Social criticism, shame in the wrong place
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
साधूच्या दर्शना लाजसी गव्हारा । वेश्येचिया घरा पुष्पें नेसी ॥1॥
वेश्या दासी मुरळी जगाची वोंवळी । ते तुज सोंवळी वाटे कैशी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आतां लाज धरीं बुच्या । टांचराच्या कुच्या मारा वेगीं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You are ashamed to visit a saint, O fool, yet you carry flowers to a courtesan's door. A courtesan, a concubine, a dancing girl: she is the refuse of the world. How can she appear pure to you? Says Tuka, now feel some shame, you wretch. Beat yourselves soundly with your own shoes.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You are ashamed to go for a saint's darshan, you fool, yet you carry flowers to a courtesan's door. A courtesan, a servant-girl, a dancing girl: she is the refuse of the world. How can she seem pure to you? Tuka says: now feel some shame. Beat yourselves soundly with your own shoes.
What it means
Tukaram catches a man with his shame pointed exactly backwards. He blushes to be seen visiting a saint, but feels no embarrassment carrying offerings to a courtesan. The poem's charge is this reversal of judgment, treating what is sacred as something to hide and what is degrading as something to honor. The hard closing, beat yourself with your own shoe, is the language of self-correction, a demand that the man turn his shame around and feel it where it belongs. The target is the inverted sense of purity, not any contempt for the woman; the call is to wake up to what you actually revere.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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