A REBELLION SAINT - TUKARAM Part I

Background

Vidrohi Tukaram

Maharashtra is India’s progressive state and featured by the great saint order since 12^th Century. This state is always known for its tradition of warakari sect. it is a sect who perform wari (walkathon) to the sacred place of Pandharpur and worship Lord Vitthal. It’s a part of the Bhakti Movement. Warkaris recognize around fifty poet-saints (sants) whose works over a period of 500 years were documented in an eighteenth-century hagiography by Mahipati. The Warkari tradition regards these sants (saint)  to have a common spiritual line of descent.  But while documenting these poems lots of addition and alteration has been done with the original teachings of Saints of Warakari Sect. It happened in almost every religion. Saint Tukaram was one of the most influential saints in the tradition of Maharashtra. His teaching was misinterpreted, his great character was assassinated and his rational thoughts were being tried to bury by the contemporary established class. His poems were victims of artificial alterations and addition too. Saint Tukaram was the great intellect but he was considered in restricted boundaries of literature. Dr. A. H. Salunkhe, a renowned litterateur has unveiled the truth and bring a face of revolutionary and rebellion saint through his famous Marathi non-fiction “vidrohi Tukaram”. A Rebellion Sanit Tukaram is a series of articles based on the book Vidrohi Tukaram. It is the first article of the series.

MAN OF THOUGHTS AND ACTION

Rebellion Saint- Tukaram

Contemporary society was under the shackles of the cruel regime of Muslim kings and Casteism were at peak. Lower strata of people are denied basic rights. The established class was robbing the poor through meaningless karmkandas (rituals).  Women were marginalized and Shudras were denied rights over God and vedas. It was a period where all types of discrimination were rampant. But the same period was the beginning of promising Maratha Emperor as well as it was an era of revolution and rebel against the inhuman rituals and varna system by Tukaram. Tukaram was born in Dehu near Pune in 1608.  He was from a rich family. Tukaram's family owned a retailing and money-lending business as well as engaged in agriculture and trade. His parents were devotees of Vithoba. From childhood, Tukaram was fond of lord Vithal. By seeing the grief of poor and exploitative system he used to ask questions to Vitthal through Abhangas.  He had knowledge of social issues and has anger about the exploitative societal structure. He used to express his anger through his Abhangs and also implement in it his own life. This journey of rebellion saint had a massive turn after social revelation. It was a milestone in Tukaram's Life.

Revelation to Tukaram was a Social Revelation, not spiritual revolution

Tukaram was from a rich family. His family business was moneylending. Since childhood, he had been seeing helpless people came to his father for mortgaging and taking loan. Recovering debts to the poor was not the purpose of his life.  On the contrary, he decided to use his power to fight those who denied the poor the right to live with dignity for generations.  He went outside to Bhanmnath Moutain and sat there in meditation for 7 days.  After spending seven days meditating on the mountain of social consciousness, Tukaram had some special revelation about life.  As a direct result of this revelation, he drowned the loan documents debtor in the river of Indrayani before stepping into the house again. It was not a religious or spiritual revelation but it was a social revelation. This meant that the enlightenment that took place was not of a mysterious, profound spiritual nature, but of a genuine philosophy of life through the keen and benevolent observation of the social situation. Debt settlement is one of the rarest events in human history.  It is not uncommon for one to lose one's own wealth, integrity or authority, with very few people whose moral consciousness is highly developed, whose conscience is very stable and whose concept of humanity is very high.  Tukaram was one of such free people, the maturity of his extraordinary conduct and thoughts was shown by Tukaram. For about two hundred years before Marx, Tukaram had become less immersed in his class interests, had been declassified.

Revolutionary Revelation was either misinterpreted or neglected

It a revolutionary incident but highly neglected the essence of incidents by scholars. Instead of it was corruptly presenting this incident from a different angle. It was described as Tukaram was not practical enough and just for emotion's sake, he sacrificed his business. Such interpretation was an attempt to diminish the importance of the great act of scarifying. In contemporary society, only religious revelation had more importance. But Tukaram was not an ordinary religious poem. He had knowledge of social conditions. Act of scarifying business was not come out of hit of the moment but it was come out of continuous thought process.  If it was an impractical act then all the acts by the social reformers would have been impractical acts.

Tukaram’s  abhangas were answer to lie

Through films and discourses in religious function, it was trying to present a false image of Tukaram in which Tukaram’s Economic Condition was depicting as worse and he was struggling to get food of two times for his family. Moreover, Mahipati added his own words to Tukaram’s tongue and claiming that Tukaram accepted the path of Sanyasi and choose to beg as a source of survival. Everything was a big lie. Saint Tukaram, on many occasions, has strongly opposed the begging. In his poem, he said to lord vital that he was not lacking food. He can survive his family without any help. 

नाही दुकालालो अन्ना ! परी या मान जनार्धना!! 608.1

नाही आम्ही खात! काही कोणाचे लागत !! 2133.3 

These lines of his poems clearly told us about Tukaram. There are many poems that support the fact that Tukaram had no worst family life. It was a misinterpretation by the established class who did not want to spread Tukaram’s teaching at grassroots because of Tukaram’s rebel against prevailing rituals and exploitations by Upper-Class people.

One more lie that was disseminated by established contemporary power was that Tukaram was a coward and weak. Because of his weak nature, he escaped from family life. It was baseless information. Tukaram, for more than 20 years, fought against casteism, Varna system, strongly criticized the Vedas and raised voice against an exploitative system imposed by then brahminical society. How one can say that such a powerful and intellectual man was weak. It was false information spread by certain people to lower the importance of Rebellion Saint.

Tukaram had the means of lending which could exploit the common people, he drowned it himself.  His conduct set an example before us for worldly possessions.  Wealth should be acquired for the sake of the family, but it should not be obtained by deceiving, swindling, or indulging in unreasonable temptations, he told the people through his actions.  This ideal was not for the ascetics, but for the householders.  Through this act, he became closer to the common people.  They reconciled their joys and sorrows, identifying steps.  He proved that he was not the only a man of thoughts but the man of action.

To be continued ......................Next Article will throw lights of his view on Vedas