Social criticism, the belly-filling false guru
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
घालूनियां मध्यावर्ती । दाटुनि उपदेश देती ॥1॥
ऐसे पोटभरे संत । तयां कैंचा भगवंत ॥ध्रु.॥
रांडापोरांतें गोविती । वर्षासन ते लाविती ॥2॥
जसे बोलती निरोपणीं । तैसी न करिती करणी ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे तया । तमोगुणियाची क्रिया ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
They place people in their midst and forcefully press their teachings upon them. Such are these saints who fill only their bellies; how can they know God? They entangle wives and children, extracting annual subscriptions from them. They do not practice what they preach. Says Tuka, theirs is the way of darkness and ignorance.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
They set a man in the middle and press their teaching on him by force. Such are these belly-filling saints; what God can they have? They snare wives and children and fix a yearly fee on them. What they say in their sermons, they do not do in their deeds. Tuka says: theirs is the work of darkness and dullness.
What it means
Tukaram attacks the religious teacher who has made piety a business. The signs are exact: he corners people and pushes initiation on them, he ropes in whole households, and he collects a standing subscription from them. The real charge is the gap between word and act, the preacher who never lives what he preaches; a man so busy filling his stomach cannot be carrying God. By calling it the work of tamas, dullness and darkness, Tukaram names the pattern rather than one man, and the listener is left to test his own teachers, and himself, against the same measure of word matched to deed.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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