Saints, bow with a soft heart, not stiff learning
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
भूतदयापरत्वें जया तया परी । संत नमस्कारीं सर्वभावें ॥1॥
शिकल्या बोलाचा धरीसील ताठा । तरी जासी वाटा यमपंथें ॥ध्रु.॥
हिरा परिस मोहरा आणीक पाषाण । नव्हे परी जन संतां तैसी ॥2॥
सरितां वाहाळां गंगे सागरा समान । लेखी तयाहून अधम नाहीं ॥3॥
आणीक अमुप होती तारांगणें । रविशशिमानें लेखूं नये ॥4॥
तुका ह्मणे नाहीं नरमता अंगी । नव्हे तें फिरंगी कठिण लोह ॥5॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
With compassion toward all beings, in whatever way possible, bow to the saints with your whole being. If you hold fast to the stiffness of book-learning, you will travel the road to Yama. A diamond, a touchstone, a magnet, and an ordinary stone are all different; similarly, not all people are equal to the saints. Streams and rivulets should be regarded with the same respect as the Ganga and the ocean; to think less of them is the lowest of views. Innumerable stars fill the sky, but they should not be measured against the sun and the moon. Says Tuka, without tenderness in the being, one is like a firangi blade: bright and hard, but it does not warm.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
With compassion toward every creature, in whatever way you can, bow to the saints with your whole heart. If you hold to the stiffness of what you have read, you will go by the road to Yama. A diamond, a touchstone, a charm, and a plain stone are all different; so too people are not all equal to the saints. Streams and brooks should be honored the same as the Ganga and the sea; to count them as less is the basest view. Countless stars fill the sky, but they are not to be measured against the sun and the moon. Tuka says: with no tenderness in you, you are like a foreign blade, bright and hard iron that will not bend.
What it means
Tukaram makes the soft heart, not book-learning, the test of reverence. He tells us to bow to the saints wholly, with compassion toward all beings, and warns that clinging to the rigidity of mere learning sends a man down the road of death. As a diamond, touchstone, charm, and common stone differ, so people differ in worth, and the saints are not to be leveled with the rest. Yet the small streams deserve the same honor as the Ganga and the ocean, and to belittle them is the lowest of views, just as the countless stars are not weighed against the sun and moon. He ends by turning it inward: a being without tenderness is like a hard foreign blade, gleaming and unbending iron, and the fault to examine is one's own stiffness, not another's.
The Saints
The character and service of true saints: softer than butter, harder than diamond.
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