Social criticism, no capital of your own
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
जायांचें अंगुलें लेतां नाहीं मान । शोभा नेदी जन हांसविलें ॥1॥
गुसिळतां ताक कांडितां भूस । साध्य नाहीं क्लेश जाती वांयां ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे नाहीं स्वता भांडवल । भिकेचें तें फोल बीज नव्हे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Wearing a woman's bracelet brings no honor to a man; the world only laughs at such adornment. Churning buttermilk or pounding chaff yields nothing; the labor is wasted with no result. Says Tuka, one who has no capital of one's own finds that what is begged or borrowed is fruitless and can never serve as seed.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
A man who wears a woman's bracelet gets no honor. The world only laughs at the ornament. Churn buttermilk or pound chaff and you get nothing. The labor is wasted, with no result. Tuka says: one who has no capital of his own finds that what is begged or borrowed is hollow. It can never serve as seed.
What it means
Tukaram strings together three images of effort that yields nothing: a man decked in a woman's bracelet who only draws laughter, milk already churned, chaff already husked. Each is labor spent on what cannot give a return. The lesson lands in the last line: a person with no inner capital of his own, who lives only on what is begged or borrowed, holds something hollow. Borrowed devotion or secondhand piety is like a dead seed that will never grow. The poem turns the reader inward to ask whether the spiritual wealth is truly one's own.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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