Confession, the beaten animal of the mind
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पेणावलें ढोर मार खाय पाठी । बैसलें तें नुठी तेथूनियां ॥1॥
तैसी माझ्या मना परी जाली देवा । धावें अहंभावा सांडावलों ॥ध्रु.॥
कडां घालीं उडी मागिलांच्या भेणें । मरणामरण न कळे चि ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे जालों त्यापरी दुःखित । असें बोलावीत पांडुरंगा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Like a stubborn animal beaten upon its back that will not rise from where it sits, just so has my mind become, O God. I was running headlong in ego and have now collapsed. Driven by what pursues me, I leap off cliffs, not knowing death from life. Says Tuka, I have become as pitiable as that beast, and I keep calling out to Panduranga.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
A worn-out beast takes blows on its back, but once it sits down it will not rise from that spot. So has my mind become, O God. I ran headlong in pride, and now I have collapsed. Out of fear of what comes behind me I leap off cliffs, no longer telling death from not-death. Tuka says: I have become as wretched as that beast, and I keep calling out to Panduranga.
What it means
Tukaram confesses the broken state of his own mind through the image of an exhausted pack animal that, once it sits, will not get up no matter how it is beaten. His pride drove him on until he collapsed, and now fear sends him leaping blindly off cliffs, unable even to tell living from dying. It is a portrait of a will that has run itself into the ground and lost all judgment. The one thing left in that wretchedness is the cry to Panduranga; the poem turns the honest sight of one's own helplessness into a call for rescue.
Confession and Sin
Raw, unflinching accounts of personal failure, weakness, and the weight of sin.
More in this theme →