Exhortation, the body as death's plaything
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
देह मृत्याचें भातुकें । कळों आलें कवतुकें ॥1॥
काय मानियेलें सार । हें चि वाटतें आश्चर्य ॥ध्रु.॥
नानाभोगांची संचितें । करूनि ठेविलें आइतें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे कोडीं । उगवून न सकती बापुडीं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The body is but a plaything for death; this has become clear to me with wonder. What have you taken to be of lasting value? This itself is the great mystery. People amass fortunes of varied pleasures, storing them up as though they are permanent. Says Tuka, these wretched ones cannot even begin to solve the riddle of their own fate.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The body is only a toy for death; I have seen this clearly, with wonder. What have you taken to be the real, the lasting thing? That is the great riddle. People pile up fortunes of every pleasure and store them as if they were permanent. Tuka says: the poor wretches cannot even begin to untie the riddle of their own fate.
What it means
Tukaram presses a single hard fact: the body is a plaything in the hands of death, and once you truly see this it astonishes you. He turns it into a question for the listener. What exactly have you decided is solid and lasting, when death holds the body so lightly? He watches people heap up pleasures and treat them as if they will never end, and calls this the real mystery, that anyone could be so deceived. The closing line pities rather than mocks: these people cannot unravel even the basic riddle of their own mortality, and the abhanga means to wake them to it.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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