Social criticism, false goods exposed
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
विकल तेथें विका । माती नांव ठेवूनि बुका ॥1॥
हा तो निवाडएाचा ठाव । खया खोटएा निवडी भाव ॥ध्रु.॥
गहवारे हा विधि । पोट वाढविलें चिंधीं ॥2॥
लावूं जाणे विल्हे। तुका साच आणिक कल्हे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Sell your wares where they are valued. Do not rename mud as sacred powder. This is the place of final reckoning, where truth is sifted from falsehood. The swaddling cloth of pretense has only fattened the belly with rags. Says Tuka, I know how to set the true apart from the false; the genuine from the counterfeit.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Sell your wares where they are valued. Do not rename mud as sacred powder. This is the place of final reckoning. Here the true is sifted from the false. The swaddling cloth of pretense has only fattened the belly with rags. Tuka says: I know how to set the true apart from the false, the genuine apart from the counterfeit.
What it means
Tukaram is warning the religious pretender and naming the test he cannot pass. He tells the fraud to take his goods to a market that does not see clearly; here, in the company of those who know God, mud cannot be passed off as the powder used in worship. He calls this the place of final reckoning, where truth is sorted from falsehood by the heart's real disposition. The outward costume of piety, he says, only feeds the belly with rags, with nothing of worth inside. Tuka claims for himself the discernment to tell the counterfeit from the genuine, so the disguise will not work on him.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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