Social bondage, the trapped neck
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
किती चौघाचारें । येथें गोविलीं वेव्हारें ॥1॥
असे बांधविले गळे । होऊं न सकती निराळे ॥ध्रु.॥
आपलें आपण । केलें कां नाहीं जतन ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे खंडदंडें । येरझारीं लपती लंडें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
How many have been ensnared by social convention and worldly dealings? Their necks are bound, and they cannot free themselves. Why did you not guard what was your own? Says Tuka, in the tug-of-war of penalties, the cowardly hide in the back and forth.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
How many are caught here, tangled in the world's dealings. Their necks are bound; they cannot break free. What was your own to guard, why did you not guard it? Tuka says: in the back and forth of penalty, the cowards hide.
What it means
Tukaram looks at people roped into convention and worldly transactions until their own necks are tied and they cannot get loose. The thing that was theirs to protect, their own life and freedom, they failed to keep watch over, so it was taken. He frames worldly life as a debt that keeps collecting, a tug of penalties paid back and forth. The cowardly do not face it; they hide at the back of the line rather than break the rope. The poem asks the listener to notice the binding and to ask why he let it happen.
Worldly Life
The perplexities of action, karma, and navigating life in the world.
More in this theme →