Sant Tukaram: Poet-Saint of the Varkari Tradition

A 17th-century poet-saint wrote thousands of devotional verses, not in Sanskrit, but in the language ordinary people actually spoke. That choice shaped Maharashtra‘s culture for centuries.

MCQ Questions

Sant Tukaram

4,500+ Abhangs

Devotional poems composed in Marathi, not Sanskrit

Devoted to Lord Vitthala of Pandharpur, worshipped through the Varkari tradition.

b. c. 1608

Born in Dehu

Near Pune. Sources vary on his exact birth year.

Sect

Varkari

A tradition founded 3 centuries earlier, by Dnyaneshwar.

Method

Kirtans

Popularized community singing as a form of shared worship.

17th Century

Shivaji’s Era

A contemporary of Chhatrapati Shivaji’s Maharashtra.

Bhakti Poet-Saint, Varkari Tradition mcqquestion.com

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A Poet-Saint of Dehu Need to Know

• Sant Tukaram was a 17th-century Bhakti poet-saint from Maharashtra, who died around 1650.
• He was born in Dehu, a village near Pune. Sources give varying birth years, commonly cited as around 1608.
• His family is generally described as Kunbi, a cultivator caste, though some sources call it a trading, or Vani, family.
• The family ran a grocery and moneylending business alongside farming. Its decline is often linked to his turn toward devotion.
• He belonged to the Varkari sect, part of the wider Bhakti tradition.
• He was a contemporary of Chhatrapati Shivaji, active in the same 17th-century Maharashtra.

The Varkari Tradition and the Gatha Good to Know

• The Varkari sect centers on devotion to Lord Vitthala, also called Panduranga or Vithoba, at Pandharpur.
• Tukaram did not found the Varkari tradition. It traces back to Dnyaneshwar in the 13th century, roughly three centuries before Tukaram.
• Tukaram became the tradition's most celebrated later poet, not its originator.
• He composed thousands of devotional poems, called Abhangs, commonly put at around 4,500, though the exact count varies by source.
• He wrote these in Marathi, the language people actually spoke, not Sanskrit.
• He helped popularize community singing, known as kirtans, as a form of worship.
• His Abhangs criticized the caste system and opposed blind ritualism.

Test Yourself

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1. Who is credited with founding the Varkari tradition, roughly three centuries before Sant Tukaram?

Namdev

Dnyaneshwar

Eknath

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

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Legends and Legacy Great to Know

• Tradition holds that orthodox opponents forced Tukaram to throw his manuscripts into the Indrayani river, and that they resurfaced undamaged after 13 days. This is a devotional legend, not documented history.
• Popular stories describe Shivaji as Tukaram's devoted follower, even offering to give up his throne. Historians treat this relationship as legendary, not a firmly documented connection.
• Tradition holds that Tukaram was bodily taken to heaven at the end of his life, witnessed by villagers at Dehu. This, too, is legend rather than historical record.
• Writing in Marathi, not Sanskrit, made Tukaram's teachings accessible to ordinary people.
• This reflects a wider Bhakti-movement pattern across India: vernacular language over Sanskrit.
• His Abhangs, collected as the Tukaram Gatha, remained central to Maharashtrian devotional and cultural life long after his death.