Renunciation, refusing the honors
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
दिवटएा छत्री घोडे । हें तों बयांत न पडे ॥1॥
आतां येथें पंढरिराया । मज गोविसी कासया ॥ध्रु.॥
मान दंभ चेष्टा। हे तों शूकराची विष्ठा ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे देवा । माझे सोडववणे धांवा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Torches, umbrellas, and horses hold no appeal for me. Why do You entangle me in these, O Lord of Pandhari? Honor, pride, and show are like the filth of swine. Says Tuka, O God, rush to my rescue.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Torches, an umbrella of state, fine horses: these do not sit well with me. Why do you tangle me up in such things here, King of Pandhari? Honor, pretense, and display are nothing but a pig's dung to me. Tuka says: O God, come running to set me free.
What it means
Tukaram is refusing the trappings of status that have been pressed on him: the torchbearers, the ceremonial umbrella, the horses that mark an important man. He does not weigh them and find them small; he calls honor, pretense, and show a pig's filth, the harshest measure he can name. The danger he names is real: that God Himself might let these things become a snare around him. So the closing cry is not for honors but against them, asking God to rush in and pull him loose.
Renunciation
The case for letting go of worldly attachments and turning wholly to God.
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