Worldly life, the hardened heart
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आहाकटा त्याचे करिती पितर । वंशीं दुराचार पुत्र जाला ॥१॥
गळे चि ना गर्भ नव्हे चि कां वांज । माता त्याची लाजलावा पापी ॥ध्रु. ॥
परपीडें परद्वारीं सावधान । सादर चि मन अभाग्याचें ॥२॥
न मळितां निंदा चाहडी उपवास । संग्रहाचे दोष सकळ ही ॥३॥
परउपकार पुण्य त्या वावडें । विषाचें तें कीडें दुग्धीं मरे ॥४॥
तुका म्हणे विटाळाचीच तो मूर्ति । दया क्षमा शांति नातळे त्या ॥५॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Alas for the ancestors of that family in which a wicked son is born. Would the pregnancy not have miscarried? Why was the mother not barren? She is disgraced, that sinful one. He is ever alert to tormenting others and haunting others' doorsteps, with a mind always ready for mischief. Without even trying, slander, gossip, and fasting from virtue come to him; he hoards every fault. Merit and kindness are alien to him; a worm of poison, he dies when placed in milk. Tuka says: he is a murti of defilement itself; compassion, forgiveness, and peace will not touch him.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Pity the ancestors of a family in which a wicked son is born. Better the pregnancy had failed, or the mother been barren; she is left disgraced. He is always alert to hurt others and to haunt their doorways, his mind forever set on mischief. Without any effort, slander and gossip and a starving of all virtue come naturally to him; he hoards every fault there is. Kindness and merit blow away from him; he is a worm bred in poison that dies the moment it is dropped in milk. Tuka says: he is defilement given a body, and compassion, forgiveness, and peace will not come near him.
What it means
One of Tukaram's harshest portraits, of a person so given over to malice that goodness cannot take root in him. The poison-worm is the key image: a creature so adapted to corruption that pure milk kills it. Tukaram is not gloating; he is drawing the full negative of his saint, the heart in which compassion, forgiveness, and peace can find no place. The point for the listener is self-examination, not contempt for a stranger. He is naming a pattern, the hardening of a heart around its own faults, as the thing to fear becoming, in oneself first of all.
Worldly Life
The perplexities of action, karma, and navigating life in the world.
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