Exhortation, wake the sleeper
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
किती लाजिरवाणा । मरे उपजोनि शाहाणा ॥1॥
एका घाई न करीं तुटी । न निघें दवासोई भेटी ॥ध्रु.॥
सोसूनि आबाळी । घायाळ तें ढुंग चोळी ॥2॥
सावध करी तुका । म्हणे निजले हो आइका ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
How shamefully a man who considers himself wise lives and dies. He will not make one decisive cut nor step out to meet the dawn. He endures the beating and then rubs his bruises. Says Tuka, wake up, O you who sleep. Listen.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
How shameful it is. A man who calls himself wise lives and then dies the same way. He will not make one clean cut. He will not step out to meet the dawn. He takes the beating, then sits and rubs his bruises. Tuka says: wake up, you who are asleep. Listen.
What it means
Tukaram shames the man who prides himself on his cleverness yet dies no different from how he was born, having changed nothing. The fault is in his refusal to act decisively: he will not make the one clean break that frees him, will not rise to meet the new day. So he keeps absorbing the blows of life and then nursing the bruises, suffering without learning. The poem ends as a shout meant to land on the listener: you are the one asleep, so wake and pay attention. The wise self who never acts is the target, not any one man.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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