Exhortation, leave the Vedas for the cowherd's house
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
निगमाचें वन । नका शोधूं करूं सीण ॥1॥
या रे गौिळयांचे घरीं । बांधलें तें दावें वरी ॥ध्रु.॥
पीडलेती भ्रमें । वाट न कळतां वर्में ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे भार । माथा टाका अहंकार ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Do not exhaust yourselves searching the forest of the Vedas. Come to the house of the cowherds, where He is tied up with a rope in plain sight. Those tormented by confusion have lost the path because they do not know the secret. Says Tuka, throw off the burden of ego from your heads.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Do not wear yourselves out searching the forest of the Vedas. Come instead to the cowherds' house, where he stands tied up with a rope in plain sight. People worn down by confusion have lost the road because they do not know the secret. Tuka says: throw the burden of ego off your heads.
What it means
Tukaram is calling seekers away from one path and toward another. The forest of the Vedas stands for endless scriptural searching that only exhausts the searcher; he tells them to stop straining there. Instead he points to the homely image of Krishna in the cowherds' house, the child bound with a rope, God who is near and visible rather than hidden in difficult texts. The reason people miss the road, he says, is that they do not know this simple secret. The thing blocking them is named in the last line: the weight of ego carried on the head, which must be thrown down before the nearby God can be seen.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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