Abhanga 2627
If you find yourself looking at sacred-things and registering only their material-substrate (water, stone, men), and afterward feeling restless-without-relief, Tukārām offers the diagnosis: the abhāva (lack of bhāva) is the pollution; the surface-only-vision produces kaṣṭī sadā duḥkhī — troubled, always sorrowful — body-mind. The remedy is not to argue oneself into belief but to recognize that bhāva is what makes practice yield, and its absence is what makes surface-view people remain taḷamaḷa (restless) without ceasing. The diagnostic is meant as a useful early-warning, not a condemnation.
The verse
तीर्थ जळ देखे पाषाण प्रतिमा । संत ते अधमा माणसाऐसे ॥१॥
वांजेच्या मैथुनापरी गेलें वांयां । बांडेल्याचें जायां जालें पीक ॥ध्रु.॥
अभाविक सदा सुतकी चांडाळ । सदा तळमळ चुके चि ना ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे वरदळी ज्याची दृष्टी । देहबुद्धि कष्टी सदा दुःखी ॥३॥
Literal translation
He sees tīrtha as (mere) water, the image as (mere) stone, sants as just lowly men. He has gone vāyā (wasted) like the union of a barren woman; the yield-crop of the ridiculous-one has arrived. The abhāvika (faithless) one is always sūtakī (in pollution-state), a chāṇḍāla; restlessness never ceases. Tukā says: whose vision is on the surface — body-mind is kaṣṭī (troubled), always sorrowful.
What it means
A sharp polemic against the surface-view, framed as a diagnostic of why surface-only-seers reach nothing. The opening line names the surface-vision: tīrtha jaḷa dēkhē — pāṣāṇa pratimā — santa tē adhamā māṇasā-aisē — he sees tīrtha as (just) water, image as (just) stone, sants as just lowly men. Each item is identified at its lowest material-only register: pilgrimage-place = water; mūrti = stone; saints = mere men. The diagnostic identifies people whose vision stops at the matter.
The dhrūpada gives the unsparing analogy: vāñjēchyā maithunāparī gēlē vāyā — bāṇḍelyāchē jāyā jālē pīka — gone wasted like the union of a barren woman — the yield-crop of the absurd-one has arrived. The vāñjā maithuna (intercourse of the barren) image is brutal but precise: the activity happens with full form but no possibility of yield. Surface-view practices have full form (someone goes to tīrtha, bows to mūrti, sees a santa) but no possibility of fruit, because the bhāva (the necessary emotional-receptivity) is absent.
The middle verse names the personality-type: abhāvika sadā sūtakī chāṇḍāḷa — sadā taḷamaḷa chukē chi nā — the abhāvika (faithless, bhāva-less) one is always sūtakī (in birth-or-death pollution-state), a chāṇḍāla (outcaste, polluter); his restlessness (taḷamaḷa) never ceases. The diagnostic flips the conventional pollution-categories: it is not caste-by-birth that makes one polluted; it is abhāva — the absence of bhāva.
The close offers the somatic-prognosis: varadaḷī jyāchī drṣṭī — dēha-buddhi kaṣṭī sadā duḥkhī — whose vision is on the surface (varadaḷī = on-the-upper, on-the-top, on-the-surface) — his body-mind is troubled, always sorrowful. The penalty for surface-only-vision is somatic: the body-mind cannot rest; kaṣṭī sadā duḥkhī — troubled, always sorrowful. This is not a moral threat; it is a diagnostic of a state.
For someone today
If you find yourself looking at sacred-things and registering only their material-substrate (water, stone, men), and afterward feeling restless-without-relief, Tukārām offers the diagnosis: the abhāva (lack of bhāva) is the pollution; the surface-only-vision produces kaṣṭī sadā duḥkhī — troubled, always sorrowful — body-mind. The remedy is not to argue oneself into belief but to recognize that bhāva is what makes practice yield, and its absence is what makes surface-view people remain taḷamaḷa (restless) without ceasing. The diagnostic is meant as a useful early-warning, not a condemnation.
Where this applies
- Recognizing the body-mind-always-sorrowful state as a symptom of surface-only-vision
- The vāñjā-maithuna image as warning — full form, no yield
- Reframing pollution from caste-category to bhāva-presence
- Auditing one's own state when sacred practices keep being barren