Abhanga 1745

This editorial note explains that Rameshwar Bhat, who once opposed Tukaram, suffered a burning fever and that the very next abhang is the one Tukaram wrote to calm it.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

Editorial-biographical-marker abhang. A third-person editorial-stanza (not in Tukaram's own voice) that identifies the next abhang (1746) as the fever-extinguishing-abhang.

The Tukaram-Rāmeśvara-bhaṭṭa narrative: One of the foundational biographical-events in the Tukaram-tradition. Rāmeśvara-bhaṭṭa was a Brahmin scholar from Wāgholī who initially-opposed Tukaram-of-the-Kunbi-caste — claimed Tukaram had no-right (as a Śūdra) to compose Sanskrit-influenced abhangs and read scriptures. Rāmeśvara-bhaṭṭa allegedly had Tukaram's gathā-manuscripts thrown into the Indrāyaṇī river. The story: Tukaram fasted for thirteen days; Pāṇḍuranga returned the manuscripts to him from the river; thereafter Rāmeśvara-bhaṭṭa repented and became Tukaram's-disciple.

Anaghaḍasiddha is referenced here as having spoken-words that caused dāha (burning-fever) in Rāmeśvara-bhaṭṭa's body. Anaghaḍasiddha may be a siddha-saint whom Rāmeśvara-bhaṭṭa had-disrespected; the disrespect led to a yogic-curse-burning. (Some traditions identify Anaghaḍasiddha as related to Tukaram's lineage of saint-tradition.) The cure came when Tukaram composed-and-sent the abhang (= 1746); on hearing it, the burning was extinguished.

This makes 1746 a biographically-charged abhang — composed for a specific-occasion, with specific-curative-power. The editorial-stanza here is the gathā-compilers' identification of that-abhang's-context.

[T]

For someone today

For today: (this is an editorial-biographical-marker by the gathā-compilers identifying the next abhang as) — by Anaghaḍasiddha's word-effect, burning-fever arose in Rāmeśvara-bhaṭṭa's body; the abhang which calmed-it follows.

Where this applies

• When you're about to read the next abhang and want to know the story behind why it was written
• When you've mocked or dismissed someone's devotion because of their background
• When you're suffering some burning distress after having wronged someone
• When you doubt that a person who once opposed you could ever come to need or accept your grace

Related verses

• 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 4483 — Tukaram tells of the gopis whose all-consuming secret longing for Krishna, hidden beneath
• Abhanga 4495 — Tukaram tells how Krishna's mother and the cowherd families, absorbed in their own practic