Abhanga 2641
Call out passionately, again and again — lest there be a miss. Back and forth, for a moment, there is no distance. The Name is settled in the mouth playing — I keep testing it again and again. Tukā: Viṭhṭhala has made many people happy.
The verse
सोसें सोसें मारूं हाका । होइल चुका म्हणऊनि ॥१॥
मागें पुढें क्षणभरी । नव्हे दुरी अंतर ॥ध्रु.॥
नाम मुखीं बैसला चाळा । वेळोवेळां पडताळीं ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे सुखी केलें । या विठ्ठलें बहुतांसी ॥३॥
Literal translation
Call out passionately, passionately — lest there be a miss. Back-and-forth a moment — no distance, no interval. The Name is settled in the mouth playing; I keep testing again and again. Tukā says: Viṭhṭhala has made many people happy.
What it means
A small vigilance-prayer. Sōsē sōsē mārūm hākā — call out passionately, passionately. The doubled adverb sōsē sōsē names the intensity. Hōila chukā mhaṇa'ūnī — lest there be a miss (chukā). The bhakta calls with passion because the next call might be the one that's missed.
The dhrūpada is the reassurance: māgēm puḍhēm kṣaṇa-bharī — navhē durī antara — back-and-forth for a moment — there is no distance, no interval. Antara (distance, interval, separation) — the gap is not there. Even when the call goes māgēm puḍhēm (back-and-forth), the gap-of-distance is not.
The middle verse: nāma mukhīm baisalā chāḷā — vēḷōvēḷā paḍatāḷī — the Name has settled in the mouth as a chāḷā (playing, sport, rhythm); time and time again I test it (paḍatāḷī = test, check, verify). Chāḷā (a continuous-playing rhythm) — the Name has become rhythmic-play in the mouth. Paḍatāḷī — testing, verifying — the bhakta keeps confirming that the Name is still there.
The close: Viṭhṭhalē bahutāmsī sukhī kelē — Viṭhṭhala has made many people happy. The testimony is broad — bahutāmsī (many) — across the wide community of those served.
For someone today
A useful description of vigilant-calling practice. Call out passionately, lest there be a miss. The vigilance is not anxiety — the dhrūpada explicitly says no distance, no interval even when calling back-and-forth. The Name becomes a chāḷā — a rhythmic-play in the mouth — and the only ongoing action is vēḷōvēḷā paḍatāḷī — again-and-again testing. The testing is not worried; it is confirming-touch, like checking that the ring is still on the finger. The reassurance at the close — Viṭhṭhala has made many happy — is communal: you are not the first or only one this works for.
Where this applies
- The vigilant-calling Name-practice in daily-bhakti
- The no-distance-no-interval reassurance inside vigilance
- The Name as chāḷā (rhythmic-mouth-play)
- Communal testimony — Viṭhṭhala-has-made-many-happy