Sant · The Voice of Vitthal
तुकाराम
17th-century poet-saint from Maharashtra whose abhangs transformed devotional literature and gave the Marathi people a spiritual language of their own.
Born
Dehu, near Pune
Died
Dehu, c. 1650
Language
Marathi
Tradition
Varkari
Deity
Vitthal of Pandharpur
Caste origin
Kunbi (cultivator)
Principal work
Tukaram Gatha
He was a grain-merchant who lost his shop, his first wife, and his eldest son in the famine of 1629. From that ruin he became the most quoted poet in the Marathi language — a man whose abhangs are still sung, four hundred years later, by half a million pilgrims walking each summer to Pandharpur.
Tukaram was born around 1608 in the village of Dehu, on the banks of the Indrayani, into a family of Kunbi grain merchants. The Deccan of his childhood was a contested ground — Mughal armies pressed south, the Adilshahi held court at Bijapur, and a young Shivaji was still a boy at his mother's knee.
The famine of 1629 destroyed his household. His first wife and eldest son starved. His shop collapsed under debts. Tukaram withdrew to the Bhandara hills above Dehu and spent months in meditation. He emerged convinced that the mantra of Vitthal — the dark-skinned god of Pandharpur — had been given to him in a dream by the saint Namdev.
Over the next two decades he composed several thousand abhangs — short Marathi devotional poems built on a powerful inner rhythm. They borrow the language of the field and the market, not of the court. They are devotional, but they are also satirical, autobiographical, and at times furious.
His refusal to keep poetry within Brahminical Sanskrit drew the wrath of the orthodox. The legends of the drowned manuscripts and the offered throne belong to this period. He vanished from Dehu around 1650 — the tradition says he ascended bodily to Vaikuntha; historians say he simply walked away.
c. 1608
Born to Bolhoba and Kanakai in Dehu.
1629
The Great Deccan Famine destroys his household.
1630s
Withdraws to the Bhandara hills; receives the Vitthal mantra in a vision.
1640s
Composes the bulk of the abhangs that will form the Tukaram Gatha.
1640s
Faces opposition from the Brahmin Rameshwar Bhatt; tradition of the drowned manuscripts.
c. 1649
Reputedly refuses patronage offered by the young Shivaji.
c. 1650
Disappears from Dehu; the abhang tradition continues through his disciples Niloba and Bahinabai.
Marathi
Abhang collection
Roughly 4,500 abhangs attributed to Tukaram, compiled by his disciples.
Marathi
Oral tradition
Hundreds of abhangs preserved through the Varkari kirtan tradition before being written down.
Marathi
Meditative verses
Composed during his retreat after the famine — the most introspective of his work.
Teaching · 01
Spiritual truth is not the property of any caste, sect or language. The cobbler's song reaches Vitthal as surely as the priest's chant.
Teaching · 02
He who treats the suffering of others as his own — that one is the true saint, and the divine dwells within him.
Teaching · 03
Constant remembrance of the divine name purifies the heart more thoroughly than ritual or pilgrimage.
Teaching · 04
Tukaram refused to separate aesthetic from spiritual life. The well-made abhang is itself an offering.
Story
When the orthodox Brahmin Rameshwar Bhatt ordered Tukaram's poems thrown into the Indrayani, the saint sat in fast on its banks. Thirteen days later, tradition holds, the bundles surfaced dry and unstained — and Bhatt himself became a disciple.
Story
Shivaji Maharaj is said to have sent Tukaram horses, jewels, and the promise of a court appointment. The saint sent everything back. 'I have no use for these,' he replied. 'My wealth is the name of Vitthal.'
Words are the only jewels I possess. Words are the only clothes I wear. Words are the only food that sustains my life.
He who calls the weary and the distressed his own, he is the true saint; God dwells within him.
I have eaten from the same plate as the untouchable. What caste, what creed, remains in me now?
Read through: Devotion · The vernacular · Translation
Related Saints
Related Traditions
Varkari
The pilgrimage tradition to Pandharpur. Tukaram is its most quoted poet.
Saguna Bhakti
Worship of the divine with form — in this case the black-stone Vitthal.
Says Tuka — Selected Poetry of Tukaram
Dilip Chitre (trans.)
1991
The Life and Teaching of Tukārām
J. Nelson Fraser & K.B. Marathe
1909
Palkhi: An Indian Pilgrimage
D.B. Mokashi
1964