Abhanga 2695
The atityāī (excessive, over-doing) one drowns in the Ganges — the pāpa (sin) sticks to him.
The verse
अतित्याईं बुडे गंगे । पाप लागे त्याचें त्या ॥१॥
हें तों आपुलिया गुणें । असे जेणें योजिलें ॥ध्रु.॥
अवचटें अग्नि जाळी । न सांभाळी दुःख पावे ॥२॥
जैसें तैंसें दावी आरसा । नकट्या कैसा पालटे ॥३॥
Literal translation
The atityāī (excessive, over-doing) one drowns in the Ganges — the pāpa (sin) sticks to him. This is by āpuliyā guṇē (one's own qualities); by whom it has been yōjilē (arranged). Avachaṭa (accidental) fire burns; if not protected, suffering comes about. The mirror shows jaisē taisē (as it is); how can the nakaṭyā (cropped-nose, the one-with-the-cut-off-nose) change?
What it means
A short, sharp diagnostic verse. Atityāī buḍē gangē — pāpa lāgē tyāñchē tya — the atityāī drowns in the Ganges — sin sticks to him. Atityāī — one who goes-to-excess, over-doer, the excessively-pious. The Ganges is supposed to purify; for the atityāī, even drowning in Ganga doesn't purify — pāpa lāgē tyāñchē tya — the sin sticks to himself. The image is paradoxical: the very purifying-medium fails for the atityāī because the sin he carries is his own (lāgē tyāñchē tya).
The dhrūpada: hē tōm āpuliyā guṇē — asē jēṇē yōjilē — this is by his own qualities — arranged by him (himself, by his own pattern). The structure is self-arranged. The atityāī's drowning-in-Ganga-without-purification is his own pattern of being-arranged.
The second verse: avachaṭa agni jāḷī — na sāmbhāḷī duḥkhē pāvē — accidental fire burns; if not protected, suffering comes. Avachaṭa (accidental, sudden) fire — not the well-tended fire but the suddenly-arising fire of misfortune. If not protected — i.e., if one has not built the prior-protection — suffering arrives.
The close uses the celebrated mirror-image: jaisē taisē dāvī āraṣā — nakaṭyā kaisā pālṭē — the mirror shows as-is; how can the cropped-nose one change? The nakaṭyā — one with a cut-off nose (a folk-image for someone with an unchangeable visible-defect) — looks in the mirror and sees his nose missing. The mirror faithfully shows. The nakaṭyā can do nothing to change the mirror-image without changing the actual-nose. The metaphor: external religious-action (Ganga-bath, ritual-prayer) cannot change the inner-fact (the sin one carries by one's own qualities).
For someone today
The verse offers three teachings. (1) Atityāī: excessive-pious-doing is itself a flag — the more one strives, sometimes the more the sin sticks. The piety becomes a way of carrying-sin-into-the-purifying-medium. (2) Avachaṭa-agni: some calamities arrive accidentally; prior-protection (sāmbhāḷa) is the only refuge. There is no after-the-fact way to make oneself protected from a fire that has already begun. (3) The mirror-shows-as-is: external-religious-display doesn't change the inner-fact. The nakaṭyā doesn't get a new nose by changing mirrors. The verse is unsparing about the relation between appearance-management and actual-state.
Where this applies
- The warning against atityāī (over-doing of pious-acts) as self-deception
- The avachaṭa-agni protection-must-be-prior principle
- The mirror-shows-as-is — nakaṭyā-can't-change truth-of-inner-fact
- Diagnostic-mirror: am I atityāī? — and recognize the sin sticks even in Ganga