Social criticism, a life through the sieve
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बाईल सवासिण आई । आपण पितरांचे ठायीं ॥१॥
थोर वेच जाला नष्टा । अवघ्या अपसव्य चेष्टा ॥ध्रु.॥
विषयांचे चरवणीं । केली आयुष्याची गाळणी ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे लंडा । नाहीं दया देव धोंडा ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
His wife, once a woman of auspicious fortune, becomes a widow; his mother joins the ancestors; he himself heads for hell. What a great expenditure this wretch has made; all his deeds have been perverse. He has strained his lifespan through the sieve of sense-pleasures, grazing in their field. Says Tuka, such a shameless one has no compassion; to him God is a stone.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
His wife is widowed, his mother joins the ancestors, and he himself is bound for hell. What a ruinous spending of a life this wretch has made; every one of his deeds has gone crosswise. He has strained his whole lifespan through the sieve of sense-pleasure, grazing that field till nothing is left. Tuka says: such a shameless man has no compassion in him, and to him God is just a stone.
What it means
A portrait of a life poured out on the senses until everyone around it suffers and the man himself is ruined. The grim opening lists the wreckage left in his wake. The sieve is the central image: he has let his entire allotted life run out through the holes of sense-pleasure, keeping nothing. The mark of his condition is the closing line: with no compassion left, even God is to him no more than a lump of stone, an idol he cannot feel. Tukaram names the waste so the listener will not make it. The pleasure-grazing, not the man, is the thing condemned.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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