Social criticism, the outward washing
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आली सिंहस्थपर्वणी । न्हाव्या भटा जाली धणी॥1॥
अंतरीं पापाच्या कोडी । वरिवरि बोडी डोई दाढी ॥ध्रु.॥
बोडिलें तें निघालें । काय पालटलें सांग वहिलें ॥2॥
पाप गेल्याची काय खुण । नाहीं पालटले अवगुण ॥3॥
भक्तिभावें विण । तुका ह्मणे अवघा सीण ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The holy bathing festival has arrived, a windfall for barbers and priests. Though sins lie heaped in crores within, people merely shave their heads and beards on the outside. What has truly changed by this outward shaving? Tell me what has really been transformed. Where is the proof that sin has departed, when not a single bad trait has been altered? Says Tuka, without heartfelt devotion, all such effort is mere weariness.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The great bathing festival has come. It is a windfall for barbers and priests. Inside lie sins by the crore. Outside, people only shave the head and beard. The hair is shaved off; it grows back. Tell me quickly, what has changed? Where is the sign that sin has left, when not one fault has been altered? Tuka says: without heartfelt devotion, all of it is only weariness.
What it means
Tukaram attacks the assumption that an outward ritual can scrub an inward stain. At the Simhastha festival people shave their heads and beards and pay the priests, but the sins heaped inside them are untouched; the only ones enriched are the barbers and clergy. He drives it home with a plain fact: shaved hair simply grows back, so nothing has actually changed. The test he asks for is moral, not ceremonial: has a single fault in you been altered? Without real devotion of the heart, the whole pilgrimage is just tiring effort that leaves the person exactly as they were. The rebuke is aimed at the empty pattern, and it calls each of us to check our own inside against our outside.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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