Abhanga 3599
Some rigidity, like a stake or a pestle, cannot be bent into something flexible, so a stiff, closed heart may miss even the good fortune right in front of it.
The verse
अंगा भरला ताठा । नये वळणी जैसा खुंटा ॥१॥
कैसें न कळे त्या डेंगा । हित आदळलें अंगा ॥ध्रु.॥
जीव जाते वेळे । भरे लकडा ताठी डोळे ॥२॥
मुसळाचें धनु । तुका म्हणे नव्हे अनु ॥३॥
Literal translation
Body-filled-with-stiffness — doesn't-bend-like-stake. Ḍēngā-doesn't-know — what-hita-struck-anga. At-jīva-leaving-body-wooden-eyes-stiff. Tukā: pestle-bow — no-other-anu.
What it means
A 3-verse anti-rigidity image. The stiff-body is like a stake — won't bend; even when good strikes it, the dim-wit doesn't know; at death the body becomes wooden, eyes go stiff; a bow made-of-pestle — there's no other-suitable (pestle is the wrong-material for a bow). Striking image of inherent-rigidity that no shaping can fix.
For someone today
Tukārām compares a stiff, unyielding person to a wooden stake — one that simply won't bend, no matter how much benefit or good fortune strikes right up against it, because the dull mind never even recognizes what's happened. At the moment of death, this same rigidity finally shows itself completely: the body turns wooden and the eyes go stiff and staring. A pestle, Tukārām says, can never be reshaped into a bow — some rigidity is simply too fixed in its nature to ever be bent into something else.
मराठी: तुकाराम इथे कडक, न वाकणाऱ्या माणसाची तुलना खुंट्याशी करतात — जो कितीही चांगले घडले तरी वाकत नाही, कारण मंद बुद्धीला ते कळतच नाही. मृत्यूच्या क्षणी हीच कडकपणा पूर्णपणे उघड होतो — शरीर लाकडासारखे होते, डोळे स्थिर, ताठ होतात. तुकाराम म्हणतात, मुसळाचे कधी धनुष्य होऊ शकत नाही — काही कडकपणा इतका मूळचा असतो की तो कधीच वाकवता येत नाही.
Where this applies
- Tukārām's body-stake-stiff; pestle-can't-be-bow canonical anti-rigidity image