Abhanga 3189
Some arrangements are best left intact. You sin, the One who purifies purifies — don't try to flip roles, don't innovate. Stay in your hereditary station of bhakta and let Deva stay in his of pāvana. Address him with the boldness of an inheritor, not a beggar.
The verse
आम्ही पापी तूं पावन । हें तों पूर्वापार जाण ॥१॥
नवें करूं नये जुनें । सांभाळावें ज्याचें तेणें ॥ध्रु.॥
राखावा तो ठाव । मिरासी करोनि उपाव ॥२॥
वादें मारी हाका । देवा आइकवी तुका ॥३॥
Literal translation
Āmhī pāpī tūm pāvana — hēm tōm pūrvāpāra jāṇa — we (are) pāpī, you (are) pāvana — know this as pūrvāpāra. Navēm karūm nayē junēm — sāmbhāḷāvēm jyāchēm tēṇē — do not make the old into new — let each guard what is his. Rākhāvā tō ṭhāva — mirāsī karōnī upāva — guard that ṭhāva — making the upāya mirāsī. Vādēm mārī hākā — Devā āikavī Tukā — (I) strike shouts in vāda — Tukā makes Deva hear.
What it means
A 4-verse text using the rural-administrative term mirāsī (hereditary tenure of office or land, common in 17th-c Maharashtra). Tukārām claims a hereditary bhakti-station: pāpī-and-pāvana is the eternal contract — we sin, you purify — and this should not be renovated into something new. Each side guards its own ṭhāva. The bhakta makes the Lord hear by hākā (sharp shouts) in dispute.
For someone today
Some arrangements are best left intact. You sin, the One who purifies purifies — don't try to flip roles, don't innovate. Stay in your hereditary station of bhakta and let Deva stay in his of pāvana. Address him with the boldness of an inheritor, not a beggar.
Where this applies
- Tukārām's we-pāpī-you-pāvana-old-arrangement; mirāsī-bhakti canonical
- 17th-c bhakti vocabulary borrowing from Maratha land-tenure terms