Abhanga 123
English: Whoever sells the kathā — accepting daughters and cows as fee — chandala is his true name.
The verse
कन्या गो करी कथेचा विकरा । चांडाळ तो खरा तया नांवें ॥१॥ गुण अवगुण हे दोन्ही प्रमाण । यातिशीं कारण नाहीं देवा ॥२॥ आशाबद्ध नये करूं तें करिती । तुका म्हणे जाती नरकामधीं ॥३॥
Literal translation
English: Whoever sells the kathā — accepting daughters and cows as fee — chandala is his true name. Good-and-bad qualities are the measure (of a person); birth-jāti is no concern with the deity. The hope-bound do what should not be done. Tuka says: they go into hell.
मराठी: कथेचा विक्रय करून कन्या-गायी घेणारा — चांडाळ — हेच त्याचं खरं नाव. गुण-अवगुण हेच प्रमाण; जाती (जन्म) देवाला कारण नाही. आशाबद्ध जे करू नये ते करतात — तुकाराम म्हणतात — ते नरकात जातात.
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| कन्या गो करी कथेचा विकरा | "(he) makes the kathā into a sale — for daughters and cows (as fee)" |
| चांडाळ तो खरा तया नांवें | "chandala — that is his true name" |
| गुण अवगुण हे दोन्ही प्रमाण | "good-and-bad qualities — both are the measure" |
| यातिशीं कारण नाहीं देवा | "jāti (birth-class) is no concern with the deity" |
| आशाबद्ध नये करूं तें करिती | "the hope-bound do what should not be done" |
| जाती नरकामधीं | "they go into hell" |
What it means
Tukaram's third anti-caste-recoding abhang in the corpus so far (0055, 0118, 0123). The structural move is consistent: take a conventional caste-term and apply it behaviorally, not by birth. Chandala is not a birth-status; it is the structural-position of one who sells the sacred. The verse explicitly states the principle: गुण अवगुण हे दोन्ही प्रमाण, यातिशीं कारण नाहीं देवा — quality is the measure; jāti is no concern with the deity. This is one of Tukaram's most quoted lines in the anti-caste reform tradition. [T] [Tradition]
For someone today
The honest application is in the measure-by-quality-not-birth principle, applied modernly. Substitute "birth" with any external marker: credentials, certification, robe, lineage, inheritance, Twitter-following. None of these track quality. The teacher who is selling the sacred — taking fees-with-spiritual-content-attached — is structurally chandala by Tukaram's recoding, regardless of how impressive the credentials. The cure is the quality-test, not the credential-test. The closing — आशाबद्ध जे करू नये ते करिती — names the chain: hope (अाशा) drives doing-what-should-not-be-done; the spiritual-services market is largely this.
मराठी: प्रामाणिक lागू quality-by-measure-not-birth तत्त्वात आहे — आधुनिकपणे लागू केलेलं. "जन्म" च्या जागी कुठलाही बाह्य marker: credentials, certification, robe, lineage, inheritance, Twitter-following. यांपैकी कोणतंही quality track करत नाही. पवित्र विकणारा शिक्षक — आध्यात्मिक-content-attached fees घेणारा — तुकारामांच्या recoding नुसार structurally चांडाळ, credentials कितीही impressive असोत. उपाय quality-test, credential-test नाही. शेवट — आशाबद्ध जे करू नये ते करिती — साखळी नाव सांगते: आशा doing-what-should-not-be-done ला drive करते; spiritual-services market बहुधा हीच.
Where this applies
- Teacher of sacred texts is selling them. Structural disqualification.
- Caste-question arises. Tukaram's recoding: quality, not birth.
- Hope-bound doing what shouldn't be done. That's the market shape.