Sant Tukaram: The Warkari Poet Who Spoke God's Language
In the 17th century, a shopkeeper from Dehu near Pune composed abhangas so powerful that they defined the Marathi bhakti tradition — and are still sung every year by millions walking to Pandharpur.
Sant Tukaram: The Saint Who Sang God Into Existence
He was a bankrupt merchant. He was a grieving father. And from those depths, he composed poetry that four centuries later, people are still singing on a pilgrimage to Pandharpur.
Category: Poets | Era: 17th Century | Home: Dehu, near Pune
Sant Tukaram (1608–1650) occupies a unique place in Marathi literary and spiritual history. A grocer from Dehu — a village some 25 km from Pune — he lost his first wife and a child during a devastating famine. In the ruins of his material life, he began composing abhangas — devotional poems addressed to the god Vitthal of Pandharpur.
These poems, written in spoken Marathi rather than Sanskrit, made spiritual wisdom accessible to everyone — farmer and merchant, man and woman, high-caste and untouchable.
The Abhangas
Tukaram composed approximately 4,500 abhangas — short, intense devotional poems of extraordinary directness and emotional power. The themes are universal: longing for God, despair at the world's cruelty, the liberation that comes through surrender of ego.
"What is there in this world that is truly mine? Even this body is borrowed." — Sant Tukaram
His language was the Marathi of the marketplace, not the scripture. He never claimed to be a learned man. He claimed only to be in love with God — and that love has kept his words alive for four hundred years.
The Wari: Pilgrimage as Poetry in Motion
Every year, millions of Warkaris (devotees of the Warkari tradition) walk from across Maharashtra to Pandharpur in the pilgrimage called the Wari. They carry flags (palkhis), sing Tukaram's abhangas, and advance on foot for weeks at a time. The palkhi originating from Dehu carries the footwear of Tukaram himself.
This living, walking, singing expression of faith is, in itself, one of the world's oldest ongoing literary performances.
Tukaram never went to school. He never learned Sanskrit. And he wrote some of the greatest poetry in any Indian language. The lesson may be the most important he ever taught.
📍 Dehu, Pune District — Sant Tukaram Maharaj Math | ~25 km from Pune city
