Metaphor, nature cannot be dressed up
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
गाढव शृंगारिलें कोडें । कांहीं केल्या नव्हे घोडें॥1॥
त्याचें भुंकणें न राहे । स्वभावासी करील काये ॥ध्रु.॥
श्वान शिबिके बैसविलें । भुंकतां न राहे उगलें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे स्वभावकर्म । कांहीं केल्या न सुटे धर्म ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You may adorn a donkey however you wish, but it will never become a horse. Its braying will not cease. What can be done about its nature? You may seat a dog in a palanquin, but it will not stop barking. Says Tuka, the actions born of one's innate nature cannot be shed by any means.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You can deck a donkey out with ornaments, but for all your doing it does not become a horse. Its braying will not stop. What can you do with its nature? You can seat a dog in a palanquin, but it will not stop barking and sit still. Tuka says: the deeds that come from one's own inborn nature cannot be shed by any means.
What it means
Tukaram uses blunt animal images to say that inner nature is not changed by outward show. A donkey loaded with finery is still a donkey and brays on; a dog placed in a palanquin still barks. The decoration is the false fix, the position or appearance that hides nothing of what a creature actually is. He generalizes the point: the conduct that springs from a person's deep-seated nature cannot simply be put off like clothing. The poem points at the pattern of pretending change while staying the same, and quietly asks the listener whether real transformation, not ornament, is what they are after.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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