Social criticism, the age foretold
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुह्मां सांगतों कलयुगा फळ । पुढें होइल ब्रह्मगोळ॥1॥
आह्मां ह्मणतील कंटक । ऐसा पाडिती दंडक ॥ध्रु.॥
िस्त्रया पूजुनि सरे देती । भलते िस्त्रयेसि भलते जाती ॥2॥
श्रेष्ठ वर्ण वेदविद्वांस। अंगीकारी मद्यमांस ॥3॥
चारी वर्ण अठरा याती । कवळ करिती एक पंक्ती ॥4॥
ह्मणती अंबेचा क्रीडाकल्लोळ । शिवरूप प्राणी सकळ ॥5॥
ऐसें होइल शकुन देतों । अगोदर सांगुन जातों ॥6॥
तुका सद्गुरुदास्य करी । सििद्ध पाणी वाहे घरीं ॥7॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I tell you the fruit of this Kali Yuga; ahead, chaos will engulf the world. They will call us troublemakers and establish such corrupt customs. They will worship women and offer them up; anyone will go with anyone. The highest castes and Vedic scholars will take to meat and liquor. All four castes and eighteen communities will eat together from one plate. They will say it is all the sport of the Goddess, that every creature is a form of Shiva. Says Tuka, I give you this omen and tell you in advance. Tuka serves the Sadguru, and by that, perfection flows into his household like water.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I tell you the fruit of this Kali age; ahead there will be chaos in the world. They will call us troublemakers and lay down rules to match. They will worship women and give them away; anyone will couple with anyone, any caste with any caste. The highest castes, the knowers of the Vedas, will take to liquor and meat. All four castes and the eighteen communities will eat together from one plate. They will say it is the Goddess's play, that every creature is a form of Shiva. I give you this as an omen; I tell you beforehand and go. Tuka serves the Sadguru, and at his house the perfected ones carry water.
What it means
Tukaram is foretelling a coming disorder and naming who will be blamed for resisting it. He sketches an age where rules are bent to license, where the learned abandon their discipline for liquor and meat, and where every boundary is dissolved and then justified as the sport of the Goddess or the oneness of all in Shiva. His grievance is with the misuse: high doctrine, that all is divine, turned into a permission slip for appetite. He marks himself and his fellow devotees as the ones such an age will brand troublemakers. He ends by setting his own ground against it: he serves the true Guru, and that service, not the slogans, is what brings the perfected to his door.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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