Social criticism, the miser laid bare
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
द्रव्य असतां धर्म न करी । नागविला राजद्वारीं ॥१॥
माय त्यासि व्याली जेव्हां । रांड सटवी नव्हती तेव्हां ॥ध्रु.॥.
कथाकाळीं निद्रा लागे । कामीं श्वानापरी जागे ॥२॥
भोग स्त्रियेसि देतां लाजे । वस्त्र दासीचें घेउनि निजे ॥३॥
तुका म्हणे जाण । नर गाढवाहुनी हीन ॥४॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
A man who has wealth but gives nothing to charity ends up stripped bare at the king's court. When his mother gave birth to him, there were no witches or sorceresses present to curse him; he cursed himself by his own greed. He sleeps through the hour of sacred recitation, yet stays awake for lust like a prowling dog. He is ashamed to share pleasures with his own wife, yet steals the maidservant's cloth to sleep with. Says Tuka, know that such a man is lower than a donkey.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
A man has wealth but gives nothing in charity, and is stripped bare at the king's court. When his mother bore him, no witch or hag was there to curse him. At the hour of sacred recitation sleep takes him; for lust he stays awake like a dog. He is ashamed to share pleasure with his own wife, yet takes the servant girl's cloth and lies down. Tuka says: know that such a man is lower than a donkey.
What it means
Tukaram strips bare a single pattern: the man who hoards. He has wealth but gives nothing, so the king's court ends up stripping him; no outside curse made him this way, his own greed did. The poet lists how the pattern bends a life out of shape: he sleeps through the sacred recitation but is wide awake for lust like a prowling dog, shrinks from his own wife yet sneaks to the maidservant. The closing line is blunt, calling such a man lower than a donkey. The verse is aimed at the pattern of miserliness and hypocrisy, holding it up so a hearer can check his own life against it, not so anyone is despised.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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