Metaphor, the wicked at holy discourse
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
खोंकरी आधन होय पाकसििद्ध । हें तों घडों कधीं शके चि ना ॥1॥
खापराचे अंगीं घासितां परिस । न पालटे कीस काढिलिया ॥2॥
पालथे घागरी रिचवितां जळ । तुका ह्मणे खळ तैसे कथे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Cooking cannot be done with twigs of thorns; how could that ever work? Rubbing a potsherd against a touchstone will not change it, no matter how you scrape. Says Tuka, pouring water into an upturned pot is what the wicked are like when they come to a sacred discourse.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You cannot finish cooking on a fire of thorny twigs. That can never happen. Rub a potsherd against a touchstone, and however much you scrape it, it does not change. Tuka says: pouring water into an upturned pot is what the wicked are like when they sit at sacred discourse.
What it means
Tukaram is describing the kind of person on whom holy teaching has no effect. He stacks three images of futile effort: thorny twigs cannot cook a meal, a potsherd against a touchstone never turns to anything precious, and water poured over an upside-down pot simply runs off and nothing is held. Each picture is of an input wasted because the receiver cannot receive. The third is the key: the wicked at a sacred discourse are the upturned pot, soaking up nothing of what is poured. The poem is less an insult than a warning to examine whether we sit there open or sealed shut.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
More in this theme →