Abhanga 271

Every grave wrong Tukaram names traces back to one root, the coveting of wealth, and even honest poverty never needs to resort to that kind of harm.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

A sharp anti-gold-ambition abhang. Five claims:

1. ब्रम्हहत्या मारिल्या गाई — आणीक काई पाप केलें — brahma-hatyā, cow-killing — what other pāpa is left? The catalog of grave-pāpas. Brahma-hatyā (in classical-frame, the gravest sin) and go-hatyā (cow-killing) head the list.

2. विकिली कन्या — सुन्याचे पवाडे — sold the daughter — spread of thesunyā(defiled-house). Selling the daughter is added to the list. Sunyā — a defiled / impure house — spreads its corruption.

3. नरमांस खादली भाडी — human-flesh eaten asbhāḍī. Bhāḍī — rented meat — extreme-violation. (Possibly figurative: ate human-life-as-fee — i.e., worked-as-mercenary-and-killed-for-pay.)

4. अवघें पाप केलें तेणें — जेणें सोनें अभिळाषिलें — all the pāpa was done — by the one whocoveted gold. The root-claim. Gold-ambition is the source of all the pāpas listed. Brahma-hatyā, cow-killing, daughter-selling, human-flesh-eating — all are downstream of gold-coveting. The gold-coveting is the root-cause; the specific pāpas are leaves.

5. उच्चारितां मज तें पाप — जिव्हे कांप सुटतसे — in uttering this pāpa — my tongue trembles. The speaker's response. Tukaram's tongue trembles in uttering this pāpa. (Compare 258's he-who-utters-the-past goes to naraka; here Tukaram is uttering not-to-blame-but-to-warn; even so, his tongue trembles.)

6. तुका म्हणे कोरान्न रांड — बेटा भांड मागे ना कां — Tuka says: thekōrānna-rāṇḍ(begging-widow) — thebaṭā bhāṇḍa(brood-spawning) — does she not beg? The closing-image. Kōrānna-rāṇḍ — a widow who begs forkōrānna(uncooked / dried-rice) — baṭā bhāṇḍa — the brood-burdened one. Even she begs. The implicit-comparison: even extreme-poverty does not justify the gold-coveting that produces brahma-hatyā. The kōrānna-rāṇḍ begs honestly (= asks for kōrānna, accepts what is given); the gold-coveting one does pāpa to acquire.

[T]

For someone today

Tukaram traces a whole catalog of grave wrongs — killing a learned person, killing a cow, selling one's own daughter, even living off another's suffering — back to a single root: the coveting of gold. None of these terrible acts stand alone; they're all branches growing from that same greedy craving for wealth. Even naming these sins out loud makes his tongue tremble, because he isn't listing them lightly or to shame anyone, but as a genuine warning about where that craving leads. He closes with a telling contrast: even a poor widow burdened with children, begging for a handful of grain, stays honest in her poverty — she never has to commit such crimes to survive, which shows that gold-coveting, not need, is what truly drives people to these depths.

मराठी: तुकाराम अनेक भयंकर पापांची यादी करतात — ब्रह्महत्या, गोहत्या, स्वतःच्या मुलीला विकणे, इतरांच्या जिवावर जगणे — आणि हे सगळे एकाच मुळाशी जाऊन पोहोचते, ते म्हणजे सोन्याचा लोभ. यातील एकही पाप वेगळे उभे नाही; सगळी त्याच धनलोभाच्या मुळातून फुटलेली फांदी आहे. ही पापे नुसती उच्चारताना सुद्धा त्यांची जीभ कापते, कारण ते ही यादी हलकेपणाने किंवा कुणाला लाजवण्यासाठी सांगत नाहीत, तर ती लोभ कुठे नेते याचा प्रामाणिक इशारा म्हणून सांगतात. शेवटी ते एक बोलका विरोधाभास मांडतात — मुलाबाळांचा भार असलेली गरीब विधवा भिक्षा मागतानाही आपल्या गरिबीत प्रामाणिक राहते; तिला जगण्यासाठी असे गुन्हे कधीच करावे लागत नाहीत — यावरून हेच सिद्ध होते की गरज नव्हे, तर सोन्याचा लोभच माणसाला या थराला घेऊन जातो.

Where this applies

• Gold-ambition is the root of grave-pāpas. Trace to source.
• Modern-forms of the listed-pāpas. Extended-sense.
• Tongue-trembles speaking of pāpa. Don't speak casually.
• Honest poverty vs. dishonest gold-coveting. Beggar honest, coveter not.

Related verses

• Abhanga 2448 — The easiest path to God is repeating divine names with love at home, right where you are,
• Abhanga 2467 — What looks like your whole world, like a fig to the insect living inside it, is only a tin
• Abhanga 2494 — Living in devotion turns an ordinary day into a festival and removes the fear of birth and
• Abhanga 4481 — Tukaram promises that sincerely calling on the Lord's name, knowingly or unknowingly, with