Abhanga 2747
A useful relational-reality-check. The wealth you preserved — to whose work did it actually come? Knowing this, why do you become unknowing? Wife, son, brother — you have no sambandhu (binding-relation) with them. No friend except Hari. The verse is unsparing about conventional-attachments. The diagnostic-question — to whose work did your wealth go? — is precise: trace your wealth-flow and you will see it serves others, not you. The priyā-putra-bandhu claim is harsh but mortality-clear: at death, none of these sambandhu hold. The single Harīvīṇa nāhī sakhā claim is the bhakti-alternative: the one real friendship survives.
The verse
करूनि जतन । कोणा कामा आलें धन ॥१ ॥
ऐसें जाणतां जाणतां । कां रे होतोसी नेणता ॥ध्रु.॥
प्रिया पुत्र बंधु । नाहीं तुज यांशीं संबंधु ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे एका । हरीविण नाहीं सखा ॥३॥
Literal translation
Karūnī jatana — kōṇā kāmā ālē dhana — having done jatana (preservation, care) — to whose kāma (work) did the dhana (wealth) come? Aisē jāṇatām jāṇatām — knowing this — knowing-this; kā re hōtōsī nēṇatā — why do you become nēṇatā (unknowing)? Priyā putra bandhu — nāhī tuja yāñśī sambandhu — wife, son, brother — you have no sambandhu (relation) with them. Tukā says: ēkā Harīvīṇa nāhī sakhā — no sakhā (friend) except ēkā Hari (only Hari).
What it means
A short relational-reality-check verse. Karūnī jatana — kōṇā kāmā ālē dhana — after all your preservation-effort, to whose work did the wealth come? The piercing question: the dhana you preserved — whose work did it serve? The implicit answer: others' work. The bhakta preserves wealth that ends up serving others' (heirs', creditors', tax-collectors') work, not his own.
The dhrūpada: aisē jāṇatām jāṇatām — kā re hōtōsī nēṇatā — knowing-knowing — why do you become unknowing? The doubled-jāṇatām (knowing) emphasizes: you actually know this already. And yet nēṇatā (unknowing) — willful-blindness. The diagnostic: knowing-but-acting-as-if-unknowing.
The second verse: priyā putra bandhu — nāhī tuja yāñśī sambandhu — wife, son, brother — you have no sambandhu (relation) with them. Sambandhu — real-relation, blood-relation, binding-tie. The radical claim: the relationships you presume are real, are not actually sambandhu. The wife is not your wife in any binding-eternal sense; the son is not your son; the brother is not your brother.
The close: Harīvīṇa nāhī sakhā — no friend except Hari. The single-friendship-claim. Hari alone is the sakhā — the only real-friend. The other-relations are conventional, not sakhā.
For someone today
A useful relational-reality-check. The wealth you preserved — to whose work did it actually come? Knowing this, why do you become unknowing? Wife, son, brother — you have no sambandhu (binding-relation) with them. No friend except Hari. The verse is unsparing about conventional-attachments. The diagnostic-question — to whose work did your wealth go? — is precise: trace your wealth-flow and you will see it serves others, not you. The priyā-putra-bandhu claim is harsh but mortality-clear: at death, none of these sambandhu hold. The single Harīvīṇa nāhī sakhā claim is the bhakti-alternative: the one real friendship survives.
Where this applies
- Mortality-clear relational-reality check
- Recognizing that preserved-wealth went to others' work
- The knowing-yet-unknowing willful-blindness diagnosis
- The no-friend-except-Hari single-relation claim