Pride punished, fear turns to memory
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तो या साच भावें न कळे चि इंद्रा । ह्मणउनि धारा घाली सिळा ॥1॥
घाली धारा मेघ कडाडिला माथा । वरि अवचिता देखियेला ॥2॥
देखती पाऊस वोळला गोपाळ । भ्याले हे सकळ विचारिती ॥3॥
विचार पडला विसरले खेळ । अन्याय गोपाळ ह्मणती केला ॥4॥
लागलेंसे गोड न कळे ते काळीं । भेणें वनमाळी आठविती ॥5॥
आतां कायकैसा करावा विचार । गोधनासि थार आपणिया ॥6॥
यांचिया विचारें होणार ते काई । तुका ह्मणे ठायीं वेडावलीं ॥7॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
This truth was not grasped by Indra, blinded by pride. Therefore he sent the deluge of stones. The clouds thundered and crashed overhead, and a sudden storm broke upon them. The cowherds saw the rain bearing down and were afraid. They considered their plight. Worry overtook them, and they forgot their play. 'The cowherd-boy has done wrong,' they said. 'It tasted sweet at the time, and we did not think.' In their fear they now remembered the Lord. 'What shall we do now? Where can we and our cattle find shelter?' But their deliberation could not prevent what was coming. Says Tuka, they were bewildered and did not know what to do.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Indra, blinded by pride, could not grasp this truth. So he sent down a rain of stones. The clouds thundered and crashed overhead, and a storm broke on them all at once. The cowherds saw the rain bearing down and were afraid. Worry took hold of them and they forgot their play. They said, the cowherd-boy has done wrong. It felt sweet at the time, and we did not stop to think. In their fear they now remembered the Lord. What shall we do now? Where can we and our cattle find shelter? But all their thinking could not stop what was coming. Tuka says: they were bewildered and did not know what to do.
What it means
This is the storm that opens the Govardhan story, and Tukaram frames it through pride and its undoing. Indra, stung in his pride, hurls down stones, and the cowherds who had cheerfully gone along now panic and blame the boy who led them. The turn is in their fear: only when their own planning fails completely do they remember the Lord. The poem watches how trouble strips a person of self-reliance and pushes the mind, finally, toward the one it had forgotten.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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