Abhanga 2730
The verse offers the canonical extreme-humility prayer-template. I alone am defective; everyone-else is very good. Please forgive me; by these words is my petition. Me-and-mine has become the burden of wrong. I have rinsed myself out — I have become a no-person. The radical-reversal of natural-pride: yēra bahu barē (everyone-else is good) — not I am special-or-justified. The diagnosis: mī-mājhē (me-and-mine) is the ōjhē-anyāya (burden-of-wrong). The self-erasure: nimanuṣya (no-person).
The verse
मी च विखळ मी च विखळ । येर सकळ बहु बरें ॥१॥
पाहिजे हें क्षमा केलें । येणें बोलें विनवणी ॥ध्रु.॥
मी च माझें मी च माझें । जालें ओझें अन्याय ॥२॥
आधीं आंचवला आधीं आंचवला । तुका जाला निमनुष्य ॥३॥
Literal translation
Mī cha vikhaḷa mī cha vikhaḷa — I alone am vikhaḷa (defective, broken, useless); I alone am defective. Yēra sakaḷa bahu barē — everyone-else is very good. Pāhije hē kṣamā kelē — please give kṣamā (forgiveness); yēṇē bōlē vinavaṇī — by these-words is my petition. Mī cha mājhē mī cha mājhē — jālē ōjhē anyāya — me-and-mine, me-and-mine — has become the ōjhē (burden) of anyāya (wrong). Ādhīm āmchavalā ādhīm āmchavalā — first rinsed-himself-out, first rinsed-himself-out; Tukā jālā nimanuṣya — Tukā has become a nimanuṣya (no-person, less-than-human).
What it means
This abhang is THE canonical Tukārām extreme-humility prayer, one of the most-quoted self-deprecation petitions in Marathi-bhakti literature. The doubled-phrases hammer the humility into emphatic-repetition. Each verse is structured as a doubled-statement.
Mī cha vikhaḷa mī cha vikhaḷa — yēra sakaḷa bahu barē — the canonical line. I alone am defective; everyone-else is very good. This is a total-reversal of the natural-pride-stance. In ordinary discourse, others have-faults and we have-justifications; Tukārām reverses it: yēra sakaḷa bahu barē — everyone-else is very good. Only the self is vikhaḷa (defective, broken). The repetition mī cha vikhaḷa mī cha vikhaḷa makes it emphatic — not a passing-mood but a settled-stance.
The dhrūpada: pāhije hē kṣamā kelē — yēṇē bōlē vinavaṇī — please give kṣamā (forgiveness); by these-words is my petition. The petition is articulated. Kṣamā (forgiveness) is asked-for by-the-very-words-of-self-defectiveness-confession. The confession is itself the petition.
The second verse names the engine: mī cha mājhē mī cha mājhē — jālē ōjhē anyāya — me-and-mine, me-and-mine — has become the burden of anyāya (wrong). The mī-mājhē (me-and-mine) ideology — the constant assertion of self-and-possession — is itself the burden of anyāya. The wrong is not in specific-acts but in the structural mī-cha-mājhē posture.
The close is the most-radical: ādhīm āmchavalā ādhīm āmchavalā — Tukā jālā nimanuṣya — first rinsed-himself-out, first rinsed-himself-out — Tukā has become a nimanuṣya (no-person, less-than-human). Āmchavalā (rinsed-out, cleaned-out completely) — the bhakta has rinsed himself out twice over. The result: nimanuṣya — no-person, less-than-human, un-person. This is among the most-radical self-erasures in the entire Marathi-bhakti tradition.
The doubled-rinsing is theologically-significant. First rinsed; first rinsed — Tukārām has done the work before-asking for forgiveness. He hasn't waited for kṣamā to clean him; he has āmchavalā (rinsed-himself-out) first, and the kṣamā he then asks-for is for what-remains.
For someone today
The verse offers the canonical extreme-humility prayer-template. I alone am defective; everyone-else is very good. Please forgive me; by these words is my petition. Me-and-mine has become the burden of wrong. I have rinsed myself out — I have become a no-person. The radical-reversal of natural-pride: yēra bahu barē (everyone-else is good) — not I am special-or-justified. The diagnosis: mī-mājhē (me-and-mine) is the ōjhē-anyāya (burden-of-wrong). The self-erasure: nimanuṣya (no-person).
You may not be able to reach the full nimanuṣya stance, but the verse offers a permission-direction: try saying yēra sakaḷa bahu barē about anyone you usually criticize. The reversal alone is humbling. And try mī-cha-mājhē-jālē-ōjhē-anyāya — that the me-and-mine posture is the wrong itself, not just specific acts.
Where this applies
- The canonical Vārkarī daily kṣamā-prārthanā (forgiveness-petition)
- The extreme-humility template — I alone defective, everyone-else good
- Recognizing that me-and-mine is itself the burden-of-wrong
- The nimanuṣya (no-person) self-erasure as the closing seal