Exhortation, all is hollow without Rama
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कवनका मंदर कवनकी झोपरी । एकारामबिन सब हि फुकरी ॥1॥
कवनकी काया कवनकी माया । एकरामबिन सब हि जाया ॥2॥
कहे तुका सब हि चेलनहार । एकारामविन नहिं वासार ॥3॥
काहे भुला धनसंपत्तीघोर । रामराम सुन गाउ हो बाप रे ॥ध्रु.॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Whose is the palace and whose the hut? Without Rama alone, everything is hollow. Whose is the body and whose the illusion? Without Rama alone, all is in vain. Says Tuka, all these are but a garland of passing things. Without Rama alone, not a single day has meaning. Why are you lost in the frenzy of wealth and possessions? Listen, O father, and sing Rama, Rama.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Whose is the palace and whose the hut? Without Rama alone, everything is hollow. Whose is the body and whose the illusion? Without Rama alone, all is in vain. Tuka says: all these are a garland of passing things. Without Rama alone, not a single day has meaning. Why are you lost in the frenzy of wealth and possessions? Listen, O father, and sing Rama, Rama.
What it means
Tukaram strips ownership of its weight by asking who really owns anything. Palace or hut, the body, the whole show of the world: none of it is yours, and without Rama all of it is empty. He calls the things people prize a garland of passing things, beads strung on a thread that breaks. The stakes are time itself, for without the Name no day of your life counts for anything. So he speaks gently to the listener as a father, naming the trap, the frenzy over wealth, and pointing past it to the one thing that lasts: sing Rama.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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