The roots of the Bhakti movement in Maharashtra lie in the Vithobha faith.

Though the faith

originated in Karnataka, it was introduced into Pandharpur in Maharashtra by a sage named
Pudalika. It was further incorporated into the Bhakti movement and made famous by two Varkari
poet-saints - Jnanesvara (1271 or 1275 – 1296) and Namadeva (1270-1350). They achieved this
through the use of the vernacular (Marathi as opposed to Sanskrit), samkirtana in which the name
of God is praised through melody and also opening their sessions up to people from all castes
including women and the untouchables. However, under the Muslim rule the Vithoba faith and
the Bhakti movement were not able to maintain their strong roots in the state. This decline of the
movement continued for many years but in about 200 years when wars broke out between the
Muslim rulers in the Deccan region, the people of Maharashtra were given an opportunity to
advance their language and culture again. It was at this point that Maharashtra saw the rise of and
I quote Dilip Chitre “not only the last great Bhakti poet in Marathi but also the first truly modern
Marathi poet”. Chitre further comments that “Tukaram's stature in Marathi literature is
comparable to that of Shakespeare in English or Goethe in German. He could be called the
quintessential Marathi poet reflecting the genius or the language as well as its characteristic
literary culture. There is no other Marathi writer who has so deeply and widely influenced
Marathi literary culture since… For Tukaram's poetry is also used by illiterate millions to voice
their prayers or to express their love of God.”

Tukaram’s biographical data is varied, ambiguous and often highly debated over. The year of his
birth is one such highly debated issue as some critics believe it to be 1598 while others argue that
it was 1609. However, the year of his mysterious disappearance is more or less fixed at 1649.
The events of his life are mostly reconstructed through his own poetry (which is largely
autobiographical) and also from tales from popular folklore. Such ambiguity extends to the
manuscripts of his work which contain a massive jumbled collection of randomly scattered
poems of which only a few are in clearly linked sequences and thematic units.

At the time of Tukaram, the Brahmins maintained that members of all the varnas other than
themselves were shudras. Therefore, Tukaram was born a shudra. The second among three sons
he came from a family of well respected traders and despite being a shudra was by no means
economically or socially backward. The early death of his parents and the renunciation of the
world by his elder brother thrust him in the realm of responsibility. Before the age of 21 he
witnessed several deaths due to the great famine of 1629. He lost both of his parents as well as
his first wife, Rakhma. The famine and the personal as well as human suffering that he witnessed
had a devastating impact on him and he lost all interest in the life of a householder. The famine
coupled with other factors also made him bankrupt and as he was unable to pay his debt’s back
the village council which stripped him of his position as Mahajan and passed strictures against
him. It was at this point in his life that Tukaram became extremely withdrawn and started going
off into the wilderness for long spells of time. As he paid no attention to his household
responsibilities his second wife and children were left to fend for themselves. He soon became an
outcast and a subject of either scorn or pity. However, Tukaram devotion to Lord Vitthal and his
compassion for all forms of life won him some admiration and soon with his poetry or abhangs
he won a majority of the local support.

Tukaram’s writings were seen as a threat to the power of the Brahmins in two major ways.
Firstly, he wrote in the vernacular i.e. colloquial Marathi which encroached upon the Brahmin
monopoly as they were the only class that was allowed to learn Sanskrit which was believed to
be the ‘language of the gods’. Secondly, being a shudra the Brahmins felt that he had no right to
talk about or have an opinion on matters of faith. In his lifetime Tukaram had to face many
difficulties caused by the Brahmins. He was ostracized and was also forced to throw his
manuscript into the local Indrayani river at Dehu. As the legend goes Tukaram took a fast onto
death praying to God for the restoration of his lifetime of works. After 13 days of fasting it is
believed that his undamaged manuscripts were recovered floating in the river. The incident
seems to have silenced the Brahmins as well as the other critics of Tukaram.

The role of a poet and the stature of a saint that was conferred on him post this incident “did not
cause Tukaram to go into ecstasy. Instead, he began to suffer from anxiety, doubt and pangs of
conscience.” He wrote of God without having any experience of God and this troubled his soul.
He expresses these feelings in verse when he says "Whereof I have no experience, thereof I
cannot sing. How can I write of You, O Vitthal, when I have not personally experienced Your
being?" However, this anxiety was mitigated by a mystical event that Tukaram talks about in his
verse. “Tukaram was dreaming that he was going to a river for a dip when he was suddenly
confronted by a holy man who placed his hand on Tukaram's head and gave him the mantra,
"Ram Krishna Hari” to chant. This holy man told Tukaram that his name was "Babaji" and that
he was a lineal spiritual descendant of the gurus Raghav Chaitanya and Keshav Chaitanya. When
Tukaram was given this mantra, he felt his entire being come alive. He experienced a fullness of
being he had never before felt.” This incident propelled him into his most creative phase and also
the last known decade of his life. His verse became immensely popular and drew large crowds
who wanted to hear his abhangs.

At the age of 41 Tukaram mysteriously disappeared. Some people believe that Tukaram just
vanished into thin air while singing his poetry in front of an ecstatic audience on the bank of the
river Indrayani in Dehu. Some others speculate that he was murdered by his enemies. Still others
think that he ended his own life by drowning himself into the very river where his poems had
been sunk earlier. Reading his farewell poems, however, one is inclined to imagine that Tukaram
bade a proper farewell to his close friends and fellow-devotees and left his native village for
some unknown destination with no intention of returning.

Tukaram’s poetry provides the reader not only with almost all biographical data regarding his life
but also functions as a critique of the society that he lived in. The Marathi poet-saints are an
exception to the general rule that Indian devotional literature shows little awareness of the
prevailing social conditions. “The Marathi "saints", both implicitly and explicitly, questioned the
elitist monopoly of spiritual knowledge and privilege embodied in the caste hierarchy. They were
strongly egalitarian and preached universal love and compassion. They trusted their native
language, Marathi, more than Sanskrit of the scriptures or the erudite commentaries thereon.
They made language a form of shared religion and religion a shared language.”

By focusing on his work some features of his Bhakti are clearly visible. The relationship that he
shared with his God was a master servant one and his feeling of unworthiness is also strongly
palpable.

“I am

The soil

Touched by

Your feet
“Says Tuka -

O Lord of Pandharpur

Do not ever

Treat me

As anything

Else”

Further, he was very conscious of being a poet and so his verse also talks of poetry and being a
poet with its responsibilities and difficulties.

Have I utterly lost my hold on reality

To imagine myself writing poetry?

I am sure you illustrious devotees,

All famous poets, will laugh at me.

Life, in all its forms and primarily human life and suffering was a constant subject for Tukaram.
This is again clearly visible in his poems. He is acutely aware of his own social responsibility
and the stature of saint that has been given to him also becomes a focal point. His critique of
existing social structures is also very clear in his verse.

“Tukaram's poetry expresses pain and bewilderment, fear and anxiety, exasperation and
desperateness, boredom and meaninglessness - in fact all the feelings that characterize modern
self-awareness. Tukaram's poetry is always apparently easy to understand and simple in its
structure. But it has many hidden traps. It has a deadpan irony that is not easy to detect. It has
deadly paradoxes and a savage black humor.”

Chitre’s above comment draws our attention to Tukaram not just as a bhakt or a devotee of God
Vitthal who challenged the existing norms of his day, but also as an imaginative craftsman and an
excellent poet. His poetry reflects the concern of man, even modern day man. The spiritual
oneness that he strives to achieve through his verse and the struggle that he goes through is a
universal one. Though Tukaram writes about the inner plight of man, he is acutely aware of his
own social context. He preaches compassion and kindness and not futile ritualistic practices.

He who identifies

With the battered and the beaten

Mark him as a saint

For God is with him (Chitre)

“Tukaram knows that he is in charge of his own feelings and the meaning of his poetry. This is
not merely the confidence of a master craftsman; it is much more. It is his conviction that man is
responsible for his own spiritual destiny as much as he is in charge of his own worldly affairs. He
believes that freedom means self-determination. He sees the connection between being and
making choice. His belief is a conscious choice for which he has willingly paid a price.”