Social criticism, nature does not change
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
गाढवाचे अंगीं चंदनाची उटी । राख तया तेणें केलीसे भेटी ॥1॥
सहज गुण जयाचे देहीं । पालट कांहीं नव्हे तया ॥ध्रु.॥
माकडाचे गळां मोलाचा मणि । घातला चावुनी टाकी थुंकोनि ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे खळा नावडे हित । अविद्या वाढवी आपुलें मत ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
If you rub sandalwood paste on a donkey, it rolls in the ashes at once. The inborn nature of a creature does not change. If you hang a precious gem around a monkey's neck, it chews it and spits it out. Says Tuka, the wicked have no taste for what is good. They only nurture their own ignorance.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Rub sandalwood paste on a donkey, and at once it rolls in the ashes. A creature's inborn nature does not change at all. Hang a precious gem on a monkey's neck, and it chews it and spits it out. Tuka says: the wicked have no taste for what is good. They only nurture their own ignorance.
What it means
Tukaram is naming a hard limit: goodness offered to one who has no appetite for it is wasted. He gives two pictures. Fine sandalwood on a donkey, and the donkey goes straight back to the dust. A jewel hung on a monkey, and the monkey chews and spits it out. The point is not the donkey or the monkey but the pattern in a person who cannot receive what is good, and who turns it back into the very ignorance he prefers. Read it as a warning against the same refusal in yourself, the part that throws away what would lift it.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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