Produced by Chetan K. Jain and John B. Hare
SONGS OF KABÎR
Translated by Rabindranath Tagore
Introduction by Evelyn Underhill
New York, The Macmillan Company
1915
INTRODUCTION
The poet Kabîr, a selection from whose songs is here for the
first time offered to English readers, is one of the most
interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism.
Born in or near Benares, of Mohammedan parents, and probably
about the year 1440, he became in early life a disciple of the
celebrated Hindu ascetic Râmânanda. Râmânanda had brought to
Northern India the religious revival which Râmânuja, the great
twelfth-century reformer of Brâhmanism, had initiated in the
South. This revival was in part a reaction against the
increasing formalism of the orthodox cult, in part an assertion
of the demands of the heart as against the intense
intellectualism of the Vedânta philosophy, the exaggerated monism
which that philosophy proclaimed. It took in Râmânuja's
preaching the form of an ardent personal devotion to the God
Vishnu, as representing the personal aspect of the Divine Nature:
that mystical "religion of love" which everywhere makes its
appearance at a certain level of spiritual culture, and which
creeds and philosophies are powerless to kill.
Though such a devotion is indigenous in Hinduism, and finds
expression in many passages of the Bhagavad Gîtâ, there was in
its mediæval revival a large element of syncretism. Râmânanda,
through whom its spirit is said to have reached Kabîr, appears to
have been a man of wide religious culture, and full of missionary
enthusiasm. Living at the moment in which the impassioned poetry
and deep philosophy of the great Persian mystics, Attâr, Sâdî,
Jalâlu'ddîn Rûmî, and Hâfiz, were exercising a powerful influence
on the religious thought of India, he dreamed of reconciling this
intense and personal Mohammedan mysticism with the traditional
theology of Brâhmanism. Some have regarded both these great
religious leaders as influenced also by Christian thought and
life: but as this is a point upon which competent authorities
hold widely divergent views, its discussion is not attempted here.
We may safely assert, however, that in their teachings, two--perhaps
three--apparently antagonistic streams of intense
spiritual culture met, as Jewish and Hellenistic thought met in
the early Christian Church: and it is one of the outstanding
characteristics of Kabîr's genius that he was able in his poems
to fuse them into one.
A great religious reformer, the founder of a sect to which nearly
a million northern Hindus still belong, it is yet supremely as a
mystical poet that Kabîr lives for us. His fate has been that of
many revealers of Reality. A hater of religious exclusivism, and
seeking above all things to initiate men into the liberty of the
children of God, his followers have honoured his memory by
re-erecting in a new place the barriers which he laboured to cast
down. But his wonderful songs survive, the spontaneous
expressions of his vision and his love; and it is by these, not
by the didactic teachings associated with his name, that he makes
his immortal appeal to the heart. In these poems a wide range of
mystical emotion is brought into play: from the loftiest
abstractions, the most otherworldly passion for the Infinite, to
the most intimate and personal realization of God, expressed in
homely metaphors and religious symbols drawn indifferently from
Hindu and Mohammedan belief. It is impossible to say of their
author that he was Brâhman or Sûfî, Vedântist or Vaishnavite.
He is, as he says himself, "at once the child of Allah and of Râm."
That Supreme Spirit Whom he knew and adored, and to Whose joyous
friendship he sought to induct the souls of other men, transcended
whilst He included all metaphysical categories, all credal
definitions; yet each contributed something to the description of
that Infinite and Simple Totality Who revealed Himself, according
to their measure, to the faithful lovers of all creeds.
Kabîr's story is surrounded by contradictory legends, on none of
which reliance can be placed. Some of these emanate from a Hindu,
some from a Mohammedan source, and claim him by turns as a Sûfî
and a Brâhman saint. His name, however, is practically a
conclusive proof of Moslem ancestry: and the most probable tale is
that which represents him as the actual or adopted child of a
Mohammedan weaver of Benares, the city in which the chief events
of his life took place.
In fifteenth-century Benares the syncretistic tendencies of
Bhakti religion had reached full development. Sûfîs and Brâhmans
appear to have met in disputation: the most spiritual members of
both creeds frequenting the teachings of Râmânanda, whose
reputation was then at its height. The boy Kabîr, in whom the
religious passion was innate, saw in Râmânanda his destined
teacher; but knew how slight were the chances that a Hindu guru
would accept a Mohammedan as disciple. He therefore hid upon the
steps of the river Ganges, where Râmânanda was accustomed to
bathe; with the result that the master, coming down to the water,
trod upon his body unexpectedly, and exclaimed in his
astonishment, "Ram! Ram!"--the name of the incarnation under
which he worshipped God. Kabîr then declared that he had
received the mantra of initiation from Râmânanda's lips, and was
by it admitted to discipleship. In spite of the protests of
orthodox Brâhmans and Mohammedans, both equally annoyed by this
contempt of theological landmarks, he persisted in his claim;
thus exhibiting in action that very principle of religious
synthesis which Râmânanda had sought to establish in thought.
Râmânanda appears to have accepted him, and though Mohammedan
legends speak of the famous Sûfî Pîr, Takkî of Jhansî, as Kabîr's
master in later life, the Hindu saint is the only human teacher
to whom in his songs he acknowledges indebtedness.
The little that we know of Kabîr's life contradicts many current
ideas concerning the Oriental mystic. Of the stages of
discipline through which he passed, the manner in which his
spiritual genius developed, we are completely ignorant. He seems
to have remained for years the disciple of Râmânanda, joining in
the theological and philosophical arguments which his master held
with all the great Mullahs and Brâhmans of his day; and to this
source we may perhaps trace his acquaintance with the terms of
Hindu and Sûfî philosophy. He may or may not have submitted to
the traditional education of the Hindu or the Sûfî contemplative:
it is clear, at any rate, that he never adopted the life of the
professional ascetic, or retired from the world in order to
devote himself to bodily mortifications and the exclusive pursuit
of the contemplative life. Side by side with his interior life
of adoration, its artistic expression in music and words--for he
was a skilled musician as well as a poet--he lived the sane and
diligent life of the Oriental craftsman. All the legends agree
on this point: that Kabîr was a weaver, a simple and unlettered
man, who earned his living at the loom. Like Paul the tentmaker,
Boehme the cobbler, Bunyan the tinker, Tersteegen the
ribbon-maker, he knew how to combine vision and industry; the
work of his hands helped rather than hindered the impassioned
meditation of his heart. Hating mere bodily austerities, he was
no ascetic, but a married man, the father of a family--a
circumstance which Hindu legends of the monastic type vainly
attempt to conceal or explain--and it was from out of the heart
of the common life that he sang his rapturous lyrics of divine
love. Here his works corroborate the traditional story of his
life. Again and again he extols the life of home, the value and
reality of diurnal existence, with its opportunities for love and
renunciation; pouring contempt--upon the professional sanctity of
the Yogi, who "has a great beard and matted locks, and looks like
a goat," and on all who think it necessary to flee a world
pervaded by love, joy, and beauty--the proper theatre of man's
quest--in order to find that One Reality Who has "spread His form
of love throughout all the world." [Footnote: Cf. Poems Nos. XXI,
XL, XLIII, LXVI, LXXVI.]
It does not need much experience of ascetic literature to
recognize the boldness and originality of this attitude in such a
time and place. From the point of view of orthodox sanctity,
whether Hindu or Mohammedan, Kabîr was plainly a heretic; and his
frank dislike of all institutional religion, all external
observance--which was as thorough and as intense as that of the
Quakers themselves--completed, so far as ecclesiastical opinion
was concerned, his reputation as a dangerous man. The "simple
union" with Divine Reality which he perpetually extolled, as alike
the duty and the joy of every soul, was independent both of ritual
and of bodily austerities; the God whom he proclaimed was "neither
in Kaaba nor in Kailâsh." Those who sought Him needed not to go
far; for He awaited discovery everywhere, more accessible to "the
washerwoman and the carpenter" than to the self--righteous holy man.
[Footnote: Poems I, II, XLI.] Therefore the whole apparatus of
piety, Hindu and Moslem alike--the temple and mosque, idol and holy
water, scriptures and priests--were denounced by this inconveniently
clear-sighted poet as mere substitutes for reality; dead things
intervening between the soul and its love--
/*
The images are all lifeless, they cannot speak:
I know, for I have cried aloud to them.
The Purâna and the Koran are mere words:
lifting up the curtain, I have seen.
*/
[Footnote: Poems XLII, LXV, LXVII.]
This sort of thing cannot be tolerated by any organized church;
and it is not surprising that Kabîr, having his head-quarters in
Benares, the very centre of priestly influence, was subjected to
considerable persecution. The well-known legend of the beautiful
courtesan sent by Brâhmans to tempt his virtue, and converted,
like the Magdalen, by her sudden encounter with the initiate of a
higher love, pre serves the memory of the fear and dislike with
which he was regarded by the ecclesiastical powers. Once at
least, after the performance of a supposed miracle of healing, he
was brought before the Emperor Sikandar Lodi, and charged with
claiming the possession of divine powers. But Sikandar Lodi, a
ruler of considerable culture, was tolerant of the eccentricities
of saintly persons belonging to his own faith. Kabîr, being of
Mohammedan birth, was outside the authority of the Brâhmans, and
technically classed with the Sûfîs, to whom great theological
latitude was allowed. Therefore, though he was banished in the
interests of peace from Benares, his life was spared. This seems
to have happened in 1495, when he was nearly sixty years of age;
it is the last event in his career of which we have definite
knowledge. Thenceforth he appears to have moved about amongst
various cities of northern India, the centre of a group of
disciples; continuing in exile that life of apostle and poet of
love to which, as he declares in one of his songs, he was destined
"from the beginning of time." In 1518, an old man, broken in
health, and with hands so feeble that he could no longer make the
music which he loved, he died at Maghar near Gorakhpur.
A beautiful legend tells us that after his death his
Mohammedan and Hindu disciples disputed the possession of his
body; which the Mohammedans wished to bury, the Hindus to burn.
As they argued together, Kabîr appeared before them, and told
them to lift the shroud and look at that which lay beneath. They
did so, and found in the place of the corpse a heap of flowers;
half of which were buried by the Mohammedans at Maghar, and half
carried by the Hindus to the holy city of Benares to be
burned--fitting conclusion to a life which had made fragrant the
most beautiful doctrines of two great creeds.
II
The poetry of mysticism might be defined on the one hand as a
temperamental reaction to the vision of Reality: on the other, as
a form of prophecy. As it is the special vocation of the
mystical consciousness to mediate between two orders, going out
in loving adoration towards God and coming home to tell the
secrets of Eternity to other men; so the artistic self-expression
of this consciousness has also a double character. It is
love-poetry, but love-poetry which is often written with a missionary
intention.
Kabîr's songs are of this kind: out-births at once of rapture and
of charity. Written in the popular Hindi, not in the literary
tongue, they were deliberately addressed--like the vernacular
poetry of Jacopone da Todì and Richard Rolle--to the people rather
than to the professionally religious class; and all must be struck
by the constant employment in them of imagery drawn from the
common life, the universal experience. It is by the simplest
metaphors, by constant appeals to needs, passions, relations which
all men understand--the bridegroom and bride, the guru and
disciple, the pilgrim, the farmer, the migrant bird-- that he
drives home his intense conviction of the reality of the soul's
intercourse with the Transcendent. There are in his universe no
fences between the "natural" and "supernatural" worlds; everything
is a part of the creative Play of God, and therefore--even in its
humblest details--capable of revealing the Player's mind.
This willing acceptance of the here-and-now as a means of
representing supernal realities is a trait common to the greatest
mystics. For them, when they have achieved at last the true
theopathetic state, all aspects of the universe possess equal
authority as sacramental declarations of the Presence of God; and
their fearless employment of homely and physical symbols--often
startling and even revolting to the unaccustomed taste--is in
direct proportion to the exaltation of their spiritual life. The
works of the great Sûfîs, and amongst the Christians of Jacopone
da Todì, Ruysbroeck, Boehme, abound in illustrations of this law.
Therefore we must not be surprised to find in Kabîr's songs--his
desperate attempts to communicate his ecstasy and persuade other
men to share it--a constant juxtaposition of concrete and
metaphysical language; swift alternations between the most
intensely anthropomorphic, the most subtly philosophical, ways of
apprehending man's communion with the Divine. The need for this
alternation, and its entire naturalness for the mind which
employs it, is rooted in his concept, or vision, of the Nature of
God; and unless we make some attempt to grasp this, we shall not
go far in our understanding of his poems.
Kabîr belongs to that small group of supreme mystics--amongst
whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the Sûfî poet Jalâlu'ddîn
Rûmî are perhaps the chief--who have achieved that which we might
call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the
perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the
transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the
Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the "sure
true Friend" of devotional religion. They have done this, not by
taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the
other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at
which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, "melted and merged in the
Unity," and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect
Whole. This proceeding entails for them--and both Kabîr and
Ruysbroeck expressly acknowledge it--a universe of three orders:
Becoming, Being, and that which is "More than Being," i.e., God.
[Footnote: Nos. VII and XLIX.] God is here felt to be not the
final abstraction, but the one actuality. He inspires, supports,
indeed inhabits, both the durational, conditioned, finite world
of Becoming and the unconditioned, non-successional, infinite
world of Being; yet utterly transcends them both. He is the
omnipresent Reality, the "All-pervading" within Whom "the worlds
are being told like beads." In His personal aspect He is the
"beloved Fakir," teaching and companioning each soul. Considered
as Immanent Spirit, He is "the Mind within the mind." But all
these are at best partial aspects of His nature, mutually
corrective: as the Persons in the Christian doctrine of the
Trinity--to which this theological diagram bears a striking
resemblance--represent different and compensating experiences of
the Divine Unity within which they are resumed. As Ruysbroeck
discerned a plane of reality upon which "we can speak no more of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but only of One Being, the very
substance of the Divine Persons"; so Kabîr says that "beyond both
the limited and the limitless is He, the Pure Being." [Footnote:
No. VII.]
Brahma, then, is the Ineffable Fact compared with which "the
distinction of the Conditioned from the Unconditioned is but a
word": at once the utterly transcendent One of Absolutist
philosophy, and the personal Lover of the individual
soul--"common to all and special to each," as one Christian mystic
has it. The need felt by Kabîr for both these ways of describing
Reality is a proof of the richness and balance of his spiritual
experience; which neither cosmic nor anthropomorphic symbols,
taken alone, could express. More absolute than the Absolute,
more personal than the human mind, Brahma therefore exceeds
whilst He includes all the concepts of philosophy, all the
passionate intuitions of the heart. He is the Great Affirmation,
the font of energy, the source of life and love, the unique
satisfaction of desire. His creative word is the _Om_ or
"Everlasting Yea." The negative philosophy which strips from the
Divine Nature all Its attributes and defining Him only by that
which He is not--reduces Him to an "Emptiness," is abhorrent to
this most vital of poets.--Brahma, he says, "may never be found
in abstractions." He is the One Love who Pervades the world.,
discerned in His fullness only by the eyes of love; and those who
know Him thus share, though they may never tell, the joyous and
ineffable secret of the universe. [Footnote: Nos. VII, XXVI,
LXXVI, XC.]
Now Kabîr, achieving this synthesis between the personal and
cosmic aspects of the Divine Nature, eludes the three great
dangers which threaten mystical religion.
First, he escapes the excessive emotionalism, the tendency to
an exclusively anthropomorphic devotion, which results from an
unrestricted cult of Divine Personality, especially under an
incarnational form; seen in India in the exaggerations of
Krishna worship, in Europe in the sentimental extravagances of
certain Christian saints.
Next, he is protected from the soul-destroying conclusions of
pure monism, inevitable if its logical implications are pressed
home: that is, the identity of substance between God and the
soul, with its corollary of the total absorption of that soul in
the Being of God as the goal of the spiritual life. For the
thorough-going monist the soul, in so far as it is real, is
substantially identical with God; and the true object of
existence is the making patent of this latent identity, the
realization which finds expression in the Vedântist formula "That
art thou." But Kabîr says that Brahma and the creature are "ever
distinct, yet ever united"; that the wise man knows the spiritual
as well as the material world to "be no more than His footstool."
[Footnote: Nos. VII and IX.] The soul's union with Him is a love
union, a mutual inhabitation; that essentially dualistic relation
which all mystical religion expresses, not a self-mergence which
leaves no place for personality. This eternal distinction, the
mysterious union-in-separateness of God and the soul, is a
necessary doctrine of all sane mysticism; for no scheme which
fails to find a place for it can represent more than a fragment of
that soul's intercourse with the spiritual world. Its affirmation
was one of the distinguishing features of the Vaishnavite
reformation preached by Râmânuja; the principle of which had
descended through Râmânanda to Kabîr.
Last, the warmly human and direct apprehension of God as the
supreme Object of love, the soul's comrade, teacher, and
bridegroom, which is so passionately and frequently expressed in
Kabîr's poems, balances and controls those abstract tendencies
which are inherent in the metaphysical side of his vision of
Reality: and prevents it from degenerating into that sterile
worship of intellectual formulæ which became the curse of the
Vedântist school. For the mere intellectualist, as for the mere
pietist, he has little approbation. [Footnote: Cf. especially
Nos. LIX, LXVII, LXXV, XC, XCI.] Love is throughout his
"absolute sole Lord": the unique source of the more abundant life
which he enjoys, and the common factor which unites the finite
and infinite worlds. All is soaked in love: that love which he
described in almost Johannine language as the "Form of God."
The whole of creation is the Play of the Eternal Lover; the
living, changing, growing expression of Brahma's love and joy.
As these twin passions preside over the generation of human life,
so "beyond the mists of pleasure and pain" Kabîr finds them
governing the creative acts of God. His manifestation is love;
His activity is joy. Creation springs from one glad act of
affirmation: the Everlasting Yea, perpetually uttered within the
depths of the Divine Nature. [Footnote: Nos. XVII, XXVI, LXXVI,
LXXXII.] In accordance with this concept of the universe as a
Love-Game which eternally goes forward, a progressive
manifestation of Brahma--one of the many notions which he adopted
from the common stock of Hindu religious ideas, and illuminated
by his poetic genius--movement, rhythm, perpetual change, forms
an integral part of Kabîr's vision of Reality. Though the
Eternal and Absolute is ever present to his consciousness, yet
his concept of the Divine Nature is essentially dynamic. It is
by the symbols of motion that he most often tries to convey it to
us: as in his constant reference to dancing, or the strangely
modern picture of that Eternal Swing of the Universe which is
"held by the cords of love." [Footnote: No. XVI.]
It is a marked characteristic of mystical literature that the
great contemplatives, in their effort to convey to us the nature
of their communion with the supersensuous, are inevitably driven
to employ some form of sensuous imagery: coarse and inaccurate as
they know such imagery to be, even at the best. Our normal human
consciousness is so completely committed to dependence on the
senses, that the fruits of intuition itself are instinctively
referred to them. In that intuition it seems to the mystics that
all the dim cravings and partial apprehensions of sense find
perfect fulfilment. Hence their constant declaration that they
_see_ the uncreated light, they _hear_ the celestial
melody, they _taste_ the sweetness of the Lord, they know an
ineffable fragrance, they feel the very contact of love. "Him
verily seeing and fully feeling, Him spiritually hearing and Him
delectably smelling and sweetly swallowing," as Julian of Norwich
has it. In those amongst them who develop psycho-sensorial
automatisms, these parallels between sense and spirit may present
themselves to consciousness in the form of hallucinations: as the
light seen by Suso, the music heard by Rolle, the celestial
perfumes which filled St. Catherine of Siena's cell, the physical
wounds felt by St. Francis and St. Teresa. These are excessive
dramatizations of the symbolism under which the mystic tends
instinctively to represent his spiritual intuition to the surface
consciousness. Here, in the special sense-perception which he
feels to be most expressive of Reality, his peculiar
idiosyncrasies come out.
Now Kabîr, as we might expect in one whose reactions to the
spiritual order were so wide and various, uses by turn all the
symbols of sense. He tells us that he has "seen without sight"
the effulgence of Brahma, tasted the divine nectar, felt the
ecstatic contact of Reality, smelt the fragrance of the heavenly
flowers. But he was essentially a poet and musician: rhythm and
harmony were to him the garments of beauty and truth. Hence in
his lyrics he shows himself to be, like Richard Rolle, above all
things a musical mystic. Creation, he says again and again, is
full of music: it _is_ music. At the heart of the Universe
"white music is blossoming": love weaves the melody, whilst
renunciation beats the time. It can be heard in the home as well
as in the heavens; discerned by the ears of common men as well as
by the trained senses of the ascetic. Moreover, the body of
every man is a lyre on which Brahma, "the source of all music,"
plays. Everywhere Kabîr discerns the "Unstruck Music of the
Infinite"--that celestial melody which the angel played to St.
Francis, that ghostly symphony which filled the soul of Rolle
with ecstatic joy. [Footnote: Nos. XVII, XVIII, XXXIX, XLI, LIV,
LXXVI, LXXXIII, LXXXIX, XCVII.] The one figure which he adopts
from the Hindu Pantheon and constantly uses, is that of Krishna
the Divine Flute Player. [Footnote: Nos. L, LIII, LXVIII.] He
sees the supernal music, too, in its visual embodiment, as
rhythmical movement: that mysterious dance of the universe before
the face of Brahma, which is at once an act of worship and an
expression of the infinite rapture of the Immanent God.'
Yet in this wide and rapturous vision of the universe Kabîr
never loses touch with diurnal existence, never forgets the
common life. His feet are firmly planted upon earth; his lofty
and passionate apprehensions are perpetually controlled by the
activity of a sane and vigorous intellect, by the alert
commonsense so often found in persons of real mystical genius.
The constant insistence on simplicity and directness, the hatred
of all abstractions and philosophizings,[Footnote: Nos. XXVI,
XXXII, LXXVI] the ruthless criticism of external religion: these
are amongst his most marked characteristics. God is the Root
whence all manifestations, "material" and "spiritual," alike
proceed; [Footnote: Nos. LXXV, LXXVIII, LXXX, XC.] and God is
the only need of man--"happiness shall be yours when you come to
the Root." [Footnote: No. LXXX.] Hence to those who keep their
eye on the "one thing needful," denominations, creeds, ceremonies,
the conclusions of philosophy, the disciplines of asceticism, are
matters of comparative indifference. They represent merely the
different angles from which the soul may approach that simple
union with Brahma which is its goal; and are useful only in so
faras they contribute to this consummation. So thorough-going is
Kabîr's eclecticism, that he seems by turns Vedântist and
Vaishnavite, Pantheist and Transcendentalist, Brâhman and Sûfî.
In the effort to tell the truth about that ineffable apprehension,
so vast and yet so near, which controls his life, he seizes and
twines together--as he might have woven together contrasting
threads upon his loom--symbols and ideas drawn from the most
violent and conflicting philosophies and faiths. All are needed,
if he is ever to suggest the character of that One whom the
Upanishad called "the Sun-coloured Being who is beyond this
Darkness": as all the colours of the spectrum are needed if we
would demonstrate the simple richness of white light. In thus
adapting traditional materials to his own use he follows a method
common amongst the mystics; who seldom exhibit any special love
for originality of form. They will pour their wine into almost
any vessel that comes to hand: generally using by preference--and
lifting to new levels of beauty and significance--the religious or
philosophic formulæ current in their own day. Thus we find that
some of Kabîr's finest poems have as their subjects the
commonplaces of Hindu philosophy and religion: the Lîlâ or Sport of
God, the Ocean of Bliss, the Bird of the Soul, Mâyâ, the Hundred-petalled
Lotus, and the "Formless Form." Many, again, are soaked
in Sûfî imagery and feeling. Others use as their material the
ordinary surroundings and incidents of Indian life: the temple bells,
the ceremony of the lamps, marriage, suttee, pilgrimage, the
characters of the seasons; all felt by him in their mystical aspect,
as sacraments of the soul's relation with Brahma. In many of these
a particularly beautiful and intimate feeling for Nature is shown.
[Footnote: Nos. XV, XXIII, LXVII, LXXXVII, XCVII.]
In the collection of songs here translated there will be found
examples which illustrate nearly every aspect of Kabîr's thought,
and all the fluctuations of the mystic's emotion: the ecstasy,
the despair, the still beatitude, the eager self-devotion, the
flashes of wide illumination, the moments of intimate love. His
wide and deep vision of the universe, the "Eternal Sport" of
creation (LXXXII), the worlds being "told like beads" within the
Being of God (XIV, XVI, XVII, LXXVI), is here seen balanced by
his lovely and delicate sense of intimate communion with the
Divine Friend, Lover, Teacher of the soul (X, XI, XXIII, XXXV, LI,
LXXXV, LXXXVI, LXXXVIII, XCII, XCIII; above all, the beautiful
poem XXXIV). As these apparently paradoxical views of Reality
are resolved in Brâhma, so all other opposites are reconciled in
Him: bondage and liberty, love and renunciation, pleasure and pain
(XVII, XXV, XL, LXXIX). Union with Him is the one thing that
matters to the soul, its destiny and its need (LI, I, II, LIV, LXX,
LXXIV, XCIII, XCVI); and this union, this discovery of God, is the
simplest and most natural of all things, if we would but grasp it
(XLI, XLVI, LVI, LXXII, LXXVI, LXXVIII, XCVII). The union, however,
is brought about by love, not by knowledge or ceremonial observances
(XXXVIII, LIV, LV, LIX, XCI); and the apprehension which that union
confers is ineffable--"neither This nor That," as Ruysbroeck has it
(IX, XLVI, LXXVI). Real worship and communion is in Spirit and in
Truth (XL, XLI, LVI, LXIII, LXV, LXX), therefore idolatry is an
insult to the Divine Lover (XLII, LXIX) and the devices of
professional sanctity are useless apart from charity and purity
of soul (LIV, LXV, LXVI). Since all things, and especially the
heart of man, are God-inhabited, God-possessed (XXVI, LVI, LXXVI,
LXXXIX, XCVII), He may best be found in the here-and-now: in the
normal. human, bodily existence, the "mud" of material life (III,
IV, VI, XXI, XXXIX, XL, XLIII, XLVIII, LXXII). "We can reach the
goal without crossing the road" (LXXVI)--not the cloister but the
home is the proper theatre of man's efforts: and if he cannot find
God there, he need not hope for success by going farther afield.
"In the home is reality." There love and detachment, bondage and
freedom, joy and pain play by turns upon the soul; and it is from
their conflict that the Unstruck Music of the Infinite proceeds.
Kabîr says: "None but Brahma can evoke its melodies."
"This version of Kabîr's songs is chiefly the work of
Mr. Rabîndranâth Tagore, the trend of whose mystical genius makes
him--as all who read these poems will see--a peculiarly
sympathetic interpreter of Kabîr's vision and thought. It has
been based upon the printed Hindî text with Bengali translation
of Mr. Kshiti Mohan Sen; who has gathered from many sources--sometimes
from books and manuscripts, sometimes from the lips of
wandering ascetics and minstrels--a large collection of poems
and hymns to which Kabîr's name is attached, and carefully
sifted the authentic songs from the many spurious works now
attributed to him. These painstaking labours alone have made
the present undertaking possible.
We have also had before us a manuscript English translation of
116 songs made by Mr. Ajit Kumâr Chakravarty from Mr. Kshiti
Mohan Sen's text, and a prose essay upon Kabîr from the same
hand. From these we have derived great assistance. A
considerable number of readings from the translation have been
adopted by us; whilst several of the facts mentioned in the essay
have been incorporated into this introduction. Our most grateful
thanks are due to Mr. Ajit Kumar Chakravarty for the extremely
generous and unselfish manner in which he has placed his work at
our disposal.
E. U.
The reference of the headlines of the poems is to:
Sântiniketana; Kabîr by Srî Kshitimohan Sen, 4 parts,
Brahmacharyâsrama, Bolpur, 1910-1911.
For some assistance in normalizing the transliteration we are
indebted to Professor J. F. Blumhardt.
KABIR'S POEMS
I
I. 13. _mo ko kahân dhûnro bande_
O servant, where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee.
I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor
in Kailash:
Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and
renunciation.
If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt
meet Me in a moment of time.
Kabîr says, "O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath."
II
I. 16. _Santan jât na pûcho nirguniyân_
It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs;
For the priest, the warrior. the tradesman, and all the
thirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God.
It is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be;
The barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter--
Even Raidas was a seeker after God.
The Rishi Swapacha was a tanner by caste.
Hindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no
mark of distinction.
III
I. 57. _sâdho bhâî, jîval hî karo âs'â_
O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live,
understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides.
If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of
deliverance in death?
It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him
because it has passed from the body:
If He is found now, He is found then,
If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death.
If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.
Bathe in the truth, know the true Guru, have faith in the true
Name!
Kabîr says: "It is the Spirit of the quest which helps; I am the
slave of this Spirit of the quest."
IV
I. 58. _bâgo nâ jâ re nâ jâ_
Do not go to the garden of flowers!
O Friend! go not there;
In your body is the garden of flowers.
Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there
gaze on the Infinite Beauty.
V
I. 63. _avadhû, mâyâ tajî na jây_
Tell me, Brother, how can I renounce Maya?
When I gave up the tying of ribbons, still I tied my garment
about me:
When I gave up tying my garment, still I covered my body in its
folds.
So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains;
And when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;
And when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain;
When the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to
the letter.
Kabîr says, "Listen to me, dear Sadhu! the true path is rarely
found."
VI
I. 83. _candâ jhalkai yahi ghat mâhîn_
The moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it:
The moon is within me, and so is the sun.
The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf
ears cannot hear it.
So long as man clamours for the _I_ and the _Mine_,
his works are as naught:
When all love of the _I_ and the _Mine_ is dead, then
the work of the Lord is done.
For work has no other aim than the getting of knowledge:
When that comes, then work is put away.
The flower blooms for the fruit: when the fruit comes, the flower
withers.
The musk is in the deer, but it seeks it not within itself: it
wanders in quest of grass.
VII
I. 85. _Sâdho, Brahm alakh lakhâyâ_
When He Himself reveals Himself, Brahma brings into manifestation
That which can never be seen.
As the seed is in the plant, as the shade is in the tree, as the
void is in the sky, as infinite forms are in the void--
So from beyond the Infinite, the Infinite comes; and from the
Infinite the finite extends.
The creature is in Brahma, and Brahma is in the creature: they
are ever distinct, yet ever united.
He Himself is the tree, the seed, and the germ.
He Himself is the flower, the fruit, and the shade.
He Himself is the sun, the light, and the lighted.
He Himself is Brahma, creature, and Maya.
He Himself is the manifold form, the infinite space;
He is the breath, the word, and the meaning.
He Himself is the limit and the limitless: and beyond both the
limited and the limitless is He, the Pure Being.
He is the Immanent Mind in Brahma and in the creature.
The Supreme Soul is seen within the soul,
The Point is seen within the Supreme Soul,
And within the Point, the reflection is seen again.
Kabîr is blest because he has this supreme vision!
VIII
I. 101. _is ghat antar bâg bagîce_
Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves, and within it
is the Creator:
Within this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars.
The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;
And within this vessel the Eternal soundeth, and the spring wells
up.
Kabîr says: "Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved Lord is within."
IX
I. 104. _aisâ lo nahîn taisâ lo_
O How may I ever express that secret word?
O how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that?
If I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed:
If I say that He is without me, it is falsehood.
He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one;
The conscious and the unconscious, both are His footstools.
He is neither manifest nor hidden, He is neither revealed nor
unrevealed:
There are no words to tell that which He is.
X
I. 121. _tohi mori lagan lagâye re phakîr wâ_
To Thee Thou hast drawn my love, O Fakir!
I was sleeping in my own chamber, and Thou didst awaken me;
striking me with Thy voice, O Fakir!
I was drowning in the deeps of the ocean of this world, and
Thou didst save me: upholding me with Thine arm, O Fakir!
Only one word and no second--and Thou hast made me tear off all
my bonds, O Fakir!
Kabîr says, "Thou hast united Thy heart to my heart, O Fakir!"
XI
I. 131. _nis' din khelat rahî sakhiyân sang_
I played day and night with my comrades, and now I am greatly
afraid.
So high is my Lord's palace, my heart trembles to mount its
stairs: yet I must not be shy, if I would enjoy His love.
My heart must cleave to my Lover; I must withdraw my veil, and
meet Him with all my body:
Mine eyes must perform the ceremony of the lamps of love.
Kabîr says: "Listen to me, friend: he understands who loves. If
you feel not love's longing for your Beloved One, it is vain
to adorn your body, vain to put unguent on your eyelids."
XII
II. 24. _hamsâ, kaho purâtan vât_
Tell me, O Swan, your ancient tale.
From what land do you come, O Swan? to what shore will you fly?
Where would you take your rest, O Swan, and what do you seek?
Even this morning, O Swan, awake, arise, follow me!
There is a land where no doubt nor sorrow have rule: where the
terror of Death is no more.
There the woods of spring are a-bloom, and the fragrant scent "He
is I" is borne on the wind:
There the bee of the heart is deeply immersed, and desires no
other joy.
XIII
II. 37. _angadhiyâ devâ_
O Lord Increate, who will serve Thee?
Every votary offers his worship to the God of his own creation:
each day he receives service--
None seek Him, the Perfect: Brahma, the Indivisible Lord.
They believe in ten Avatars; but no Avatar can be the Infinite
Spirit, for he suffers the results of his deeds:
The Supreme One must be other than this.
The Yogi, the Sanyasi, the Ascetics, are disputing one with
another:
Kabîr says, "O brother! he who has seen that radiance of love,
he is saved."
XIV
II. 56. _dariyâ kî lahar dariyâo hai jî_
The river and its waves are one
surf: where is the difference between the river and its waves?
When the wave rises, it is the water; and when it falls, it is
the same water again. Tell me, Sir, where is the distinction?
Because it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be
considered as water?
Within the Supreme Brahma, the worlds are being told like beads:
Look upon that rosary with the eyes of wisdom.
XV
II. 57. _jânh khelat vasant riturâj_
Where Spring, the lord of the seasons, reigneth, there the
Unstruck Music sounds of itself,
There the streams of light flow in all directions;
Few are the men who can cross to that shore!
There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,
Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads,
Where millions of Brahmâs are reading the Vedas,
Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation,
Where millions of Indras dwell in the sky,
Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered,
Where millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the vina--
There is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and
flowers dwells in those deeps.
XVI
II. 59. _jânh, cet acet khambh dôû_
Between the poles of the conscious and the unconscious, there has
the mind made a swing:
Thereon hang all beings and all worlds, and that swing never
ceases its sway.
Millions of beings are there: the sun and the moon in their
courses are there:
Millions of ages pass, and the swing goes on.
All swing! the sky and the earth and the air and the water; and
the Lord Himself taking form:
And the sight of this has made Kabîr a servant.
XVII
II. 61. _grah candra tapan jot varat hai_
The light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright:
The melody of love swells forth, and the rhythm of love's
detachment beats the time.
Day and night, the chorus of music fills the heavens; and Kabîr
says
"My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky."
Do you know how the moments perform their adoration?
Waving its row of lamps, the universe sings in worship day and
night,
There are the hidden banner and the secret canopy:
There the sound of the unseen bells is heard.
Kabîr says: "There adoration never ceases; there the Lord of the
Universe sitteth on His throne."
The whole world does its works and commits its errors: but few
are the lovers who know the Beloved.
The devout seeker is he who mingles in his heart the double
currents of love and detachment, like the mingling of the
streams of Ganges and Jumna;
In his heart the sacred water flows day and night; and thus the
round of births and deaths is brought to an end.
Behold what wonderful rest is in the Supreme Spirit! and he
enjoys it, who makes himself meet for it.
Held by the cords of love, the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to
and fro; and a mighty sound breaks forth in song.
See what a lotus blooms there without water! and Kabîr says
"My heart's bee drinks its nectar."
What a wonderful lotus it is, that blooms at the heart of the
spinning wheel of the universe! Only a few pure souls know of
its true delight.
Music is all around it, and there the heart partakes of the joy
of the Infinite Sea.
Kabîr says: "Dive thou into that Ocean of sweetness: thus let all
errors of life and of death flee away."
Behold how the thirst of the five senses is quenched there! and
the three forms of misery are no more!
Kabîr says: "It is the sport of the Unattainable One: look
within, and behold how the moon-beams of that Hidden One shine
in you."
There falls the rhythmic beat of life and death:
Rapture wells forth, and all space is radiant with light.
There the Unstruck Music is sounded; it is the music of the love
of the three worlds.
There millions of lamps of sun and of moon are burning;
There the drum beats, and the lover swings in play.
There love-songs resound, and light rains in showers; and the
worshipper is entranced in the taste of the heavenly nectar.
Look upon life and death; there is no separation between them,
The right hand and the left hand are one and the same.
Kabîr says: "There the wise man is speechless; for this truth may
never be found in Vadas or in books."
I have had my Seat on the Self-poised One,
I have drunk of the Cup of the Ineffable,
I have found the Key of the Mystery,
I have reached the Root of Union.
Travelling by no track, I have come to the Sorrowless Land: very
easily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me.
They have sung of Him as infinite and unattainable: but I in my
meditations have seen Him without sight.
That is indeed the sorrowless land, and none know the path that
leads there:
Only he who is on that path has surely transcended all sorrow.
Wonderful is that land of rest, to which no merit can win;
It is the wise who has seen it, it is the wise who has sung of
it.
This is the Ultimate Word: but can any express its marvellous
savour?
He who has savoured it once, he knows what joy it can give.
Kabîr says: "Knowing it, the ignorant man becomes wise, and the
wise man becomes speechless and silent,
The worshipper is utterly inebriated,
His wisdom and his detachment are made perfect;
He drinks from the cup of the inbreathings and the outbreathings
of love."
There the whole sky is filled with sound, and there that music is
made without fingers and without strings;
There the game of pleasure and pain does not cease.
Kabîr says: "If you merge your life in the Ocean of Life, you
will find your life in the Supreme Land of Bliss."
What a frenzy of ecstasy there is in every hour! and the
worshipper is pressing out and drinking the essence of the
hours: he lives in the life of Brahma.
I speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life; I am now
attached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away.
Kabîr says: "Thus is the worshipper set free from fear; thus have
all errors of life and of death left him."
There the sky is filled with music:
There it rains nectar:
There the harp-strings jingle, and there the drums beat.
What a secret splendour is there, in the mansion of the sky!
There no mention is made of the rising and the setting of the
sun;
In the ocean of manifestation, which is the light of love, day
and night are felt to be one.
Joy for ever, no sorrow,--no struggle!
There have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy;
No place for error is there.
Kabîr says: "There have I witnessed the sport of One Bliss!"
I have known in my body the sport of the universe: I have escaped
from the error of this world..
The inward and the outward are become as one sky, the Infinite
and the finite are united: I am drunken with the sight of this
All!
This Light of Thine fulfils the universe: the lamp of love that
burns on the salver of knowledge.
Kabîr says: "There error cannot enter, and the conflict of life
and death is felt no more."
XVIII
II. 77. _maddh âkas' âp jahân baithe_
The middle region of the sky, wherein the spirit dwelleth, is
radiant with the music of light;
There, where the pure and white music blossoms, my Lord takes His
delight.
In the wondrous effulgence of each hair of His body, the
brightness of millions of suns and of moons is lost.
On that shore there is a city, where the rain of nectar pours and
pours, and never ceases.
Kabîr says: "Come, O Dharmadas! and see my great Lord's Durbar."
XIX
II. 20. _paramâtam guru nikat virâjatn_
O my heart! the Supreme Spirit, the great Master, is near you:
wake, oh wake!
Run to the feet of your Beloved: for your Lord stands near to your
head.
You have slept for unnumbered ages; this morning will you not
wake?
XX
II. 22. _man tu pâr utar kânh jaiho_
To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveller
before you, there is no road:
Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore?
There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;
There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw
it.
No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford!
There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place
that shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught
in that emptiness.
Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold
is firm. Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere,
Kabîr says: "Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that
which you are."
XXI
II. 33. _ghar ghar dîpak barai_
Lamps burn in every house, O blind one! and you cannot see them.
One day your eyes shall suddenly be opened, and you shall see:
and the fetters of death will fall from you.
There is nothing to say or to hear, there is nothing to do: it is
he who is living, yet dead, who shall never die again.
Because he lives in solitude, therefore the Yogi says that his
home is far away.
Your Lord is near: yet you are climbing the palm-tree to seek
Him.
The Brâhman priest goes from house to house and initiates people
into faith:
Alas! the true fountain of life is beside you., and you have set
up a stone to worship.
Kabîr says: "I may never express how sweet my Lord is. Yoga and
the telling of beads, virtue and vice--these are naught to Him."
XXII
II. 38. _Sâdho, so satgur mohi bhâwai_