Metaphor, fraud preaching to fraud
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
वाघें उपदेशिला कोल्हा । सुखें खाऊं द्यावें मला॥1॥
अंतीं मरसी तें न चुके । मज ही मारितोसी भुके ॥ध्रु.॥
येरू ह्मणे भला भला । निवाड तुझ्या तोंडें जाला ॥2॥
देह तंव जाणार । घडेल हा उपकार ॥3॥
येरू ह्मणे मनीं । ऐसें जावें समजोनि ॥4॥
गांठी पडली ठका ठका । त्याचा धर्म बोले तुका ॥5॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
A tiger preached to a fox: 'Let me eat you in peace. In the end you will die anyway; and meanwhile you cause me hunger.' The fox replied, 'Well said, well said. The verdict has been pronounced from your own mouth.' The body will perish regardless; at least let this one good deed be done. The fox reflected and said, 'Yes, one should go into it with full understanding.' And so the two were matched, fraud to fraud. Says Tuka, his own creed the tiger preaches.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
A tiger preached to a fox. "Let me eat you in peace. You will die in the end anyway, and meanwhile your living only makes me hungry." The fox said, "Well said, well said. The verdict has come from your own mouth. The body is going to perish in any case; so let this one good deed be done through me." In his mind the fox thought, "Best to go into it knowing exactly what it is." So the two were matched, fraud to fraud. Tuka says: the tiger preaches only his own creed.
What it means
Tukaram tells a small fable about self-serving talk dressed as wisdom. The tiger wraps his hunger in lofty reasoning, that death is certain so the fox may as well be eaten now, and the fox plays along with mock agreement while seeing right through him. Neither is fooled; the poem names them both as frauds, perfectly matched. The point is that the tiger's high-sounding sermon is nothing but his own appetite given a noble voice. The self-examination it asks is to notice when our own arguments are just hunger preaching its own creed.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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