The saints, fouling your own rescue
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
उदकीं कालवी शेण मलमूत्र । तो होय पवित्र कासयानें ॥1॥
उद्धारासी ठाव नाहीं भाग्यहीना । विन्मुख चरणां संतांचिया ॥ध्रु.॥
दुखवी तो बुडे सांगडीचा तापा । अतित्याई पापाची च मूतिन ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे जेव्हां फिरतें कपाळ । तरी अमंगळ योग होतो ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
One who mixes filth and waste into water, how can that water be purified? The unfortunate one who turns away from the feet of the saints has no hope of deliverance. One who harms his own raft drowns; the inhospitable person is sin itself made flesh. Says Tuka, when destiny turns against a person, inauspicious circumstances inevitably follow.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
If someone stirs dung and filth into water, how can that water be made clean? The luckless one who turns his face from the feet of the saints has no place to be saved. The one who wounds them drowns in the heat of his own raft; he is sin itself made flesh. Tuka says: when a man's fortune turns against him, then the unlucky union comes about.
What it means
Tukaram pictures the folly of harming the very ones who could save you. You cannot purify water by mixing filth into it, and you cannot be delivered while turning your back on the saints, who are the means of deliverance. The one who hurts them is sinking his own raft, the only thing keeping him afloat, so his cruelty is sin in bodily form. He reads such turning-away as the mark of a fortune gone bad. The poem points at the pattern of spurning your own rescue, inviting the listener to check for it in himself rather than to scorn another.
The Saints
The character and service of true saints: softer than butter, harder than diamond.
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