Abhanga 2467

What looks like your whole world, like a fig to the insect living inside it, is only a tiny piece of an unimaginably vast reality held within the divine child, and that vastness reason cannot grasp, love can.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

THE COSMOGRAPHIC FIG-TREE ABHANG. One of Tukārām's most-philosophical cosmological-bhakti meditations.

The concentric-scale meditation — Tukārām builds-a-zoom-out across six magnitudes:

1. Insect-in-fig: the smallest-scale — umbarāntīla kīṭakā — hē chi brahmāṇḍa aiśē lēkhā — the insect-inside-the-fig (umbara = wild-fig, Ficus-glomerata) counts-THE-FIG as-the-entire-brahmāṇḍa.

2. Many-figs on tree, many-trees in nine-corners — aiśīm umbarē kitī jhāḍīm — aiśīm jhāḍē kitī navakhaḍīm — uncountable-figs on-each-tree, uncountable-trees in-the-nine-directions.

3. Countless-eggs/worlds — aiśīm agaṇita aṇḍē kaisīm — countless-cosmic-eggs (brahmāṇḍas).

4. Virāṭ-body's countless hairs — virāṭāchē angī taisē — mōjūm jātām agaṇita kēśa — countless-hairs on-the-Virāṭ-body.

5. Crores-of-Virāṭ in whose-belly — aiśā virāṭāchyā kōṭī — sāṇṭavalyā jyāchyā pōṭīm — crores-of-such-Virāṭ stored in-someone's-belly.

6. ALL OF THIS — IS NANDA'S CHILD-MUKUNDA — tō hā Nandāchā bāḷa-Mukunda — tānhā mhaṇavī parama-ānanda — this very [container of cosmoses] is Nanda's child-Mukunda — the infant called parama-ānanda.

THE COSMOLOGICAL-BHAKTI SYNTHESIS: Each-scale-of-reality (insect, fig, tree, nine-corners, Virāṭ, crores-of-Virāṭ) is-contained-in-the-next, and-ALL-OF-IT is-finally-contained in-the-belly-of-the-child-Kṛṣṇa at-Nanda's-house — the infant-called-parama-ānanda. The famous Bhāgavata-Purāṇa-image of-Yaśodā-seeing-the-cosmos-in-Kṛṣṇa's-mouth rendered as a-concentric-fig-meditation.

The closing: aiśī agamya īśvarī līḷā — Brahmānandīm gamya Tukyālā — such inscrutable Īśvara-līḷā — Brahmānanda-graspable by Tukyā. What's inscrutable-as-philosophy becomes-graspable through-Brahmānanda (ānanda-of-Brahman) — bhakti's-cognitive-superiority.

[T]

For someone today

For today: insect-in-fig thinks fig is the cosmos; many figs on tree, many trees in directions; crores of Virāṭ stored in whose belly; Nanda's child-Mukunda — the infant called parama-ānanda.

Where this applies

• When your own small world of troubles feels like the entire universe, like the insect who thinks the fig is everything
• When you feel overwhelmed trying to reason your way through the vastness of existence
• When you try to understand the divine purely through logic and find it impossible to hold in the mind
• When you need perspective on how small your daily worries are next to the vastness held within the divine

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 4497 — Tukaram describes a life so soaked in devotion that Krishna's presence fills every ordinar
• Abhanga 4582 — The closing verse of the whole Gatha promises that reading it with reverence fulfills the