Mumbai: Literature of Sant Tukaram, the 17th century saint has been translated into Lithuanian, latest European language to feature works by the prominent Marathi saint.

Works of Tukaram, who endorsed emancipation of poor, women and the downtrodden, have already been translated in over 10 European languages including English, French, German, Dutch, Russian, Esperanto, Spanish and Polish.

"Tukaram had an inborn talent for poetry and his works transcend barriers of region and language. One can relate him with any culture and society," noted poet Dilip Chitre, who has translated Tukaram's works in English, said.

Lithuania was earlier part of the Soviet Russia, with a population of 3.6 million. Around three million people in other countries also speak Lithuanian.

Tukaram's biography and poems are available on the website 'www.tukaram.com' translated by Jonas Skendelis, a Lithuanian scholar. "In fact, I would say that Tukaram's stature in Marathi literature is comparable to that of Shakespeare in English," Chitre says.

A coordinator and contributor of the site, Dilip Donde says "Skendelis read the English translations of Tukaram's literature and was very much impressed. We suggested he translate the literature in Lithuanian and he agreed." Skendelis translated from the English version of Tukaram's literature by Mahatma Gandhi and from 'Says Tuka,' Tukaram's biography by Chitre.

The website launc in 2002 coincided with Tukaram's birth anniversary celebrations and has been designed and developed in collaboration with the Tukaram Chair of the University of Pune. Chitre and another Sahitya Akademi award recipient Dr Sadanand More were involved in the making of the site.

It is in Marathi, Hindi and English with translations of Tukaram in English (Mahatma Gandhi), Bangla (Rabindranath Tagore), Hindi (Dr Anandprakash Dikshit and Shriram Shikarkhane), German (Dilip Chitre and Lothar Lutze), French, Russian, Spanish.

The website also has a biography and literature of Tukaram in Sindhi (Lachman Hardwani), Gujarati (Kedarnath, Neelkanth Panchbhai), Konkani (Suresh Amonkar), Sanskrit (Asha Gurjar and Dr Devidas Kharvandikar), Oriya (Khageshwar Mahapatra), Kannada (Virupax Kulkarni), Telugu (Bhalchandra Apte), Malayalam (N E Viswanath Iyer) and Tamil (N Gopal).