संत साहित्य · Tukārām · Abhanga 3598 of 4582

Abhanga 3598

Chanting the divine Name while your heart is full of anger and slander is not devotion, it is empty performance that brings harm rather than blessing.

When you notice someone weeping or performing devotion outwardly while gossiping or slandering others

When you catch yourself praying or chanting while anger still simmers inside you

When you use religious ritual as a cover for judging or belittling other people

The verse

हुंदकी पिसवी हलवी दाढी । मणी वोढी निंदेचे ॥१॥ त्याचें फळ पाकीं यमाचे दंड । घर केलें कुंड कुंभपाक ॥ध्रु.॥ क्रोध पोटीं मांग आणिला अंतरा । भुंकोनि कुतरा जप करी ॥२॥ तुका म्हणे स्नान केलें मळमूत्रें । जेवविलीं पितरें अमंगळें ॥३॥

Literal translation

Sobs-shakes-beard — pulls-slander-bead. Fruit-is-yama's-daṇḍa — house-kuṇḍa-kumbhapāka. Krōdha-in-pōṭa — brings-mānga-into-antara — barking-dog-japa. Tukā: bathed-with-maḷa-mūtra — fed-pitr-with-amangaḷa.

What it means

A sharp 3-verse anti-hypocrite-japa polemic. Performative-sobbing, beard-shaking, slander-bead-counting japa — the fruit is Yama's-rod and the house is a hell-cauldron; with anger in the belly he's brought the untouchable inside, dog-bark-japa; this is bathing-with-piss-and-feeding-ancestors-with-the-inauspicious. One of Tukārām's harshest polemical lines.

For someone today

This is one of Tukārām's harshest warnings against fake devotion. He describes someone putting on a theatrical show of piety, sobbing, shaking their beard, counting prayer beads, while actually using that time to gossip and slander others. He says the fruit of that kind of chanting is punishment, not blessing, it turns your own home into a kind of hell. If anger and cruelty live in your belly while your mouth recites the Name, that's not devotion, it's like a dog barking, and it's as unclean as bathing in filth or offering your ancestors something foul instead of food.

मराठी: ही तुकारामांच्या सर्वात कठोर टीकांपैकी एक आहे, खोट्या भक्तीविरुद्ध. ते वर्णन करतात अशा माणसाचं जो भक्तीचं नाटक करतो, हुंदके देतो, दाढी हलवतो, माळ ओढतो, पण खरं तर त्याच वेळी दुसऱ्यांची निंदा करत असतो. ते म्हणतात अशा जपाचं फळ शिक्षा असतं, आशीर्वाद नव्हे, ते स्वतःचं घरच नरक बनवतं. तोंडाने नाम घेत असताना पोटात राग आणि क्रूरता असेल, तर ती भक्ती नसते, ते कुत्रा भुंकण्यासारखं असतं, आणि ते मलमूत्राने स्नान केल्याइतकं किंवा पितरांना अमंगळ अन्न वाढल्याइतकं अशुद्ध असतं.

Where this applies

Tukārām's anti-hypocrite-japa canonical
Strong polemic against performative-bhakti
Companion to 3480 (jāṇīvā-burden), 3531 (snake-doesn't-know-petting)

Mortality / Vairāgya Autobiographical