Metaphor, the eye of misfortune
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
सर्प विंचू दिसे । धन अभाग्या कोळसे ॥१॥
आला डोळ्यांसि कवळ । तेणें मळलें उजळ ॥ध्रु.॥
अंगाचे भोंवडी । भोय झाड फिरती धोंडी ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे नाड । पाप ठाके हिता आड ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
To the unlucky man, treasure appears as serpents, scorpions, and lumps of coal. A film has covered his eyes, and what was bright now seems smeared and dim. The ground, the trees, and the very stones seem to spin around his body. Says Tuka, ruin is the force that blocks the path to one's own good.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
To the unlucky man, treasure looks like snakes and scorpions and lumps of coal. A film has come over his eyes, and what was bright now looks smeared and dirty. The ground, the trees, the very stones seem to spin around his body. Tuka says: this ruin is the thing that stands across the path to your own good. The sin blocks the way.
What it means
Tukaram describes how misfortune corrupts perception itself. To the ill-fated, real treasure appears as serpents, scorpions, and coal: the same good that would bless another reads as menace and worthlessness to him. The film over the eyes and the spinning ground and stones show that the distortion is in the seer, not in the world. The closing line gives the diagnosis: it is sin, the accumulated wrong, that plants itself across the road and keeps a person from his own good. The poem points at the inner blockage, urging you to see that the smeared vision is the symptom, not the world's true face.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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