Exhortation, deaf better than dead to spirit
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
एक परि बहिर बरें । परि तीं ढोरें ग्यानगडें ॥1॥
कपाळास लागली अगी । अभागी कां जीतसे ॥ध्रु.॥
एक परि बरें वेडें । ताकिनक कुडें जळो तें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे खातडवासी । अमृतासी नोळखे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Better to be deaf than to be a beast who knows nothing of the spirit. If fire has struck the forehead, why does the wretch still cling to life? Better to be mad than to live in dry, crooked logic; let that burn away. Says Tuka, one who dwells in the skin of a beast does not recognize nectar even when it is before him.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Better to be deaf than a beast who knows nothing of the spirit. If fire has struck his forehead, why does the wretched one still cling to life? Better to be mad than to live in dry, crooked logic; let that burn away. Tuka says: one who lives inside a beast's hide does not recognize nectar even when it is set before him.
What it means
Tukaram throws hard comparisons to shock the spiritually deadened awake. A deaf person is better off than a so-called knowledgeable beast who is empty of the spirit, because lacking a sense is less than lacking soul. He pictures the cursed forehead struck by fire and asks why such a life clings on, naming the waste of a life with no inner fire. Even madness, he says, is preferable to brittle, crooked reasoning, which deserves to burn away. The closing image points the warning at a recognizable pattern in any of us: wrapped in the hide of mere animal living, a person can have nectar set before him and still not know it, and the call is to examine whether we are that numb.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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