Gitanjali: quot;Thou Lord of all heavens, where would be thy love if I were not?quot;

I do not know if there is now any English edition of Tukaram superior to the work of Fraser and Marathe8217;s work published in 1909. Abbott8217;s English version 1930 is now rare. What we need today is a commentary to answer such criticism as we find in Fraser and Eward8217;s Life and Teachings of Tukaram 1922.