Abhanga 4522
Love mixed with self-preservation stays weak and hesitant, and sometimes it takes a grace beyond human courage to do what fear keeps everyone else from doing.
The verse
तीर देखोनियां यमुनेचें जळ । कांठीं च कोल्हाळ करिताती ॥१॥
कइवाड नव्हे घालावया उडी । आपणासि ओढी भय मागें ॥२॥
मागें सरे माय पाउला पाउलीं । आपल्या च घाली धाकें अंग ॥३॥
अंग राखोनियां माय खेद करी । अंतरीचें हरी जाणवलें ॥४॥
जाणवलें मग देवें दिली बुडी । तुका म्हणे कुडी भावना हे ॥५॥
Literal translation
Tira dekhōniyām Yamunece jaḷa — kāṇṭhī ca kolhāḷa karitātī — seeing the bank, the Yamunā's water — on the very bank a kolhāḷa. Kaivāḍa navhe ghālāvayā uḍī — āpaṇāsi ōḍhī bhaya māge — no kaivāḍa to make a jump; one's-own-pull — fear-from-behind. Māge sare māya pāulā pāulī — āpalyā ca ghālī dhāke anga — the mother retreats step-by-step; her own dhāka holds-the-body. Anga rākhōniyām māya khēda karī — antarīce Harī jāṇavale — sparing body, mother does khēda; the antarīcā-Hari came-to-know. Jāṇavale maga Deve dilī buḍī — Tukā mhaṇe kuḍī bhāvanā he — having known, Deva took the dive; Tukā says: this is kuḍī bhāvanā.
What it means
A 5-verse pivot-piece in the Kāḷiyā-mardana cluster. No-one could-jump-in; the-mother's-own-fear pulls-her-back; her bhāva is feeble (kuḍī). Tukārām makes the sharp diagnostic point: the Lord himself had-to-take the buḍī (dive) because even-the-mother's bhāva was kuḍī. This is consistent-with-but-deeper-than the Lord-saves-on-his-own-initiative theme — here even-bhakti-itself is feeble.
For someone today
At the riverbank everyone is wailing, but no one actually has the resolve to jump into the water, fear pulls each person back, even the mother instinctively steps backward and protects her own body while she grieves. Tukaram notices this honestly: real love was present, but it was tangled up with self-protection, so it stayed weak and half-hearted rather than becoming brave action. Sensing this, Krishna himself, the very one they feared lost, takes the dive that no one else could manage. The lesson is a gentle but pointed one, that love mixed with self-preservation is still a feeble kind of love, and sometimes it takes a higher grace to do what human courage alone cannot bring itself to do.
मराठी: नदीकाठी सगळेजण आक्रोश करत आहेत, पण पाण्यात उडी घेण्याचा धीर कोणालाच होत नाही, भीती प्रत्येकाला मागे खेचते, अगदी आईसुद्धा सहजपणे मागे सरते आणि दुःखातही स्वतःच्या शरीराचे रक्षण करते. तुकाराम हे प्रामाणिकपणे नोंदवतात की तिथे खरे प्रेम होते, पण ते स्वसंरक्षणाच्या भावनेत गुरफटलेले होते, त्यामुळे ते धाडसी कृतीत रूपांतरित न होता कमकुवत आणि अर्धवट राहिले. हे जाणून, ज्याला ते गमावल्याची भीती वाटत होती तो कृष्णच स्वतः ती उडी घेतो जी इतर कोणीही घेऊ शकले नाही. यातून एक सौम्य पण थेट शिकवण मिळते की स्वसंरक्षणात मिसळलेले प्रेम अजूनही दुबळेच असते, आणि कधी कधी मानवी धैर्याला जे जमत नाही ते करण्यासाठी उच्च कृपेची गरज असते.
Where this applies
- Tukārām's kuḍī-bhāvanā critique
- Canonical Lord-acts-when-no-one-can
- Companion to 2817 (bhāva-chi-kāraṇa) — bhāva must-be-pure, not-feeble
- Kāḷiyā-mardana cluster