Abhanga 170

This abhang is comic and tender at once, and it holds two lessons.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

The gopi-mothers' mock-rage scene. After discovering the upturned milk-pot (169), the gopis plan their discipline — and the abhang is comic-tender:

1. दोघां धरूनियां मारूं — catch and beat the two. The mock-threat. The gopis are not actually going to harm Krishna and his comrades; this is the standard post-mischief disciplinary script.

2. But the punchline: मग टाकिती हे खोडी, तोंडीं लागली ते गोडी — then they'll drop the mischief — the sweetness has gotten on the tongue. Tongue-with-the-taste-of-stolen-butter cannot un-taste. The gopis themselves know the discipline cannot work; the sweetness has already taken hold.

3. कोंडूं घरामधीं, न बोलोनि जागों बुद्धी — lock them in the house, without speaking — awaken the buddhi. The new plan: containment with silence. The hidden Tukaram-irony: being locked in the house with Krishna, in silence, is exactly bhakti-samādhi. The mock-punishment is the gift. जागों बुद्धी — the wisdom awakens — precisely because of the silent containment.

4. बोलावितो देवा, तुका गडियांचा मेळावा — Tuka calls the deva — the comrade-band gathering. While the gopis plan the containment, Tuka calls the bhakti-band together — the saving frame. The gaḍiyāñcā mēḷāvā (comrade-gathering) is the social-form of bhakti.

[T]

For someone today

This abhang is comic and tender at once, and it holds two lessons.

The first is that once you've truly tasted something real — a real love, a real practice, a real disruption by grace — no amount of discipline will make you go back. You can't un-taste it. People around you may threaten you, lock you down, or try to correct you, but the sweetness has already taken hold. This isn't license to be reckless; it's simply the recognition that, in this playful drama, the mothers' threats were never serious.

The second lesson is a paradox: what looks like confinement can actually be a gift. Being shut in a quiet room with the one you love is exactly what awakens wisdom. So don't automatically fight an apparent restriction — check first whether it's actually protected time with what you love.

And Tukaram's own response, when the world around him threatens, is to call on the deity and gather his community of friends. Bhakti is communal, and that band of companions is what makes it sustainable.

मराठी: ही ओवी एकाच वेळी विनोदी आणि हळुवार आहे, आणि तिच्यात दोन शिकवणी आहेत.

पहिली — एकदा खरी गोष्ट चाखली की — खरं प्रेम, खरी साधना, कृपेने घडलेली खरी उलथापालथ — कोणतीही शिस्त तुम्हाला परत आणू शकत नाही. जे चाखलं ते विसरता येत नाही. आजूबाजूचे लोक धमकावतील, बंद करतील, शिस्त लावण्याचा प्रयत्न करतील — पण गोडी आधीच जिभेवर रुजलेली असते. याचा अर्थ बेफिकीर वागावं असा नाही; हा फक्त या खेळकर नाट्यात आयांच्या धमक्या खऱ्या नव्हत्या याची ओळख आहे.

दुसरी शिकवण एक विरोधाभास आहे: जे बंदिस्त वाटतं ते प्रत्यक्षात देणगी असू शकतं. प्रिय व्यक्तीसोबत शांत खोलीत बंद असणं हेच बुद्धी जागवतं. त्यामुळे दिसणाऱ्या बंधनाशी लगेच लढू नका — ती खरोखर प्रिय गोष्टीसोबतचा राखलेला वेळ आहे का ते आधी तपासा.

आणि आजूबाजूचं जग धमकावत असताना तुकारामांची स्वतःची प्रतिक्रिया अशी आहे — देवाला हाक मारा आणि मित्रांचा मेळावा जमवा. भक्ती ही सामूहिक गोष्ट आहे, आणि मित्रांचा हा गोतावळाच ती टिकवून ठेवतो.

Where this applies

• Sweetness already on the tongue. No discipline returns you.
• Apparent-containment is gift. कोंडूं घरामधीं — जागों बुद्धी.
• Comrade-band is the saving frame. गडियांचा मेळावा.

Related verses

• Abhanga 2467 — What looks like your whole world, like a fig to the insect living inside it, is only a tin
• Abhanga 4481 — Tukaram promises that sincerely calling on the Lord's name, knowingly or unknowingly, with
• Abhanga 4482 — Tukaram teaches that no ritual equals sincerely speaking the Lord's name, that self-center
• Abhanga 4497 — Tukaram describes a life so soaked in devotion that Krishna's presence fills every ordinar