The Abhang 4-A man is only as chaste as his own belief
The brahmin who flies into a rage at the touch of a mahar
That’s no brahmin.
The only absolution for such a brahmin
Is to die for his own sin.
He who refuses to touch a chandal
Has a polluted mind
Says Tuka, a man is only as chaste
As his own belief
Extract from a Tukaram abhang. Dilip Chitre’s translation:From Says Tuka, Penguin Books 1991.
The Bhakti poets (not just those from Maharashtra, but on a pan -Indian basis) rejected the divisions of caste and class.
Quite a few of Sant Tukaram’s abhangas contain searing social commentary-he criticised everyone from exploitative Brahmins to ascetics to those claiming to be spiritual gurus:
He has corrupted the doctrine of the self-beyond-the-self:
In the name of the Guru, he is only indulging himself!
Anyone could form a direct relationship with the Divine-this did not have to be mediated by caste, community or ritual.
All that one needed was to take the Divine’s name.
True the bhakti poets rejected the divisions of class and caste, but I have always felt that
bhakti tradition as it was practiced and permeated into the South, particularly in the Tanjore belt in the form of Sampradaya Bhajans ignored this basic foundational ideology!
That part is sociologically fascinating in itself as to how it ended up being a move from sacrificial and ritual-based worship to singing/chanting the names-based one but the underlying social fabric never changed!
Sadly true. What about those who will think of Tukaram (who was a Shudra) as a sant but will treat shudras as beneath them in their daily life…