Gratitude to the saints, the watching cow
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काय सांगों या संतांचे उपकार । मज निरंतर जागविती॥1॥
काय द्यावें त्यांचें व्हावें उतराई । ठेवितां हा पायीं जीव थोडा ॥ध्रु.॥
सहज बोलणें हितउपदेश । करूनि सायास शिकविती॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे वत्स धेनुवेचा चित्तीं । तैसे मज येती सांभाळीत ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
How can I describe the grace of these saints? They keep me awake without ceasing. What can I give to repay them? Even if I lay down my life at their feet, it would be too little. Their ordinary conversation is itself the highest teaching; through patient effort they instruct me. Says Tuka, as a cow's chitta is ever with her calf, so do they come watching over me.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
How can I tell the grace of these saints? They keep me awake without ceasing. What can I give to repay them? Even if I lay my life at their feet, it is too little. Their plain talk is itself the highest teaching; with patient effort they instruct me. Tuka says: as a cow keeps her calf in mind, so they come watching over me.
What it means
Tukaram tries to weigh a debt he cannot pay. The saints keep him awake, never letting him slip back into forgetfulness, and even his own life laid at their feet would not square the account. The point is that their gift is not grand gestures but ordinary speech: their casual words carry the whole teaching, and they take pains to drill it into him. He ends with the cow and her calf, naming the kind of love at work: not a teacher correcting a student, but a mother who never takes her attention off her young.
The Saints
The character and service of true saints: softer than butter, harder than diamond.
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