Abhanga 258

No one is disqualified from devotion by an impure past; what frees a person is heartfelt remorse joined with remembering Hari, and bringing up another's past is itself the wrong.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

A radically anti-purity-of-origin abhang. Tukaram lists cosmic-deities, sages, saints with irregular / impure pasts — to argue that purity-of-origin is not the bhakti-criterion. Five movements:

1. Cosmic-deities have irregular pasts. Gandharva-Agni-Soma — enjoy maidens; Gāyatrī eats filth. The highest cosmic-deities have irregularities-in-their-puranic-stories. (E.g., the puranic narrative that the first time a young woman menstruates, the menstrual-flow is enjoyed by Gandharva-Agni-Soma in succession; Gāyatrī-mantra has stories of ritual-impurity.)

2. The pippal-tree from crow-droppings; Pandavas have doṣa. Kāgācyā viṣṭhē janma pippaḷāsi — Pāṇḍava-kuḷāsi pāhātām doṣa. Even the pippal (the holy tree) has its origin in a crow's droppings; even the Pāṇḍavas (the puranic-righteous-heroes) have doṣa on examination.

3. Sages with irregular pasts whose names destroy sins. Shakuntalā, Sūta, Karṇa, Śṛngī, Vyāsa — all born irregularly (Shakuntalā from apsarā, Sūta the chariot-driver, Karṇa from unmarried-Kuntī, Śṛngī the deer-haired sage, Vyāsa from Satyavatī before her marriage). And yet their names destroy sins. The irregular-past did not disqualify their name's purifying-power.

4. Saints with low / un-orthodox pasts: Gaṇikā, Ajāmiḷa, Kubjā, Vidura, Pingalā, Vālmīki, Viśvāmitra, Vasiṣṭha, Nārada. Each: Gaṇikā (courtesan), Ajāmiḷa (sinner-name-saved-by-calling-his-son-Nārāyaṇa), Kubjā (deformed maid loved by Krishna, 100), Vidura (low-caste Krishna-bhakta), Pingalā (courtesan-turned-saint), Vālmīki (former-bandit), Viśvāmitra (kṣatriya-turned-rishi after great-failures), Vasiṣṭha (had-impurity-stories), Nārada (varied-past).

5. Tukaram's structural-claim: na vhāvī tīm jālīm; anutāpē-hari-smaraṇa frees; Hari does not remember the past; he-who-utters-the-past goes to naraka.

6. That-which-should-not-have-been became — in men-and-women. The irregularities are real in everyone.
7. With anutāpa (repentance-heat) and remembering Hari, they were freed.
8. Hari does not remember the past — the past is not held against the bhakta.
9. But he whouttersthe past (= reminds, recounts, brings-up another's past) — goes to naraka. The past-utterance is what brings the karma to the utterer.

[T] [Major warkari claim]

For someone today

This is one of Tukaram's most democratically radical abhangs. He lists cosmic deities, sages, and saints who all had irregular, impure, or scandalous origins — courtesans, sinners, former bandits, sages born outside marriage — and points out that none of that history disqualified them from becoming pure and revered. The message is clear: no one is disqualified from devotion by their past, however irregular it may be. What actually frees a person is heartfelt remorse joined with remembering Hari — both are needed together, neither alone is enough. And Tuka closes with a striking rule: Hari himself does not hold anyone's past against them, so if you go around reminding people of their past mistakes, that act of bringing it up is itself what earns you suffering — let the past go, the way God already has.

मराठी: तुकारामांच्या सर्वांत लोकशाहीवादी आणि क्रांतिकारक ओव्यांपैकी ही एक आहे. यात ते देव, ऋषी आणि संत यांची यादी देतात, ज्यांचा भूतकाळ अनियमित, अशुद्ध किंवा वादग्रस्त होता — गणिका, पापी, पूर्वाश्रमीचे दरोडेखोर, विवाहाबाहेर जन्मलेले ऋषी — आणि हे दाखवतात की त्या इतिहासामुळे त्यांना पवित्र आणि पूजनीय होण्यापासून काहीही अडवलं नाही. संदेश स्पष्ट आहे — भूतकाळ कितीही अनियमित असो, त्यामुळे कुणीही भक्तीपासून अपात्र ठरत नाही. माणसाला खरी मुक्ती अनुताप आणि हरिस्मरण या दोन्हींच्या एकत्रित येण्यानेच मिळते — दोन्ही एकत्र लागतात, एकटं काहीही पुरेसं नाही. आणि तुकाराम शेवटी एक ठाम नियम सांगतात — हरी स्वतः कुणाचाही भूतकाळ त्याच्याविरुद्ध धरून ठेवत नाही, त्यामुळे तुम्ही जर इतरांना त्यांच्या भूतकाळातल्या चुकांची आठवण करून देत बसलात, तर तीच कृती तुम्हाला दुःख मिळवून देते — देवाने जसा भूतकाळ आधीच विसरला आहे, तसाच तुम्हीही तो सोडून द्या.

Where this applies

• Don't disqualify by past. The puranic-list includes all-irregular.
• Anutāpa+hari-smaraṇa is the path. Both required.
• Hari forgets the past; you should too. Don't utter others' pasts; naraka to the utterer.

Related verses

• Abhanga 2464 — For today: Pāṇḍuranga is sukha-rūpa ; no wandering, no shaving, no sādhana-pressure ; Chan
• Abhanga 2490 — The divine is most reachable through the living presence of a true saint, not through a di
• 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