Metaphor, the axe-handle son
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
गर्भाचें धारण । तिनें वागविला सिण ॥१॥
व्याली कुर्हा डीचा दांडा । वर न घली च तोंडा ॥ध्रु.॥
उपजला काळ । कुळा लाविला विटाळ ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे जाय । नरका अभक्ताची माय ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The mother bore the burden of the womb and endured all the pain of labor. But she gave birth to an axe-handle; it will not even turn its face toward her. Time itself was born, and defilement was brought upon the clan. Says Tuka, the very tree gives birth to the wood that becomes the handle of the axe that fells it.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
She carried the burden of the womb; she bore all the toil of it. But what she bore was an axe-handle; it will not even turn its face to her. Time itself was born, and defilement was laid on the family. Tuka says: the mother of the one without devotion goes to hell.
What it means
Tukaram takes the mother's labor, the carried weight of the womb, the pain endured, as the measure of what is owed, and then shows it betrayed. The child she bore turns out to be an axe-handle, the wood fitted into the tool that fells the very tree it came from; it will not so much as look back at her. He names the cost: such a birth brings death and defilement upon the whole family. The sharp closing claim is that the mother of a person without devotion shares his ruin; the weight falls not on her labor but on the godless ingratitude that turns a gift into a weapon, a pattern worth examining in oneself.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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