Abhanga 4006
Hostility toward good people can tempt even a wise voice into birth-based judgments that contradict their own deeper teaching that character and devotion matter more than lineage.
The verse
झंवविली महारें । त्याची व्याली असे पोरें ॥१॥
करी संताचा मत्सर । कोपें उभारोनि कर ॥ध्रु.॥
बीज तैसें फळ । वरी आलें अमंगळ ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे ठावें । ऐसें जालें अनुभवें ॥३॥
Literal translation
Jhanvavilī-mahārē — pōrē-of-her. Does-santa-mātsara — raises-kara-in-kōpa. Bīja-taisē-phaḷa — amangaḷa-came-up. Tukā: known-by-anubhava.
What it means
A 3-verse harsh bīja-taisē-phaḷa (seed-fruit) text — applied to a particular antagonist (apparently of disputed-lineage) who attacks santas. (A) dishonored mahār-woman has borne children; (such a one) envies santas, raises hand in anger. As the seed, so the fruit — the inauspicious origin shows up. I know this by experience. Outlier-text: harsh, lineage-based. Read with the dominant note of Tukārām's radical-inclusion (2755 śūdra-vamśī, 3814 no-varṇāvarṇa-by-Name, 3865 Pandhari-radical-inclusion) — Tukārām's general doctrine is quality-over-birth, but this verse — likely aimed at a specific antagonist whose actions matched his suspected impure-lineage — uses bīja-language polemically.
For someone today
This is one of Tukaram's harsher outlier verses, aimed at a specific person who attacked the saints out of envy, raising a hand in anger against them. Tukaram reaches for a seed-and-fruit argument, saying that what grows shows what was planted, and claims this pattern of hostility toward good people confirms something dishonorable about where the person came from. He states plainly that this is something he has come to know through his own experience. It is worth reading this one alongside Tukaram's much more common teaching elsewhere that a person's worth comes from their character and devotion, not their birth or lineage, since here his anger at a real antagonist pulls him toward the very birth-based judgment he elsewhere rejects.
मराठी: हा तुकारामांच्या तीव्र, वेगळ्या स्वरातील अभंगांपैकी एक आहे, जो संतांवर मत्सरापोटी हल्ला करणाऱ्या एका विशिष्ट व्यक्तीला उद्देशून आहे. तुकाराम बीज-फळाचा युक्तिवाद मांडतात, जे उगवते तेच पेरलेले होते असे सांगत, आणि संतांबद्दलच्या या द्वेषाच्या वर्तनातून त्या व्यक्तीच्या अप्रतिष्ठित मुळाचे प्रमाण मिळते असा दावा करतात. हे आपल्याला स्वानुभवाने कळले आहे असे ते स्पष्ट सांगतात. हा अभंग तुकारामांच्या इतरत्र वारंवार येणाऱ्या शिकवणीसोबत वाचणे उपयुक्त आहे, की माणसाची योग्यता त्याच्या जन्मावरून नव्हे तर त्याच्या स्वभावावरून आणि भक्तीवरून ठरते, कारण इथे एका खऱ्या विरोधकावरचा राग त्यांना त्याच जन्माधारित निर्णयाकडे ओढतो जो ते इतरत्र नाकारतात.
Where this applies
- Tukārām's bīja-taisē-phaḷa anti-santa-mātsara (outlier — read with 2755, 3814, 3865)