Metaphor, the iron asks the touchstone
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
मातेची अवस्था काय जाणे बाळ । तिसी तों सकळ चिंता त्याची ॥1॥
ऐसें परस्परें आहे चि विचारा । भोपळ्याचा तारा दगडासी ॥ध्रु.॥
भुजंग पोटाळी चंदनाचें अंग । निवे परि संग नव्हे तैसा ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे करा परिसाचे परी । मज ठेवा सरी लोखंडाचे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
A child does not know the mother's condition, yet she carries all concern for it. Such is the mutual bond between them, like a spinning top to a stone. A serpent coils around the body of sandalwood, and though the wood cools it, the serpent's nature does not change. Says Tuka, be like the philosopher's stone and make me, mere iron, equal to gold.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What does the child know of the mother's state? Yet she carries every worry for it. Think on it: so it is between the two. A spinning top is held to a stone. The snake coils round the body of the sandal tree. The sandal cools it, yet the snake's nature does not turn to its kind. Tuka says: be like the touchstone. Make me, mere iron, equal to gold.
What it means
Tukaram strings together images of one-sided bonds to describe the gap between God and himself. The mother carries all the care a child cannot even know it needs; sandalwood cools the snake that coils around it without changing the snake's nature. He places himself on the lower side of each: the unknowing child, the cold metal. Then comes the prayer, sharp and humble at once: be the touchstone, the paras that turns iron to gold by mere contact, and lift me, base as I am, into Your own worth.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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