Metaphor, the seed that seems lost
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बीज पेरे सेतीं । मग गाडेवरी वाहाती ॥1॥
वांयां गेलें ऐसें दिसे । लाभ त्याचे अंगीं वसे ॥ध्रु.॥
पाल्याची जतन । तरि प्रांतीं येती कण ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आळा । उदक देतां लाभे फळा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
A seed is sown in the field, and then the harvest is carried away in carts. It seems as though the seed was lost, yet the profit dwells within it. If the crop is tended carefully, grain will come at the harvest. Says Tuka, when you water the plant with care, the fruit is your reward.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The seed is sown in the field, and later the harvest is carried off in carts. It looks as though the seed was thrown away, but the gain is hidden inside it. Tend the leaves with care, and at the end the grain will come. Tuka says: water the bed of the plant, and the fruit is your reward.
What it means
Tukaram uses the farmer's seed to teach how spiritual effort works. The seed buried in the soil looks lost, just as devotion or sacrifice can look like waste, yet the whole harvest is folded inside that apparent loss. The point of the unspoken frame is patience and tending: water the plant, guard the growing leaves, and the grain arrives in its season. What seems given up is in fact invested, and the fruit comes only to those who keep tending it through the time when nothing shows.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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