Metaphor, the merchant of truth
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बरवे दुकानीं बैसावें । श्रवण मनन असावें ॥1॥
सारासाराचीं पोतीं । ग्राहिक पाहोनि करा रितीं ॥ध्रु.॥
उगे चि फुगों नका गाल । पूर्ण सांठवावा माल ॥2॥
सत्य तराजू पैं धरा । नका कुडत्रिम विकरा ॥3॥
तुका जाला वाणी । चुकवुनि चौयासीच्या खाणी ॥4॥
काय करूं आतां या मना । न संडी विषयांची वासना ।
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Sit well at your shop. Let there be hearing and reflecting. Sort the bundles of the essential from the non-essential, sizing up each customer. Do not puff up your cheeks in vain; stock your store with genuine goods. Hold the scale of truth and do not sell counterfeit wares. Says Tuka, I have become a true merchant, having escaped the mines of eighty-four hundred thousand births.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Sit well at your shop. Keep hearing and reflecting. Sort the bundles of the essential from the unessential, and empty them out by sizing up each customer. Do not puff out your cheeks for nothing. Stock your store full with genuine goods. Hold the scale of truth. Do not sell counterfeit wares. Tuka says: I have become a true merchant, having escaped the mines of eighty-four hundred thousand births. What shall I do now with this mind, that will not give up its craving for the things of the senses.
What it means
Tukaram makes the spiritual life into a shopkeeper's trade and tells you how to run it honestly. Sitting at the shop is steady practice; hearing and reflecting are the merchant's daily care; sorting the essential from the unessential and reading each customer is discernment. He scorns empty show, the puffed cheeks of the boaster, and insists on a full stock of real goods, a true scale, and no counterfeit. By living this way he says he has become a genuine merchant and escaped the eighty-four lakh forms of rebirth. The last line keeps him honest: even so, the mind still craves the senses, and the trade is not yet finished.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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