The body and its kin, no real outsiders
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पोटीं जन्मती रोग । तरि कां ह्मणावे आप्तवर्ग ॥1॥
रानीं वसती औषधी । तरि कां ह्मणाव्या निपराधी ॥2॥
तैसें शरीराचें नातें । तुका ह्मणे सर्व आप्तें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Diseases are born within the body itself; then why call them strangers? Medicinal herbs grow in the wild; then why call them uninvolved? Says Tuka, even so is the body's relationship with all its kin.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Diseases are born inside the body itself. Then why call them strangers? Healing herbs grow out in the wild. Then why call them outsiders? Tuka says: it is the same with the body's ties. All of them are kin.
What it means
Tukaram uses two plain facts to break a careless way of thinking. Disease arises from within the very body we call our own, and the herbs that cure us grow far off in the forest, where we never planted them. So the line between what is mine and what is foreign does not hold. He turns this on the bonds of family and relation: we sort people into our own and not our own, but the sorting is arbitrary. Trouble grows from within, help comes from outside, and in truth all of it is one web of kinship.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
More in this theme →