Exhortation, do not waste this birth
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
मनुष्यदेहीं तया नाट लागलें । अघोर साधिलें कुंभपाक ॥1॥
कासया जन्मा आला तो पाषाण । जंत कां होऊन पडिला नाहीं।
उपजे मरोनि वेळोवेळां भांड । परिलाज लंड न धरी कांहीं ॥ध्रु.॥
ऐसियाची माता कासया प्रसवली । वर नाहीं घातली मुखावरी।
देवधर्मांविण तो हा चांडाळ नर । न साहे भूमि भार क्षणभरी ॥2॥
राम ह्मणतां तुझें काय वेचेल । कां हित आपुलें न विचारिसी ।
जन्मोजन्मींचा होईल नरकीं । तुका ह्मणे चुकी जरी यासी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
One born in a human body who wastes it has only earned the horrors of hell. Why was such a person born at all? Better to have been a worm. He dies and is born again, again and again like an actor on a stage, shameless and without remorse. Why did his mother give birth to him, only to leave his face uncovered in disgrace? Without devotion to God, such a man is cast out from grace; the earth cannot bear his weight for even a moment. What will it cost you to say the name of Rama? Why do you not consider your own good? Says Tuka, if one misses this chance, one falls into hell birth after birth.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
One who wastes the human body has only earned the horrors of hell. Why was such a stone-hearted one even born? Better that he had been born a worm. He is born and dies, again and again, like an actor on a stage, shameless, holding no shame at all. Why did his mother give birth to him, only to leave his face uncovered in disgrace? Without devotion and dharma this man is an outcaste; the earth cannot bear his weight for a moment. What does it cost you to say Rama? Why do you not think of your own good? Tuka says: if you miss this chance, you fall into hell birth after birth.
What it means
Tukaram delivers a hard warning against squandering a human birth, which he treats as the one rare opening to turn toward God. The harsh images, the stone, the worm, the shameless actor cycling through births, are pointed at the pattern of a life lived without devotion or dharma, not at any single soul to be despised. He drives the urgency home with a near-free remedy: saying the name of Rama costs nothing, so refusing it is pure self-neglect. The stakes he names are large, repeated births in hell, which is why he ends by begging the listener to consider his own good while the chance is open.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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