Tukaram

History glossary

Also called: Sant Tukaram · Topic: Bhakti and Sufi Traditions · NCERT: Class 8, Ch 3 "The Marathas"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Bhakti-Sufi Traditions"

Meaning

Tukaram (c. 1608–1650), also called Sant Tukaram, was a 17th-century Marathi saint-poet of the Varkari tradition. He came from Dehu, near Pune, and wrote abhangs (short devotional songs in Marathi) to Vitthala of Pandharpur. His songs teach that loving devotion to God matters more than ritual, book-learning or caste.

He matters because he is the best-known voice of Maharashtra's bhakti movement. His songs carried religious ideas in the people's own language to ordinary farmers and traders, in the same years that the Maratha state of Shivaji was rising.

Explanation

Background: the Maharashtra bhakti tradition

From the 13th century, a strong bhakti movement grew in Maharashtra.
Its centre was Pandharpur, the shrine of Vitthala, a local form of Vishnu.
The saints of this tradition are called sants.
Their songs are called abhangs, and they are in Marathi.
Earlier sants of this line include Jnaneshwar (13th century), Namdev, Eknath (16th century), and saints from humble backgrounds such as Chokhamela and Janabai.
Tukaram, in the 17th century, is usually seen as the high point of this line.
The wider bhakti movement had started in the south. Thinkers like Ramanuja gave it a base in philosophy, and the Virashaivas of Karnataka turned it into a social protest. The Marathi sant tradition is the later movement that spread north-west.

Who he was

According to tradition, Tukaram was born into a Shudra (Kunbi) family that ran a small trading business at Dehu, on the Indrayani river.
He was not a Brahmana and had no Sanskrit learning. He spoke to God, and to the people, in plain Marathi.
Tradition says that famine, debt and the death of family members turned him away from trade and towards full devotion to Vitthala.
A well-known story says that orthodox critics made him sink his notebooks in the Indrayani, and the notebooks came back unharmed. This is a legend, not a recorded fact, but it shows the conflict between the sants and Brahmanical authority.

What he taught

Personal devotion (bhakti) to Vitthala is the true path to God.
Against ritual: he rejected empty ritual, pilgrimages done only for show, and outward signs of piety.
Against caste pride: a person's worth comes from devotion and good conduct, not from birth. Sants such as Tukaram refused to rank people by caste.
Against renunciation: the Maharashtra sants did not ask people to leave home. They lived with their families, earned a living and served fellow human beings in need.
The true saint is the one who stands with the poor and suffering. A famous line of his says that whoever treats the battered and the beaten as his own is a real saint, and God lives in him.
Language as a tool: writing in Marathi, not Sanskrit, put religious knowledge within reach of ordinary people.

Legacy

His abhangs were collected in the Tukaram Gatha, and people in Maharashtra still sing them.
The Varkari pilgrims walk to Pandharpur every year in the wari (the yearly pilgrimage on foot). A palkhi (palanquin) carrying Tukaram's padukas (sacred sandals) sets out from Dehu and joins it.
His ideas of equality and simple devotion helped build a shared Marathi religious culture in the age of Shivaji.

Time, place and evidence

Period: 17th century, c. 1608–1650. Sources differ slightly on the exact years, so treat them as approximate.
Political setting: the Deccan under the Deccan Sultanates and the advancing Mughals. The Maratha state of Shivaji rose in his lifetime, and later tradition links the two men.
Places:
Dehu, near Pune, on the Indrayani river: his home.
Pandharpur, the shrine of Vitthala: the centre of his devotion and of the Varkari pilgrimage.
Region and language: Maharashtra; Marathi.
How we know:
His own abhangs, collected in the Tukaram Gatha and passed down by singing and by copying.
Hagiographies (stories of saints' lives written by devotees) from later Varkari tradition, which mix fact with legend.
The living Varkari practice of the wari, which keeps his songs and memory alive.

Don't confuse with

Ramdas (Samarth Ramdas): also a 17th-century saint of Maharashtra and a contemporary of Tukaram. He worshipped Rama, wrote the Dasbodh, and tradition calls him Shivaji's guru. Tukaram was a Varkari devotee of Vitthala who wrote abhangs.
Jnaneshwar (Dnyaneshwar): an early Varkari sant of the 13th century who wrote the Jnaneshwari, a Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Tukaram came about four centuries later.
Abhang vs vachana: abhangs are Marathi devotional songs of the Pandharpur sants. Vachanas are free-verse Kannada sayings of the Virashaivas (Basavanna's followers).
Tukaram vs Tulsidas: Tulsidas was a 16th–17th century Hindi (Awadhi) poet who wrote the Ramcharitmanas about Rama. Tukaram wrote in Marathi to Vitthala.

Prelims Hooks

Tukaram: 17th-century Varkari saint from Dehu (near Pune). He was devoted to Vitthala of Pandharpur.
His songs are abhangs, in Marathi, collected as the Tukaram Gatha.
Chronological order of the Marathi sants: Jnaneshwar (13th c.) → Namdev → Eknath (16th c.) → Tukaram (17th c.).
Matching trap: Tukaram → Vitthala / abhang; Ramdas → Rama / Dasbodh; Basavanna → Shiva / vachana.
Maharashtra bhakti centred on Pandharpur dates from the 13th century. Its saints are called sants.
The wari is the yearly Varkari pilgrimage on foot to Pandharpur. Tukaram's palkhi starts from Dehu.

Mains Points

Bhakti as social levelling in the home language: Tukaram was a Shudra trader with no Sanskrit learning. He used Marathi abhangs to tell people that devotion counts, not caste or ritual. Like the Kannada vachanas of the Virashaivas, this moved religious authority away from the Brahmana monopoly and towards ordinary people.
Devotion inside daily life: the Maharashtra sants rejected renunciation. They praised family life, honest work and service to the poor. This compares well with Ramanuja's view that the world is real and with the Virashaiva joining of devotion to work. It is a useful example of continuity across the bhakti movement.
Religion and regional identity: Tukaram's songs, the Pandharpur wari and the Marathi language built a shared culture across castes in the 17th century. Historians often link this to the social base of the rising Maratha state. It is a useful link between bhakti history and the political history of the Marathas (Class 8, "The Marathas").

Related concepts

Reforming the south: Ramanuja and the Virashaiva tradition

Sources

1Class 8, Ch 3 "The Marathas"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Bhakti-Sufi Traditions" (primary)