Metaphor, the futile harvest of debate
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कुशळ गुंतले निषेधा । वादी प्रवर्तले वादा ॥1॥
कैसी ठकलीं बापुडीं । दंभविषयांचे सांकडीं ॥ध्रु.॥
भुस उपणुनि केलें काय । हारपले दोन्ही ठाय ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे लागे हातां । काय मथिलें घुसिळतां ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The clever ones are ensnared in prohibitions. The debaters are swept away in debate. How pitifully they are caught in the tight trap of pretense and sense-objects. What is gained by winnowing only chaff? Both grounds are lost. Says Tuka, what comes into hand from all that churning?
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The clever ones are tangled up in prohibitions. The debaters are carried off into debate. See how pitifully they are caught in the tight trap of pretense and the senses. What is won by winnowing only chaff? Both grounds are lost. Tuka says: from all that churning, what comes into the hand?
What it means
Tukaram looks at the learned and the argumentative and sees them snared, not freed, by their cleverness. The sharp ones get knotted in what is forbidden, and the debaters are swept off into endless dispute, all of them trapped by show and by appetite for the senses. He puts the waste in plain images: winnowing chaff yields no grain, and the disputer loses both grounds at once, this world and the truth alike. The closing question, what comes into the hand from all that churning, points the listener at their own arguing: examine whether your zeal is producing anything real, or only empty effort dressed up as wisdom.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
More in this theme →