Abhanga 4023
This closeness with God came as pure unearned coincidence, not through effort, so now that it has happened, hold onto it and do not let go.
The verse
पावलों हा देह कागतालिन्यायें । न घडे उपायें घडों आलें ॥१॥
आतां माझीं खंडीं देह देहांतरें । अभय दातारें देऊनियां ॥ध्रु.॥
अंधळ्याचे पाठीं धनाची चरवी । अघटित तेंवि घडों आलें ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे योग घडला बरवा । आतां कास देवा न सोडीं मी ॥३॥
Literal translation
Got-deha-kāgatāli-nyāya — unattainable-by-upāya — came-on-its-own. Cut-deha-dehāntara — abhaya-dātāra. Aghaṭita — like-treasure-on-blind's-back. Tukā: fine-yoga-happened — won't-let-go-Deva's-kāsa.
What it means
A 3-verse accidental-bhakti text. I got this body by the crow-and-palm-fruit principle (an accidental coincidence); what couldn't happen by effort came on its own. Now my (multiple) bodies-and-rebirths are cut — by the abhaya from the giver. As a stream of money falls upon a blind man's back — unexpected — it has happened. A fine union has come about; I won't let go of Deva's waist-cloth. Kāgatāli-nyāya: the classical Sanskrit principle where a crow sits on a palm-tree precisely as the palm-fruit falls — pure coincidence, but appears causal. Tukārām attributes his own bhakti-finding to this kind of windfall — not earned, just-happened. The treasure-on-blind-man's-back is a related image of accidental-unexpected-gain.
For someone today
Tukaram says he did not reason or work his way into devotion; it fell into his lap the way a crow happens to land on a palm tree at the exact moment its fruit drops, a coincidence that looks planned but was not. He compares it to treasure suddenly landing on a blind man's back: pure luck, nothing he could have arranged by effort. Because this rare, unearned closeness with God has happened to him, he refuses to loosen his grip on it now that he has it.
मराठी: तुकाराम म्हणतात की त्यांनी विचार करून किंवा प्रयत्न करून भक्ती मिळवली नाही, ती अशी अचानक मिळाली जशी कावळा बसतो नेमक्या त्याच क्षणी झाडावरचे फळ पडते, म्हणजे योगायोग जो नियोजित वाटतो पण नसतो. ते याची तुलना आंधळ्याच्या पाठीवर अचानक पडणाऱ्या धनाच्या राशीशी करतात, म्हणजे निव्वळ नशीब, जे प्रयत्नाने घडवता आले नसते. अशी दुर्मीळ, न कमावलेली देवाशी जवळीक झाल्यामुळे, आता ती मिळाल्यावर ते ती सोडून द्यायला तयार नाहीत.
Where this applies
- Tukārām's kāgatāli-nyāya bhakti-as-windfall canonical
- aghaṭita-yoga unexpected-conjunction