Tukaram Gatha

01A grocer of Dehu

Tukaram was born at Dehu on the Indrayani, near Pune, into the More family, who kept a shop and served the family temple of Vitthal that an ancestor, Vishvambhar, had built. The Varkari tradition gives his years as 1608 to 1650. He ran the shop, lent money and kept accounts, until the great famine of the 1630s took his first wife and his son, the cattle died and the business failed. He sank the debt papers of those who owed him in the Indrayani, went up the Bhamchandra hill to sit alone with Vitthal's name, and came down a different man. In a dream, he sings, his guru Babaji Chaitanya gave him the mantra "Rama Krishna Hari".

02Plain words for Vitthal

An abhanga is a short song, usually of three to five couplets with a refrain, ending with the poet's signature, "Tuka mhane", says Tuka. Tukaram sings of famine and debt, which he lived through, of the bazaar, of hypocrites, and above all of Vitthal standing on his brick at Pandharpur with hands on his hips. The second abhanga of the Gatha gives the picture every Varkari carries: lovely is that form standing on the brick, hands resting on the waist, the tulasi garland at his neck and the yellow cloth at his hips. Some songs are tender, some scolding, some written as if Vitthal were his mother and he a child crying to be picked up.

03The notebooks in the Indrayani

The Varkari tradition tells that Tukaram's songs angered some learned men of his day, among them Rameshwar Bhatt of Vagholi, who held that the meaning of the Vedas was not for him to speak of. He was made to sink his notebooks in the Indrayani at Dehu. He sat by the river without food for thirteen days, and on the thirteenth the notebooks rose to the surface, dry. Rameshwar Bhatt, the tradition continues, fell ill, came to see what he had done, and became Tukaram's devotee, and an abhanga of his in Tukaram's praise is still sung. The Gatha Mandir at Dehu now has the abhangas carved on its walls.

04The Name over everything

Tukaram's teaching is the Varkari teaching in its plainest form. Sing the Name, keep the Ekadashi, walk to Pandharpur, serve the saints; learning and ritual without love are noise. He has no patience for the man who wears the marks of holiness and cheats in the market. And he says who the true sadhu is: "je ka ranjale ganjale, tyasi mhane jo apule", the one who calls the afflicted and the downtrodden his own, know him to be the sadhu, and know that God is there. Words were all he had, and he made them his worship: in our house the wealth is the jewels of words, he sings; we will use words as our weapons.

05How the Gatha is arranged

Tukaram did not arrange his songs into a book. They were written in his notebooks and by his disciple Santaji Jagnade, who followed his kirtans and took them down, and later copyists gathered them village by village. A manuscript kept at Dehu is honoured by the family as the oldest. In the nineteenth century the Bombay government printed a collected Gatha, and the standard editions now count about four and a half thousand abhangas. The Gatha opens with six abhangas of mangalacharan and closes with groups in the folk forms Tukaram borrowed from street performers: johar, gondhal, vasudev, jogi, the grinding and pounding songs, games like phugadi and viti-dandu, each turned to Vitthal.

06Trees and creepers are our kin

Some of Tukaram's best-loved songs come from the hills where he sat alone. "Vriksha valli amha soyari vanachare", trees and creepers are our kin, and the creatures of the forest, and the birds sing to us sweetly: the abhanga goes on to make the sky his canopy and the earth his seat, a quilt and a water pot all he needs, Hari's katha his food. Maharashtra's schools and forest department quote it often. Another set, the viranya, is sung in the voice of a woman parted from her beloved, and longs for Vitthal that way.

07Shivaji and the kirtan

The tradition remembers that the young Chhatrapati Shivaji came to hear Tukaram's kirtan and sent him gifts of gold and cloth with torches and an escort. Tukaram sent them back with a set of abhangas: what would he do with such things, when Vitthal's feet were his wealth? He told the king to serve his own dharma and find his guru in Ramdas. Shivaji, the tradition adds, wished to renounce the throne after hearing him, and Tukaram turned him back to his duty as a king. Whatever the details, the Varkari memory holds the two together, the saint of Dehu and the founder of Swarajya, a few hours' ride apart.

08On the road to Pandharpur

Each Ashadha Tukaram's padukas leave Dehu in a palkhi and walk to Pandharpur with Jnaneshwar's from Alandi, reaching for Ashadhi Ekadashi. The Varkaris credit his youngest son, Narayan Maharaj, with starting the palkhi in 1685. The dindis, groups of Varkaris with cymbals, the mridang and the veena, sing his abhangas the whole way, and at the ringan the horse runs a circle through the crowd. The Varkaris remember his departure on Phalguna Vadya Dvitiya, Tukaram Beej, when tradition says he left the world in his body, carried to Vaikuntha, and Dehu fills with pilgrims on that day.

What it contains

1. 1
   Mangalacharan

   Six opening abhangas in praise of Vitthal. The first asks that the mind rest on the even feet standing on the brick, and wants nothing else, not even the station of Brahma. The second is "sundar te dhyan", the form every Varkari carries in the mind.

2. 2
   Abhangas to Vitthal

   Songs of longing for, and argument with, Pandurang of Pandharpur. Tukaram calls him mother, father, friend and debtor, scolds him for delay and begs him to come. Many are sung at the evening bhajan in every Vitthal temple.

3. 3
   Abhangas of the Name

   The power of chanting "Rama Krishna Hari" and Vitthal's name over ritual and learning. The Name needs no time, no place, no wealth and no caste. These abhangas are the core of the Varkari kirtan.

4. 4
   Abhangas of life and society

   Famine, worldly life, the true sadhu and sharp words for pretenders. Here are "je ka ranjale ganjale" and the abhanga on words as wealth. Marathi speech has taken many of their lines as proverbs.

5. 5
   Abhangas in folk forms

   Groups modelled on the songs of street performers and village life: johar, gondhal, vasudev, jogi, the grinding song, the game songs, and an abhanga version of Rama's story. Each takes a familiar tune and fills it with Vitthal. They are still performed as bharud in kirtans.

6. 6
   Abhangas of his own life

   His dream-initiation, the famine, the Indrayani, the hills where he sat alone, and his farewell. The farewell abhangas, in which he tells the people of Dehu that he is going to his own country, are sung on Tukaram Beej. Together they are the main source for his life.

Famous verses

सुंदर तें ध्यान उभे विटेवरी । कर कटावरी ठेवूनियां ॥

Lovely is that form, standing on the brick, hands resting on the hips.Tukaram Gatha 2 (Mangalacharan; Marathi Wikisource numbering)

जें का रंजलें गांजलें । त्यासि म्हणे जो आपुलें ॥ तो चि साधु ओळखावा । देव तेथें चि जाणावा ॥

The one who calls the afflicted and the downtrodden his own: know him to be the sadhu, and know that God is there.Tukaram Gatha 347 (Marathi Wikisource numbering)

वृक्ष वल्ली आह्मां सोयरीं वनचरें । पक्षी ही सुस्वरें आळविती ॥

Trees and creepers are our kin, and the creatures of the forest; the birds too sing to us in sweet voices.Tukaram Gatha 2471 (Marathi Wikisource numbering)

आह्मां घरीं धन शब्दाचीं रत्नें । शब्दाचीं शस्त्रें यत्न करूं ॥

In our house the wealth is the jewels of words; words are the weapons we will strive with.Tukaram Gatha 3385 (Marathi Wikisource numbering)