Social criticism, the proud slanderer of saints
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
अल्प विद्या परि गर्वशिरोमणि । मजहुनि ज्ञानी कोणी आहे ॥1॥
अंगीं भरे ताठा कोणासी मानीना । साधूची हेळणा स्वयें करी ॥ध्रु.॥
सज्जनाच्या देहीं मानी जो विटाळ । त्रैलोकीं चांडाळ तो चि एक ॥2॥
संतांची जो निंदा करी मुखीं जप। खतेलें तें पाप वज्रलेप ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे ऐसे मावेचे मइंद । त्यांपाशीं गोविंद नाहीं नाहीं ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
He has but little learning, yet he is the crest-jewel of pride, fancying that no one is wiser than he. His body is stiff with arrogance; he respects no one and himself insults the saints. He who considers a saint's body impure is the vilest wretch in all three worlds. He who slanders the saints while performing rituals with his lips is smeared with sin as hard as diamond. Says Tuka, such pretenders and imposters are far, far from Govinda.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
He has little learning, yet he is the crest-jewel of pride, sure that no one is wiser than he. His body is stiff with arrogance; he honors no one and himself mocks the saints. He who holds a good person's body to be impure is the one true outcaste in all three worlds. He who slanders the saints while muttering prayers with his lips piles up sin set hard as diamond. Tuka says: such frauds and imposters, with them there is no Govinda, none at all.
What it means
Tukaram is exposing a pattern: a little knowledge swollen into towering pride. The man knows almost nothing yet is certain he is the wisest, so stiff with arrogance that he respects no one and turns to mocking the saints. The poem names the worst form of this as treating a holy person's body as polluted, which inverts true purity and makes the proud man himself the real outcaste. Worse still is the hypocrite who slanders the saints with the same mouth that chants prayers, layering on a sin that sets hard as diamond. The warning is that wherever such pretense and contempt for the saints live, God is simply absent; the danger Tukaram is pointing at is the proud, scornful pattern itself, which any of us can fall into.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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