Social criticism, selling merit
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पुण्यविकरा तें मातेचें गमन । भाडी ऐसें धन विटाळ तो ॥1॥
आत्महत्यारा हा विषयांचा लोभी । ह्मणावें तें नाभी करवी दंड ॥ध्रु.॥
नागवला अल्प लोभाचिये साटीं । घेऊनि कांचवटि परिस दिला ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे हात झाडिले परत्रीं । श्रम तो चि श्रोत्रीं वेठी केली ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Selling merit is like trafficking one's own mother. Such wealth earned by hire is a defilement. He who is greedy for sense-pleasures is a self-murderer; his punishment cannot even be properly named. The foolish one is cheated for a trifle, giving up the philosopher's stone for glass beads. Says Tuka, he has shaken off all claims to the next world. The very effort meant for scripture has been turned into forced labor.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
To sell your merit is like trafficking your own mother. Wealth earned that way is defilement. The man greedy for pleasures is his own murderer; his punishment can hardly be named. The fool is robbed for a trifle: he hands over the philosopher's stone and takes glass beads in return. Tuka says: he has washed his hands of the next world, and the very labor meant for scripture he has turned into drudgery.
What it means
Tukaram attacks the practice of trading spiritual merit for money, and he makes the comparison deliberately shocking: it is like selling your own mother, and the gain is pure defilement. The greed for sense-pleasure is self-murder, a slow killing of one's own life, deserving a penalty too great to name. His sharpest image is the bad bargain, giving away the stone that turns iron to gold and accepting worthless glass in exchange, which is exactly what trading the eternal for a trifle amounts to. Read it as a warning to examine the pattern in oneself: when effort that could go toward the scriptures gets bent into mere money-labor, the next world is forfeited.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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