Abhanga 172

Krishna designs the game so no one sulks off by staging the rounds, dropping gossip, and naming every player, and the true winner absorbs the loser as one of his own rather than casting them out.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

The post-rūdī fix abhang. Where 171 named the rūdī-sulk problem, 172 names the structural fix — Krishna's own game-design at Yamuna-bank.

Three rules: 1. हाल महाहाल मांडा — lay the rounds, the great-rounds. The game has staged structure — small rounds, then larger ones. Don't skip the staging. 2. वाउगी सांडा मोकळी — abandon the loose-talk, the empty-chatter. The rūdī in 171 came partly from gossip-during-play. Drop it before the game. 3. नांवें ठेवूनि वांटा गडी — naming each, distribute the comrades. Each comrade named and assigned. No anonymous side-formation; everyone is recognized as part of the game in their specificity.

Result: न वजे रडी मग कोणी — then no one will go into rūdī. The sulk-quit is structurally prevented by the naming-and-assignment.

The closing claim is theological: कान्हो तिळतांदळ्या, जिंके तो करी आपुला खेळ्या — Kanho the tila-tāndaḷyā — whoever wins makes (everyone) his own player. Tila-tāndaḷyā (तिळतांदळ्या) is a folk Marathi epithet — the sesame-and-grain-mixer, one who blends the small and the big together so they cannot be separated. (Tila / sesame-seeds and tāndaḷ / rice mixed together cannot be re-sorted.) And जिंके तो करी आपुला खेळ्या — the winner makes (the loser) his own player. The post-game move is assimilation, not exclusion. Krishna-the-mixer wins, and the winning-effect is to fold the loser into his side. [T]

For someone today

This abhang lays out Krishna's own design for preventing the sulking-quit problem from the previous abhang.

First, stage the rounds — small ones before larger ones. Don't go all-in from the very start. Second, drop the loose talk and gossip that happens during play; that idle chatter is what plants the seeds of sulking. Third, name and assign every player individually, by who they specifically are, rather than letting people cluster anonymously into sides. Naming each person prevents the slide into sulking and quitting.

And underneath all this is a deeper claim: whoever keeps winning against you — a teacher, a practice, a real love — may be doing something other than defeating you. Whoever wins makes the loser his own player. The winner here is a mixer, someone who blends sesame and rice so thoroughly they can never be separated again — so losing to him, round after round, isn't exclusion, it's being folded into him. So if you keep losing to a real teaching or a real love, ask whether you're actually being absorbed into it rather than beaten by it.

मराठी: ही ओवी मागच्या ओवीतल्या रडीच्या डावाच्या समस्येवर कृष्णाने स्वतः रचलेला उपाय सांगते.

पहिलं — फेऱ्या टप्प्याटप्प्याने रचा — आधी लहान, मग मोठ्या. सुरुवातीलाच पूर्ण ताकद लावू नका. दुसरं — खेळताना होणारी वटवट आणि गॉसिप सोडून द्या; हीच रिकामी बडबड रडीच्या डावाची बीजं पेरते. तिसरं — प्रत्येक खेळाडूला त्याच्या स्वतःच्या नावाने वाटून द्या, अनामिकपणे गट न बनवता. प्रत्येकाला नावाने ओळखणंच रडीच्या डावाकडे घसरण्यापासून थांबवतं.

आणि या सगळ्यामागे एक खोलवरचा दावा आहे: जो सतत तुमच्यावर विजयी होतो — गुरू, साधना, किंवा खरं प्रेम — तो तुम्हाला हरवण्याखेरीज आणखी काही करत असतो. जो जिंकतो, तो हरणाऱ्याला आपलाच खेळाडू बनवतो. इथला जेता एक मिसळणारा आहे — तीळ आणि तांदूळ इतके एकजीव करणारा की ते पुन्हा वेगळे करता येत नाहीत — त्यामुळे त्याच्याकडून वारंवार हरणं म्हणजे बहिष्कार नाही, तर त्याच्यात सामावून घेतलं जाणं आहे. त्यामुळे एखाद्या खऱ्या शिकवणीकडे किंवा खऱ्या प्रेमाकडे तुम्ही सतत हरत असाल, तर तपासा — तुम्ही खरंच हरत आहात की त्यात सामावले जात आहात.

Where this applies

• Rūdī keeps happening in the play. Stage / drop loose-talk / name-and-assign.
• Loose-talk during the game. वाउगी सांडा.
• Losing to the deity. Recognize being-folded-in.

Related verses

• Abhanga 2448 — The easiest path to God is repeating divine names with love at home, right where you are,
• Abhanga 2467 — What looks like your whole world, like a fig to the insect living inside it, is only a tin
• Abhanga 2494 — Living in devotion turns an ordinary day into a festival and removes the fear of birth and
• Abhanga 4481 — Tukaram promises that sincerely calling on the Lord's name, knowingly or unknowingly, with