Chapter 133அதிகாரம் 133 தீராதவை The Unfinished

Once the fault the discerning eye sees has been removed, there is the fault the discerning eye sees.

When the making is done, the unmade is there too, in the maker’s heart.

A person setting out to learn says, ‘I know nothing.’ Having learned, they say, ‘I know nothing.’

A stopped song sounds without stopping; refused, it still enters the ear.

When the one who painted is gone, the undrawn line torments with a question: who will paint now?

The trunk in the middle does not know its root, does not know its branch; it bears, and the bearing is the beauty.

The woman who has finished her accounts sleeps; the account she left unfinished sits up with the night, keeping exact account.

They wove; they died. The warp is set on the tall loom-post, and the path is walked as it was laid.

On a handloom, warp threads are laid by walking back and forth between tall posts, so the weaving has its own walked path.

The one who did not finish has a hundred; the one who finished one has one.

The Tamil word for ‘has’ is the word for an owner; beside ‘did not finish’, it also counts what is left undone.

The yield of a sown seed is one; the yield within a seed that has not opened is a whole forest.