Abhanga 4348
When you've come to God as your only refuge, unanswered silence can feel like the deepest kind of abandonment, and it's honest to say so.
The verse
गंगा गेली सिंधुपाशीं । जरी तो ठाव नेदी तिशी ॥१॥
तिणें जावें कवण्या ठाया । मज सांगा पंढरिराया ॥ध्रु.॥
जळ क्षोभलें जलचरां । माता बाळा नेदी थारा ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे आलों शरण । देवा त्वां कां धरिलें मौन्य ॥३॥
Literal translation
Gangā-to-Sindhu — if-not-given-place. Where-to-go — tell-Paṇḍharī-rāya. Jala-disturbed — mother-no-thārā-to-baby. Tukā: came-to-refuge — Deva-why-mauna.
What it means
A 3-verse refuge-rejected petition. The Gangā went to the ocean — if he doesn't give her a place, where shall she go? Tell me, Paṇḍharī-rāya. If the water is disturbed for the water-creatures, if the mother gives the baby no shelter — (where shall they go)? Tukā says: I've come to refuge — Deva, why have you taken silence? Two natural-images for the refuge-rejected: (1) Gangā-river arriving at her natural-end (ocean) and being-refused; (2) mother refusing-shelter-to-baby. Both invert the natural-order. Pair with 4267 (only-you-cut-loka-lāja), 4206 (mauna-protest).
For someone today
Tukaram voices a raw, anxious plea to God. He compares his situation to the river Ganga reaching the ocean, her only natural destination, asking where she could possibly go if the ocean itself refused her a place. He adds two more images of the natural order being broken: troubled water leaving the creatures who live in it with nowhere to rest, and a mother who refuses shelter to her own baby. Having come to God as his one and only refuge, Tukaram asks in genuine distress why God has gone silent instead of answering him.
मराठी: तुकाराम देवाकडे एक कच्ची, व्याकुळ विनंती मांडतात. ते आपली स्थिती गंगेशी जोडतात - गंगा शेवटी समुद्राला जाऊन मिळते, तिचे तेच अंतिम ठिकाण आहे, पण समुद्रानेच जागा नाकारली तर तिने कुठे जावे, असे ते विचारतात. यासोबत ते नैसर्गिक व्यवस्था उलटल्याची आणखी दोन उदाहरणे देतात - क्षुब्ध झालेल्या पाण्यात जलचरांना विसावा न मिळणे, आणि आईने बाळाला आसराच न देणे. देवाला आपला एकमेव आसरा मानून शरण आलेले तुकाराम खरोखर व्याकुळ होऊन विचारतात की देवाने उत्तर न देता मौन का धरले आहे.
Where this applies
- Tukārām's Gangā-Sindhu refuge-rejected mother-baby-image canonical