Lalleshwari
Lalleshwari (Kashmiri 1320–1392), locally known mostly as Lal Ded was a Kashmiri mystic of the Kashmir Shaivism school of philosophy. She was a creator of the mystic poetry called vatsun or Vakhs, literally "speech" (Voice). Known as Lal Vakhs, her verses are the earliest compositions in the Kashmiri language and are an important part in history of modern Kashmiri literature. She inspired and interacted with many Sufis of Kashmir.
She is also known by various other names, including Lal Ded, Mother Lalla, Lalla Aarifa, Lal Diddi, Laleshwari, Lalla Yogishwari and Lalishri.
Life
Lalleshwari was born in Pandrethan (ancient Puranadhisthana) some four and a half miles to the southeast of Srinagar in a Kashmiri Pandit family in the time of Sultan Ala-ud-din. There is evidence of the fact that in those times, liberal education was imparted to women. From her vakhs, one is persuaded to believe that she was educated in the early part of the life at her father's house.
She was married at age twelve, but her marriage was unhappy and she left home at twenty-four to take Sannyasa (renunciation) and become a disciple of the Shaivite guru Siddha Srikantha (Sed Bayu) whom she ultimately excelled in spiritual attainments. She continued the mystic tradition of Shaivism in Kashmir, which was known as Trika before 1900.
Literary works
Her poems (called vakhs) have been translated into English by Richard Temple, Jaylal Kaul, Coleman Barks, Jaishree Odin, and Ranjit Hoskote.
An example of Lal Vakh in Kashmiri:
yi yi karu'm suy artsun
yi rasini vichoarum thi mantar
yihay lagamo dhahas partsun
suy Parasivun tanthar −138
English translation:
Whatever work I did became worship of the Lord;
Whatever word I uttered became a prayer;
Whatever this body of mine experienced became
the sadhana of Saiva Tantra
illumining my path to Parmasiva. -138
Legacy
The leading Kashmiri Sufi figure Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali (also known as Nooruddin Rishi or Nunda Rishi) was highly influenced by Lal Ded. He ultimately led to the formation of the Rishi order of saints and later gave rise to many Rishi saints like Resh Mir Sàeb. One Kashmiri folk story recounts that, as a baby, Nunda Rishi refused to be breast-fed by his mother. It was Lal Ded who breast-fed him.
Lal Ded and her mystic musings continue to have a deep impact on the psyche of Kashmiris, and the 2000 National Seminar on her held at New Delhi led to the release of the book Remembering Lal Ded in Modern Times. In his book "Triadic Mysticism", Paul E. Murphy calls her the "chief exponent of devotional or emotion-oriented Triadism".[citation needed] According to him, three significant representatives of devotionalism emerged in Kashmir in the five hundred years between the last half of the ninth and the end of the fourteenth centuries.[citation needed]
A solo play in English, Hindi, and Kashmiri titled Lal Ded (based on her life) has been performed by actress Mita Vashisht across India since 2004.
Kashmir has produced many saints, poets and mystics. Among them, Lal Ded is very prominent. In Kashmir, some people consider her a poet, some consider her a holywoman and some consider her a sufi, a yogi, or a devotee of Shiva. Sume even consider her an avtar. But every Kashmiri considers her a wise woman. Every Kashmiri has some sayings of Lalla on the tip of his tongue. The Kashmiri language is full of her sayings.
Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims affectionately call her "Mother Lalla" or "Granny Lalla". She is also called "Lallayogeshwari". Some people call her Lalla, the mystic.
It is said that Lal Ded was born in 1355 in Pandrethan to a Kashmiri Pandit family. Even as a child, Lalla was wise and religious-minded. When Lalla was twelve years old, she was married. Her in-laws lived in Pampur. The in-laws gave her the name Padmavati. Her mother-in-law was very cruel. She never gave her any peace. It is claimed that her mother-in-law used to put a stone on Lalla's plate (tha:l). She would then cover the stone with rice so that people would get the impression that Lalla had a plateful of rice. Lalla would remain half fed, but would never complain about her mother-in-law. Her father-in-law was a good man and he was kind to her, but her mother-in-law made her miserable. She would even speak ill of Lalla to her husband. Poor Lalla knew no happiness either with her husband or with her mother-in-law.
When Lalla was twenty-six she renounced the family and became a devotee of Shiva. Like a mad person, she would go around naked.
She became a disciple of Sidh Srikanth. She would only keep the company of sadhus and pi:rs. She did not think in terms of men and women. She would claim that she had yet to encounter a man, and that is why she went about naked. But when she saw Shah Hamdan, she hid herself saying: "I saw a man, I saw a man."
Why is Lalla so famous in Kashmir? She was illiterate, but she was wise. Her sayings are full of wisdom. In these sayings, she dealt with everything from life, yoga, and God to dharma and a:tma:. Her riddles are on the lips of every Kashmiri.
The exact date of Lalla's death is not known. It is claimed that she died in Bijbehara (vejibro:r). People like Granny Lalla do not really die. Lal Ded is alive in her sayings and in the hearts of Kashmiris.
The sayings of Lalla number around two hundred.
Five Sayings of Lal Ded
I
By a way I came, but I went not by the way.
While I was yet on the midst of the embankment
with its crazy bridges, the day failed for me.
I looked within my poke, and not a cowry came to hand
(or, atI, was there).
What shall I give for the ferry-fee?
(Translated by G. Grierson)
II
Passionate, with longing in mine eyes,
Searching wide, and seeking nights and days,
Lo' I beheld the Truthful One, the Wise,
Here in mine own House to fill my gaze.
(Translated by R.C. Temple)
III
Holy books will disappear, and then only the mystic formula will remain.
When the mystic formula departed, naught but mind was left.
When the mind disappeared naught was left anywhere,
And a voice became merged within the Void.
(Translated by G. Grierson)
IV
You are the heaven and You are the earth,
You are the day and You are the night,
You are all pervading air,
You are the sacred offering of rice and flowers and of water;
You are Yourself all in all,
What can I offer You?
V
With a thin rope of untwisted thread
Tow I ever my boat o'er the sea.
Will God hear the prayers that I have said?
Will he safely over carry me?
Water in a cup of unbaked clay,
Whirling and wasting, my dizzy soul
Slowly is filling to melt away.
Oh, how fain would I reach my goal.
(Translated by R.C. Temple)
by Prof. K. N. Dhar
CULTURAL heritage of acountry borrows measured sustenance from the philosophy of life nurtured inch by inch, by its denizens from the time, man awoke to the consciousness of self and spirit. It may well be called the culmination of quest of man from finite mooring, to infinite dimensions. At the same time, this search of man for finding his feet on the spiritual plane, can in no way be the last word on this subject, since such pursuits are cumulative in character and content. This edifice comes into being brick by brick, hammered into proper shape by savants and saints from time to time. However, it calls for reinterpretation every day in and out, so that the erring human being, with all his frailities, in not derailed into the abyss of animality. Perhaps this is the veritabie theme of the famous word of Lord Krsna in Gita "when vice prevails and virtue dwindles, I resurrect my own being for profferring refuge to the virtuous and annihilating vice completely; thus re-extablishing human values in every age". In our happy valley Lalleshwari most charitably projected such human values, so dear to Kashmiris from the dawn of history. An irrefutable proof of this attitude of concilliation instead of confrontation can be gleaned from the pages of Nilamata Purana wherein Lord Buddha has been acknowledged as an incarnation of God Avatara. Buddhism, to speak squarely, was essentially a revolt against Brahmanism, yet the catholic Brahmin with his proverbial forbearance did not use the same language or adopt the same attitude as the Buddhists had employed with respect to Brahmanism. The healthy approach of Kashmiri Brahmins was never negative in essence but purely positive. So, we can safely assert that Lalleshwari, a vigilant sentinel of Kashmiri culture displayed highest magnitude of courage and foresight in those not very auspicious times beckoning man not to discriminate on the basis of religious labels:-
<verses>
It was actually the continuation of that Catholic attitude of mind displayed by Kashmiris from times immemorial.
However, time does not maintain a uniform tenor or temper. It is at times moody and capricious; and when the political map of Kashmir was redrawn in the fourteenth century by the induction of sultans over the Kashmir scene, this accomodation of head and heart received a jolt. Kashmiris became oblivious of their pristine past; present consequently got divorced from it, mutilating its brilliant face and its attendant decorum. During those unsavoury and all the more unpalatable times, Lalleshwari fortified to her marrow by the innate strength of her conviction, rose to the occasion and strove hard put to an end to this dismal era of persecution and vandalism. In this crusade her tools were not abjuration but affirmation; bitterness changed hands with sweet and more persuasive compromise. Having elected to tread this path of self-suffering, she became a model for millions of her country-men to abjure the mundance and propitiate the sublime. It was no less than a miracle by which the sufferings of the people lost their sting and they learnt to bear up with these with stoical resistance. They were exhorted to rise above the self and reach up to the super-self at which stage pleasure or pain have no relevance or meaning. Some say it was self-deceit, fleeing from the actual life, rather self-forget-fulness to feel shy of the stark realities of life. The most apt answer to this faulty assertion is provided by ever-awake Lalleshwari herself in these words:-
<verses>
"Some may heap cavil on me, even some may curse me; They may say whatever they like to say. Some may worship me with the flowers of inherent cognition; yet I do not feel ruffled with this kind of impeachment or praise, since I am concerned with my own self and do not grudge what others have to say about me."
Muslim rule over Kashmir, for reasons obvious, sounded the knell for the use and propagation of sanskrit language. Bilhana, the famous lyricist of Kashmir had once boasted that, "In their household the Kashmiri women even speak sanskrit and prakrit as fluently as their mother-tongue." It was now an old wooden story. However, a bridge was to be built between the present and the past for which sanskrit had been a very potent instrument; but the general public had lost contact with it. Persian was the order of the day in its stead. So, Lalleshwari chose to speak to the people in their own idiom; hence Kashmiri became the vehicle of her message. In this way, she did not only make her message more intelligible and comprehensible to the masses, but also achieved the purpose of bridging the gulf between the past and the present. Present is an improved version of the past providing the base on which future can be built. In her time the friction between the past and the present was the loudest; hence, she like an expert alchemist, by her healing touch saved Kashiniri culture from being eroded and bruised. Her clarion call to assimilate human values in thoie dark days won for her the esteem and acclaim of Hindus and Muslims alike and the edge of ruthless proselytisation got blunted. It was no mean achievment on her part in uniting the lost children of one God, when every effort was being made to segregate them from each other. Her message was so universal and appealing that the tallest of Muslim Reshis of Kashmir Sheikh Noor -ud -Din Noorani made her his ideal and expressed what he owed to her in these words:-
<verses>
"That Lalla of Padmpur (Pampur) was fortunate enough in gulping the ambrosial nectarine draughts; thereby she won our adoration as an incarnation of immortal Divinity. Benevolent God, grant me also such a boon."
Lalla's message couched in quartrains called 'Vaks' is very simple and straight bereft of any curves or terseness. It is actually an exhortation to man to indulge in self-cognition. It is a readymade manual on self- education and consequent self-consciousness.
<verses>
"I felt fatigued by imessant self-search, thinking that no body could partake of that hidden perceptive knowledge; I, ultimately got immersed into it and could find admission to the Divine-bar; therein the goblets are full to the brim, but none possesses the nerve to drink these."
Mental drill is preamble to self- consciousness. At that pinnacle of self- discipline mind gets tamed automatically effortlessly:-
<verses>
"The steed of mind gallops through the sky, encompassing this whole universe. During the twinkling of an eye it can traverse millions of miles. He, who is proficient enough to put it on rails by controlling its reins, check its wayward demeanour by clipping its wings in the shape of mastering his own inhalaton and exhalation can attain the stage of self- cognition."
Worship, in the words of Lalla connotes self- introspection. It has nothing to do with external paraphernalia:-
<verses>
"Mind is the flower-seller and faith the flowers. Worship should be undertaken with the offerings of mental equipoise. Shiva is to be given a bath of tears. Incantations are to be recited in silence, without making a show of these. In this way only self-consciousness can be awakened from within."
According to Lalleshwari a realizer has to hammer out his mental attitude on these lines:-
<verses>
"He, who considers his own self and others as alike, abjures distinction between 'I' and 'you', He, who treats days and nights alike; is undisturbed by pleasure or pain. He, whose mind is bereft of duality, whose heart beats for all alike; only such a realizer can perceive the highest of preceptors-Shiva."
But, that shiva is within the self of the realizer, as inseparable from it as the smell from the flower. Immanence is self and transcendence is super-self-shiva in the language of Kashmiri monistic Shaivacharyas:-
<verses>
"Why do you beat your breast for nothing ? If you possess unwavering intelligence, you shall have to seek Him from within, Shiva is seated there and searching Him from outside will be of no avail. Do believe my word, baked with self- perception."
Withont beating about the bush, it can be safely asserted that Lalleshwari's forte was Kashmiri Shaivism. This concept of Kashmirian philosophy actually revolutionized the age-long attitudes of man, more so of the Brahmins. It advocates a caste-less society as also abhorrs Kitchen-puritanism. Hindu society ailing through its own defective approach, justified such a kind of major operation for instilling evergreen health into its rusty veins. Shaiva scholars of Kashmir diagnosed the disease rightly and prescribed such an elixir for its longevity which defied the time with its nihilistic redclaws. Had not this philosophy of life been at hand to the Kashmiris at that dismal hour of history, no Hindu worth the name, would have survived in the Land of 'Kashyapa', alien culture would have made an easy morsel of him. Lalla's Vaks, are actually a Kashmiri rendering of shiva sutras; When this philosophy was born, no such predicament was there, as was faced by Lalleshwari in her own times later on. At best, shaivas had to contend with the Buddhists, whose attitude was also home-spun and not foreign in any way; Hence, Lalla had to reclaim the lost faith of her brethren, provide a viable alternative to the enticements an alien faith was offering to the people at large; and at the same time, in performing this double duty, she had to be always cross-fingered, not invite the wrath of the rulers. It definiltely goes to her credit that while discharging her mission, she did not make a single enemy out of the other camp. To crown all, her message did cut through the man-made barriers of religions, Hindus as well as Muslims became her votaries with equal gusto. Her appeal was humanistic and not sectarian. Her approach was of positive affirmation and not of negative abjuration; consequeatly it multiplied her friends. Her ingenuity in steering safe between the two antagnostic factions is unsurpassed. She was instrumental in replacing call to steel by call to human conscience, consequently changing sourness to sweetness:-
<verses>
"We, human beings, did live in the past and we alone will be in the future also. From ancient times to the present, we have activised this world. Just like rising and setting of the sun, a usual routine, the immanent Shiva (jiva) will never be relieved of birth and death."
Lalleshwari did not preach any hard and fast religion, she even disdained ritual. She projected a way of life quite in harmony with our cultural traditions, in which a happy amalgam was made of what was good in Buddhism, Hinduism and even Islam;-
<verses>
"That transcendental- self may assume the names of Shiva, Visnu, Buddha or Brahma; I am concerned only With their efficacy in cutting asunder my worldly affections, which might be accomlished by any one of these."
Therefore, it follows from this, that she was not dogmatic or rigid either. She welcomed the healthy wafts of wind coming from any direction wlktsoever, anointing her body and soul with chaste Divinity. She always kept the windows of her mind open, rejecting what was mundane and assimilating the sublime:-
<verses>
"The Super- Lord is supervising His shop with personal care. All the aspirants are eager to take away wares of their liking. Whatever, you would elect to buy, does not admit of any intermediary; It is to be earned by your own effort, since the shop is devoid of any hinderance and even a watch is not kept over it."
This is the acme of Lalla's message. Man has been exhorted to seek his own self front within, without any external aids. Self-effort is precursor of self- education finally culminateng in self-conscionsness - Shiva - as she calls it.
As long as the silvery bellows of the Vitasta maintain their rejuvenating rhythm, as long as the virgin snow on the Himalayan heights retains its unblemished splendour and stature, the exquisite 'Vaks' of Lalleshwari soaked to the full in the inherent values of Kashmiri culture and human understanding will go on, unimpeded of course, in providing dignity to man to recognize his own self and not to run after deluding shadows; since the culture of a land never dies, the message of Lalla portraying meaningfully the humanistic attitudes ingrained in our culture, will never grow stale. Its fragrance and flavour are evergreen.
sources :Kashmir overseas association,Wikipedia,
Lal Ded Memorial School is one of the oldest high schools in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir, India. It is located on the bank of the Jehlum River near 2nd Bridge Habba Kadal. The school is named after the saint-poet Lalleshwari,
commonly known as Lal Ded, and was built in the colonial style with the
use of local techniques, especially Kashmir wooden crafts. It was
considered part of the architectural heritage of Kashmir
View of damaged part
Autar Krishan Mota
Lalleshuri, the fourteenth century mystic of Kashmir, popularly known as Lal-Ded has again been visited, visited otherwise by many thinkers from across the globe till now, visited not only through books or write-ups but also through other modes of visual and performing art.
I have seen Rama Vaidyanathan, noted Bhartanatyam dancer mesmerizing audience with ecstatic dance on Lal-Vaakh. I have seen various painters paint her message and many singers begin their melody (Sufiana Qalaam or Leela) with her Vaakh (Four line poetic compositions meaning Vaakyaas in Sanskrit), a knowledge, a message and a thought so profound that it has survived safely though memory lane for many centuries and carried forward from generation to generation without any obvious distortion.
Bhaskar Razdan is reported to be the first person who collected 60 Vaakhs of Lalleshuri and translated them into Sanskrit verse. Thereafter Pt Lakshman Koul is reported to have collected 47 more raising the number to 107. Seeking help from one Pandit Mukand Ram Shastri, George Grierson, a British official in Kashmir set to add more and published his first monumental book, Lalla Vaakhini in 1920. The number of Vaakhs so collected kept on increasing. This quantitative increase also brought some dilution in her core message as some Vaakhs which did not belong to her got unintentionally added by word of mouth in her stock and being attributed to her. I personally tend to go with the opinion of Late Shri Moti Lal Saqi that many poems of Lalla which patently do not belong to her are being attributed to her. My personal observation, based on a careful study of her core message, is that the spoken language of her time and many other vital factors may some time in future bring out some authentic manuscript that would put more light on the subject. Nonetheless, a conscientious student of her philosophy and her poems does not fail in identifying and separating the real from the chaff from the grain.
The contribution of Rajanka Bhaskara, Barnett and Grierson, Richard Temple, Nila Cram Cook, Prof Jayalal Koul, Prof BN Parimoo, PNK Bamzai, PN Bazaz, SS Toshkhani and Ranjit Hoskote and some others is truly invaluable in immortalizing these celestial poems but the present review is about a distinguished addition to this list. Let me talk about Shri Jawahar Lal Bhat’s recently published and released book “Lal-Ded revisited”.
I understand that more than a decade’s work has seen the light of the day in the shape of this book. The earnest aim of the author as told by him was to ensure that the language remains as simple as possible so that a vast section of people of Kashmir among other admirers of Lalleshuri outside across various age groups could easily go through otherwise terse and deeply philosophical poems of Lalleshuri.
Shri Jawahar Lal Bhat, has created history by writing “Lal-Ded revisited”, a voluminous book analyzing afresh and in detail the famous Lalla-Vaakh of Lalleshuri (Lal-Ded). Coming to the formatting of the book — it is very well thought out and planned. Out of 560 pages — 7 pages are for contents, about 25 pages for exhaustive preface, introduction and historical perspective of Lalla-Vaakh. The most exemplary feat performed by the author is the first section of the book titled “Lalla-Vaakh” wherein one poem on one page is written in three scripts, Roman, Devnagri and Nastaliq followed by a brief but crisp translation in English. This helps the reader to read clearly the truest version of the poem in the absence of an authentic and foolproof script for which Kashmiri language has always suffered and Mr Bhat has tried successfully to tide over this handicap. The roman script of the Vaakh is followed by a reference line depicting the sources wherefrom the poem has been traced and can be further tracked. This is followed by about 260 pages “Notes section” wherein detailed notes and commentary on each poem is given. This detailed exercise is a unique and brilliant job undertaken by the author that makes each poem adequately clear to the reader.
Lal Ded has an indelible impact on Kashmiri psyche. It has remained unabated in spite of a time lapse of about seven hundred years .This could possibly be due to the poet inside her envisioning mysticism and the saint within her writing poems. She remains an unparalleled spiritual giant and a poetic wizard of Kashmir. Her poetic presentation of the universal message of Kashmir’s Shaiva Darshan and Dynamic Humanism remains beyond comparison. And through her poems, she is capable for shaping contours of Kashmiri language and literature so as to grant it a wide recognition.
Coming to the book again — the imperative need to simplify her thought in simple English language and free it from weighty poetic diction has been superbly fulfilled by the author in this book. From exclusively elite readership it has now arrived for a mass readership. The author has avoided appreciably using unnecessary metaphors, symbols and idioms that have been brought in anywhere in his English rendering. The message of each Vaakh is available in a simple but profound spiritual elixir and pointed Joyous English rendering .This quality may create a mass reader base and may attract younger generations more than before to this work who may have some issues with strict poetic translation of these poems. I feel, for this work, posterity is bound to feel indebted to the author. I quote the English rendering of some poems from the Book:–
Shuniiyukk Mae’daan Kodumm Paanus
Mey Lallie Roozum Boadh Na Hosh
Wai’Zey Sap’nuss Paanie Paanus
Adhaaa Kammie Hilli Phoall Lalli Pamposh.
(I crossed alone the wide fields of Shunya, The sights and scenes dropped my reason and senses. Soon I was awakened to the mysteries of my inner self! Thus, I Lalla with a humble background, flowered like a lotus from the marsh.)
Shiv’va keshv’va Zin’va
Kamalaz Naath Naam Daarien Yuh
Mey Abhlii Kaaeis’tein Bhav Roz
Su’va Su’va Su’va Suh.
(You may call him Shiva, Keshva or Buddha or even lotus Born Narayana, makes no difference, whoever it may be, I wish this poor woman released from the sickness of life, weak and helpless she is, unable to meet its truest purpose!)
I can quote so many poems that have been done to crystal clear rendering by the author and the book is definitely going to live long and prove useful to Kashmiris in general admirers of Lalleshuri’s Philosophy in particular. It is surely going to attract too many encouraging reviews too.
Those of us who read Lal Ded in proper perspective and context, I am sure may find a real Master in her. She is a Spiritual Guru who guides by her Vaakhs alone. And for that purpose alone ,I recommend study of this Great work -“Lal-Ded revisited”.
I conclude with a Shrukh ( Shloka ) of Sheikh Noor ud Din or Nund Ryosh that goes as under (English translation by Prof. J L Koul) ..
Aarbalan Naagraada rovukh
Saada rovukh Tchooran munz
Moodagaran gwor pandita rovukh
Raaz Hans Rovukh Kaawaun Munz
(Amid the rocks, the found was lost, among the thieves was lost the saint, among the ignorant, the wise teacher was lost, and the royal swan was lost among the crows)
Lalleshwari, Lal Ded, or simply Lalla, as many like to call her, is not just
a medieval woman poet in whose verse we hear the first heart-beats of Kashmiri
poetry-she is easily the most popular and most powerful symbol of Kashmir's
civilizational ethos. While her 'vaaks' or verse-sayings continue to dazzle us
with their high wattage incandescence, her role as a spiritual leader who
resolved the crisis of her times caused by a clash of two belief and value
systems-one indigenous and the other alien cannot but be regarded as momentous,
whether or not history recognizes its true significance. In both these
capacities it was her intervention that ensured continuity and saved indigenous
cultural structures from a total collapse at a time when the advent of Islam in
Kashmir was accompanied by an unprecedented political and social upheaval.
If Lal Ded's immense impact on the Kashmiri mind has practically remained undiminished despite the passage. of almost seven centuries, it is essentially because of the fusion of the poet and the saint in her, or, to use the words of Dileep Chitre (which he has used for another great Bhakti poet, Tukaram), because of "a poet's vision of spirituality and a saint's vision of poetry" that she presents in her verses. We are amazed at her deep sense of compassion, her mystical insights and spiritual vision, her profound awareness of the human condition and her Shaiva-world view which makes her look at existence as manifestation of one, indivisible, consciousness. More than anything else, we are indebted to her for shaping the Kashmiri language in a way that it formed the basis for the Kashmiris to forge their indigenous cultural identity.
Ironically, this very image of Lal Ded as a spiritual giant and poetic genius fused into one-reinforced by the many hagiographical accounts, myths and legends surrounding her-has led to attempts at appropriating her for ideologies and causes totally alien to her thinking and temperament. We thus come across not one but several image constructs of the saint-poetess, some of them mutually irreconcilable, linked inextricably with predilections, perceptions and motives of those who have created them. And these tend to blur and distort facts about her life, making it extremely difficult for us to arrive at what we can call an authentic Lal Ded-a flesh and blood Lal Ded occupying a specific space and time in history, or at least a poetic version of what Lal Ded was or must actually have been like. With whims, fancies and notions being the basis of these various constructs, we are left with the problems of exploring the true dimensions of her creativity and of locating the real founts of her inspiration. And this cannot be settled by mere interpretations of scholarly differences or semantic hair-splitting. The task has been made immensely complicated by the intervention of nearly seven hundred years of history about which people are still hesitant to talk freely and openly.
The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the image constructs of the saint-poetess which are patently false, and have no basis in facts, but are passed on as products of genuine scholarship. These images and fabrications are being circulated persistently with surprising frequency not out of any desire to present the truth, but to suppress it. The most formidable attempt to appropriate Lal Ded in this manner comes from those who want to snatch her for Islam. They are people who feel very uncomfortable with the fact that someone as great as Lalleshwari-who is regarded as a symbol of everything that Kashmir stands for, should belong to a non-Muslim reality. Masquerading as scholars but motivated and conditioned by their religious reflexes, they try to subvert this fact by floating imaginary anecdotes about her conversion to Islam. One such anecdote that continues to be repeated with total disregard to historical plausibility is that she met Sayyid Mir Ali Hamadani, the Islamic missionary most revered by Kashmiri Muslims, and received "spiritual enlightenment” from him. Sayyid Hamadani had come to Kashmir with a large entourage of fellow Sayyids to escape the wrath of Timur and there he engaged in proselytizing activities on a massive scale. Prof. Jaya Lal Kaul has in his brilliantly researched book "Lal Ded" very convincingly proved the utter impossibility of such a meeting having ever taken place. Referring to Persian sources, he has quoted Mohammad Azam Dedamari's explicit statement that the story of her being present before the Sayyid "has not been held as proved by scholars". Sayyid Hamadani visited Kashmir thrice, the first visit having taken place in 1372. And if Lal Ded died in the reign of Shihab-ud-din, as Persian chronicles point out, he could in no way have influenced her. Persian chronicler Peer Ghulam Hassan, too makes no mention of a meeting between Lal Ded and Sayyid Mir Ali Hamadani, but states that she did indeed meet Jalal-ud-din Bukhari and Sayyid Hussain Samanani and it was at his hands that she was "converted" to Islam. ‘Bibi Lalla Arifa', a pamphlet published from Lahore, to which Prof. Jayalal Kaul has referred, is more categorical, saying that she accepted Islam at the hands of Sayyid Hussain Samanani. "This should be obvious to all", the pamphlet adds, emphasizing the claim and giving a fanciful account of the supposed meeting. According to the pamphlet, Lal Ded ran for miles together to receive Sayyid Samanani at Shopian and "being elated to receive the secret doctrine, became his chief disciple". Repudiating this claim which Sufi, the author of "Kashir", a history of Kashmir published from Pakistan, says is based on "Lalla Arifa's own later day vaaks," Prof. Kaul writes: "Not a single verse-saying of hers has been discovered up to date even among the doubtful and spurious verse-sayings ascribed to her which would bear out either this anecdote or similar other anecdotes concerning her".
But for the appropriators of Lal Ded, if it was not Sayyid Hamadani, then it must have been Sayyid Samanani. Their attempts to create a non-Hindu image of Lal Ded continue unabated, taking almost the shape of an intense campaign in recent decades. A special Lal Ded Number (1979) of Sheeraza, a journal published by the Jammu and Kashmir State Art Culture and Languages, for instance, is illustrative of this obsession which shows itself in article after article obviously with the editor's tacit agreement. One such article "Lal Ded Shah Hamadan ke Huzoor Mein" (Lal Ded in the Presence of Shah Hamadan), written by Mufti Jalal-ud-din, says, "It does not matter whether these anecdotes are corroborated by history or not. It is eventually popular belief that settles the issue". Jalal-ud-din's is not just an individual opinion-it represents a whole mindset that shows no signs of changing even today. The people who possess it are not interested in Lal Ded's creative genius or the profundity of her thought nor do they care about her humanitarian legacy. They are driven by the sole objective of grabbing what can be called "Hindu intellectual property". That is why they show Lal Ded running towards a baker's oven desperate to cover her nudity as she had seen a "man" when she supposedly encountered Sayyid Hamadani. The miracle of the oven is surely prompted by a hegemonistic design to establish the superiority of Islam over the creed of the "infidels". Sayyid Hamadani was on a proselytizing mission and what bigger fish could there have been for him to cast his net ?
The Sufi image that some have tried to foist on Lal Ded is also a mischievous and motivated construct as it is virtually an attempt to de-Hinduise her and to create confusion about her faith. The man who began it all, though not exactly with that intention, Sir Richard Temple, appears indeed to have been a confused person, saying different things at different places. At one place he says that Lalla was a Shaivite Hindu and at another place he discovers that "she deeply and quickly absorbed the Sufi line of thought after her contact with her contemporary and friend" Sayyid Ali Hamadani. Soon afterwards he counts similarities in "the doctrine and practice of Naqshbandis and the Yogic exercises of the Hindu Shaivas". Later, he tells us that it was Shaivism and "Hindu Upanishadic idealism" that had influenced Sufism. If that be the truth then how is it that she is influenced by Sufism as preached by Sayyid Ali Hamadani? Why not directly by Hindu Upanishadic thought? If Sayyid Hamadi was at all a Sufi, he was not of the type who would believe in the doctrine of Wahadat-ul-Wujud or oneness of existence and certainly not in universal brotherhood and love. The humiliating and degrading conditions he laid down in his book "Zakhirat-ul-Muluk" to guide a Sultan in treating his non-Muslim subjects are enough to prove this. The various Sufi orders said to have been introduced during that time in Kashmir were all orthodox in nature, preaching strict adherence to Shariah and not liberal humanism as is made out to be. They remained confined to the correct practice of the Quaranic beliefs and "hardly came out of zuhd, ibadat, taqwa and riyadat, the limits set by their founders", having nothing to do with the type of Sufism based on the doctrine of Mohi-ud-din ibn Arabi. Their emphasis was on proselytization and not on the belief in unity of being and universal love.
Writers like P.N.K. Bamzai and Dr. R.K. Parmu, who followed Richard Temple in his queer conclusions, created further confusion by making even stranger and mutually contradictory statements. 'Lalleshwari's association with Shah Hamadan", writes Bamzai, "was due to an identity of the faith of Sufis and Hindu mendicants and saints in Kashmir", adding that "the order she founded was an admixture of the non-dualistic philosophy of Shaivism and Islamic Sufism". One is at a loss to understand what one can make of such pronouncements which have nothing to do with history or facts of Lal Ded's life. In what way was "the faith of the Hindu mendicants and saints of Kashmir" different from that followed by the general mass of the people ? And which religious or philosophical order was founded by Lal Ded? The word "admixture" leaves one stumped, but even before one recovers one finds him saying in the same breath that Shaivism, "the dominant religion of the time", was "ossified into a set of complicated rituals". Did the "Hindu mendicants", he refers to follow any other religion then?
Dr. R.K. Parmu is even more sweeping in his statements, blissfully ignorant of how they contradict each other. Branding the entire Hindu society of Lal Ded's time as "corrupt", he tells us that "Lal Ded preached against the Shaiva religion as it was practiced by the Tantric gurus of those times". Did she really? And who were these "Tantric gurus" any way?. But wait, Dr. Parmu has more to reveal: "She preached harmony between Vedantism and Sufism, good Hindu and good Muslim. What are the sources that he and Bamzai rely upon to make such pronouncements? Which of Lal Ded's vaakhs testifies to this? Or, which historical source? Or can just whims and notions replace historical investigation?
Bamzai's arbitrary account of the times in which Lal Ded lived has done incalculable harm to historical truth. If he is to be believed, the "pious lives" that Sufi saints of that period lived had the Hindus so charmed that they decided to embrace Islam en masse ! Of course, by implication all other led impious lives. Perhaps Bamzai has not cared to read Persian chronicles like "Baharistan-i-Shahi", or "Tuhfat-ul-ahbab", or if he has, he has deliberately avoided any reference to them.
There are several verses of Lal Ded in which she refers to her attainment of self-realization and spiritual enlightenment. For her it is a real experience of life. There is no shadow of doubt or uncertainty about it in her mind. And, what is more, there is a tone of tremendous self-confidence and assurance in her verses when she tells us about her mystical illumination. As, for instance, in these lines:
What then is the source of Lal Ded's mysticism? Where from does it derive if not from Sufism? Prof. Jaya Lal Kaul and Prof. B.N. Parimu have very clearly shown how the Shiva philosophy of Kashmir forms the basis of her thought. "As I find", writes Prof. Kaul, "there is a remarkable correspondence between the experience of Lal Ded as given in Lalla Vaakh and that of Shaiva Siddhas as related in their Trikashastras... This should undeniably prove that she was a Shaiva Yogini, not only because she uses, whenever she needs to use them, the technical terms only of Tiika Darshana but, more so, because of her concept of God, her Yoga technique her own anubhava, direct perception and experience - all these are of Trika system." Prof. Parimu is equally specific: "The key to Lalla's mysticism is the Shivadvaita or the Trika philosophy of Kashmir". The mystic strain that is so prominent in Lal Ded's poetry, in fact, combines her quest for gnostic illumination with the depth of emotional experience. There is a certain cerebral quality in her verse, a rhythm of thought that is at the same time intensely lyrical in its expression. In his book "Triadic Mysticism", Paul E. Murphy calls her the "chief exponent of devotional or emotion-oriented Triadism". He writes: "Three significant representatives of devotionalism emerged in Kashmir in the five hundred years between the last half of the ninth and the end of the fourteenth centuries, they were : Bhatta Narayana, Utpaldeva and Lalla. Predominant in all three is the advocation of a path of love unencumbered by techniques and means."
Bhatta Narayana, the direct disciple of Vasugupta, wrote the Stava Chintamani in the 9th century. The work, which Murphy calls "a love poem", has 120 verses on the communion between Shiva and Shakti "under the form of Prakasha and Vimarsha or Light and Self-Awareness". Utpala, who according to Lilian Silburn was "both mystic and genius, powerful metaphyscian, astute psychologist and above all, great poet", and "next to Abhinavagupta the most notable and audacious figure of the Self-Awareness {patibhijna) School", wrote Shiva Stotravali, described by Murphy as" the most beautiful of Shaiva love songs written in an intensely touching though simple style". Lal Ded, whose verses record her own mystic life, shares with these two Shaiva poets, who preceded her, a sharp feeling of the immediate presence of Shiva, the Divine Being. The poetry of all the three of them stems from "an intense resignation to the divine will", and reflects their vivacity, originality and deep sincerity. There is a striking similarity in many passages of theirs which can be compared for their "emotions, intoxications and sufferings", and the metaphors and images that express these. For instance, Utpala in his mystic ardour and with a mind inflamed by powerful longing approaches Shiva, the compassionate Lord, to attain communion with him and clenches Him with an impassioned cry and "holds Him in his fist":
"Here you are, I hold you in my fist! Here You are, I've seen You-where are You fleeing?"
[Stavachintamani, Tn. Paul E. Murphy]
This has a perfect parallel in Lalla, who evokes the sane image in this expression of hers:
Bhatta Narayana uses the image of the dark cavern of heart where "darkness is dissipated on all sides by the Brightness Supreme". Here too there is a striking similarity in the words "the interior cavern" used by Bhatta Narayana and "andryum" the "inner" (light) that Lal Ded has used.
Lala Ded expresses her mystical feelings-the pangs of separation from Shiva, the passionate urge to unite with Him, the desperate quest and the frustration of losing the direction, the difficulties of the path, the intensity of suffering which only strengthens her determination to seem Him face to face and possess Him, the total surrender of will and the ecstasy of the final beatitude-in imager and metaphors that are powerful and stunningly beautiful:
But Lal Ded does not remain hovering in the high heaven of mystic experience alone. She has her feet firmly planted on the earth. There is no tendency in her to separate the experiences of mystical life from the experiences of ordinary life. Instead of disregarding everyday experiences she elevated herself through it to the ultimate experience of liberation, which in Trika metaphysics means swatantrya or absolute freedom of will, which is the nature of Supreme Shiva Himself. Abhinavagupta explains it as expansion of one's self to include the whole universe. Kashmir Shaivism, it should be noted, does not reject the phenomenal world as unreal or illusory but regards it to be the self-expression of Shiva-His poem, His work of art, His projection of Himself on a screen which is also Shiva. Lal Ded's expression of her longing to attain oneness with transcendence, therefore, should be taken to mean expression of her feeling of unity with Shiva's immanent form also. If "Shiva is all", then to her, He is not different from the ordinary man we find on the streets-he who laughs and sneezes and coughs and yawns:
Yet Lal Ded's poetry is not the poetry of social concern in the sense it is made out to be by some scholars. In their eagerness to construct her image as some sort of a social reformer out to reform the medieval Kashmiri society and rid it of the evils afflicting it. This is again a false image, a deliberate twist given to her spiritual humanism to suit ideological considerations. There is no use digging for communitarian ideals from her verses, for they are just not there, though she does feel disturbed by social injustice and discrimination of which she herself is a victim, and is outraged by the sham and pretence that go in the name of religion. She also displays a deep sensitivity towards human suffering, her heart bleeding at the sight of the learned man dying of starvation while an utter fool beats his cook (for not having cooked a tasty dish):
Whether or not Lal Ded had a social reformer's zeal, she was strongly egalitarian in her views and was more aware than most devotional poets about the prevailing social conditions of her times. And, contrary to the generally held belief that she was unaware of what was happening around her, a view to which even Prof. Kaul subscribes, there is enough evidence in Lalla's vaaks to show that she was very much conscious of what was going on around her, including the sweeping political changes that were taking place during her time. This is at least what the following lines of hers appear to suggest:
Lal Ded is scathing in her attack on hollow ceremony and ritual in religion, her emphasis being on inner experience. She has no belief in "sacred places and sacred times", pilgrimages and fasts supposed to bring religious merit. She scoffs at what A.K. Ramanujam calls "orthodox ritual genuflections" and recitations. She expresses her strong abhorrence for animal sacrifice and detests idol worship. She must have surely provoked the orthodoxy at whom she misses no chance to take pot-shots. In this she reminds one of the Kannada Vachana poet Basvanna, and also of Kabir and Nanak whom she anticipated. Surely, hers was a strong voice of protest in medieval Kashmir-perhaps the only voice raised so fearlessly.
With Lal Ded not conforming to any of the image constructs built around her by those who want to reduce her to an idea or an abstraction according to their predilections, what could the real Lal Ded have been like? To reclaim her authentic persona, we have no option but to discard the motivated myths and invoke the actual text of her verses. In this context, it must be noted that Lal Ded recited her vaaks to actual audiences who were enraptured and mesmerized by her words, which happened to be in their own mother tongue. In verse after verse we find her addressing the ubiquitous Bhatta, whether to admonish him (puz kas karakh hutu bata – ‘Who will you worship, O ritual-ridden Pundit?'), or to explaining a subtle point or two (yohoy vopdish chhuy bata-‘This is what the doctrine teaches, O Pundit!'). This clearly shows that she knows her audience. Not that Lal Ded belongs to any one community-her message is certainly universal-but she does have the Pandit in mind whenever she has a point to make.
To find out the authentic Lal Ded, then, we have to rely mainly on the internal evidence that her vaaks furnish. Packed with sufficient biographical material, as the vaaks are, we can reconstruct with their help her mystic life, her experience as a woman, as a saint and as a poet, her view of the relationship between God, man and the world. An image as near reality as possible. But in this there are problems. Lalla vaaks have been orally transmitted from generation to generation and are available only in randomly available versions, with practically no chronological sequence. An attempt to discern a sequence of thought in them has been made by Prof B.N. Parimoo, who has tried to link them as thematic units under some broad divisions in his book, "The Ascent of Self". The book, written in 1978, is the first exercise of its kind undertaken by anyone and can be deservingly called a significant contribution to Lal Ded studies. "The cue to the arrangement of the verses", says the author, "is taken from the 'I-ness' categorically denoting personal experience".
But admirable as Prof. Parimoo's attempt to "re-interpret" the vaakhs is, one cannot be certain that while picking up the autobiographical threads he has arranged them according to actual chronological sequence, that is, exactly in the order they were composed. Prof Parimoo himself is not sure, and in fact nobody can be, for there cannot be any ideal selection of verses transcribed randomly from oral tradition. The author of the book, however, does not appear to have taken as much care as he should have in making his selection. Quite a number of verses he has included are obvious interpolations. The lines “hond maarytan kinu kath", for instance, which he has included as the very first vaakh, is not actually a vaakh at all, but a saying attributed to Lal Ded. His total reliance on the account of Ramjoo Malla for biographical information because it does not "tilt the purpose of this book" appears to be rather curious.
Before referring to the text, therefore, we have to be sure how far genuine it is. This accentuates the need of a critically valid text of Lalla Vaaks-something that has not been attempted quite seriously so far, except a solitary attempt made by Prof. Jaya Lal Kaul. Laments Prof. Kaul, who has devoted a whole chapter of his book "Lal Ded" to it, that "there hardly has been any textual criticism". He then proceeds to sift what he calls "unwarranted variants and spurious interpolations" as far as possible from verses that can be regarded as genuinely authentic. Of the total 258 vaaks that circulate in the name of Lal Ded and occur in various collections, he has included only 138 in his collection and even their authenticity he is not prepared to "vouch for". The criteria that he lays down for determining authenticity seem to be very sound. These according to him should be: "The evidence of diction and prosody, and the quality and cast of thought, the way it is organized in the process of expression, in a word, the characteristic style of Lal Ded". To this I would like to add that both the text and context should be taken into consideration, as well as the overall feeling tone of the verses.
Prof. Kaul has pointed out : "There are 35 verses that occur both in ... collections of Lal Ded's verses, and in Nurnamas and Rishinamas, the biographies of Nund Rishi, which include his shrukhs; three verses occur in Lalla vaakh as well as in Rahasyopadesha, the verse sayings of Rupa Bhavani (1620-1720), three quartrains that belong to one Azizullah Khan (early 19th century) have been ascribed to Lal Ded by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles in his Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs". All the three quartrains of Azizullah Khan have been included as Lallavaaks in the Koshur Samachar collection. Interestingly, one of these quartrains has been translated by that great Indian translator A.K. Ramanujan in the name of Lal Ded, and quoted as such by K. Sachchidanandan, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, in one of his papers on women poets of India. The verse, as given in the Lal Ded Number of Koshur Samachar is as follows:
Even so, those who take the deliberately distorted and mutilated text to be genuine, ignoring the fact of its massive interpolation, must know that Lal Ded could in no case have used the heavily Persianised language of the 19th or early 20th century nearly six hundred years back. It is of utmost importance therefore, that to arrive at authentic Lal Ded, we should discard all the spurious elements introduced by those who are interested in building false image constructs.
Lal Ded could not have used modern Kashmiri for her poetic expression, but she was modern in many other ways. She had in her the characteristic modern self-reflectiveness, the insistence on accepting as authentic only what she herself could experience directly, the broad catholicity of outlook that called for tolerance of diverse views and made her define her relationship to God in terms of oneness of all existence, the deep existential anguish she felt while reflecting on the human condition. She was modern in the universality of her concerns, in her choice of metaphor and image, in her rejection of every kind of sham and pretence, in her fearless assertion of what she saw as truth. Indeed, at times it appears that she is more modern then most of the contemporary Kashmiri poets.
Lal Ded's struggle as a woman has been largely overlooked. She may not have been a conscious feminist in the sense the term is understood today, but she did show the courage of resisting the oppressive structures of patriarchy and refusing to play the traditional role of a submissive daughter-in-law. Rebelling against social tyranny, she broke the shackles that bind a woman even before her birth, and asserted her right of taking her own decisions. She challenged the orthodoxy and threw the rigid codes of dress and decorum followed by the medieval society of her times to the winds and roamed about with barely any clothes on like the great Kannada Shaivite poetess, Mahadeviakka. Perhaps it was her last act of defiance against a social set-up whose arbitrary and gender discriminatory rules she did not find acceptable.
It is in accordance with these facts that we shall have to reconstruct the image of the great saint-poetess of Kashmir, noting that she does not fit into most of the image-constructs that have been built around her. The Shah Hamadan anecdote and the so-called miracle of the oven seem to be an insult to such a fearlessly and fiercely independent woman. She started her spiritual journey as a tormented soul, but attained a stage where self- realization and self-awareness gave her tremendous inner strength and the confidence that derived from that strength:
Lalleshwari (Kashmiri 1320–1392), locally known mostly as Lal Ded was a Kashmiri mystic of the Kashmir Shaivism school of philosophy. She was a creator of the mystic poetry called vatsun or Vakhs, literally "speech" (Voice). Known as Lal Vakhs, her verses are the earliest compositions in the Kashmiri language and are an important part in history of modern Kashmiri literature. She inspired and interacted with many Sufis of Kashmir.
She is also known by various other names, including Lal Ded, Mother Lalla, Lalla Aarifa, Lal Diddi, Laleshwari, Lalla Yogishwari and Lalishri.
Life
Lalleshwari was born in Pandrethan (ancient Puranadhisthana) some four and a half miles to the southeast of Srinagar in a Kashmiri Pandit family in the time of Sultan Ala-ud-din. There is evidence of the fact that in those times, liberal education was imparted to women. From her vakhs, one is persuaded to believe that she was educated in the early part of the life at her father's house.
She was married at age twelve, but her marriage was unhappy and she left home at twenty-four to take Sannyasa (renunciation) and become a disciple of the Shaivite guru Siddha Srikantha (Sed Bayu) whom she ultimately excelled in spiritual attainments. She continued the mystic tradition of Shaivism in Kashmir, which was known as Trika before 1900.
Literary works
Her poems (called vakhs) have been translated into English by Richard Temple, Jaylal Kaul, Coleman Barks, Jaishree Odin, and Ranjit Hoskote.
An example of Lal Vakh in Kashmiri:
yi yi karu'm suy artsun
yi rasini vichoarum thi mantar
yihay lagamo dhahas partsun
suy Parasivun tanthar −138
English translation:
Whatever work I did became worship of the Lord;
Whatever word I uttered became a prayer;
Whatever this body of mine experienced became
the sadhana of Saiva Tantra
illumining my path to Parmasiva. -138
Legacy
The leading Kashmiri Sufi figure Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali (also known as Nooruddin Rishi or Nunda Rishi) was highly influenced by Lal Ded. He ultimately led to the formation of the Rishi order of saints and later gave rise to many Rishi saints like Resh Mir Sàeb. One Kashmiri folk story recounts that, as a baby, Nunda Rishi refused to be breast-fed by his mother. It was Lal Ded who breast-fed him.
Lal Ded and her mystic musings continue to have a deep impact on the psyche of Kashmiris, and the 2000 National Seminar on her held at New Delhi led to the release of the book Remembering Lal Ded in Modern Times. In his book "Triadic Mysticism", Paul E. Murphy calls her the "chief exponent of devotional or emotion-oriented Triadism".[citation needed] According to him, three significant representatives of devotionalism emerged in Kashmir in the five hundred years between the last half of the ninth and the end of the fourteenth centuries.[citation needed]
A solo play in English, Hindi, and Kashmiri titled Lal Ded (based on her life) has been performed by actress Mita Vashisht across India since 2004.
Kashmir has produced many saints, poets and mystics. Among them, Lal Ded is very prominent. In Kashmir, some people consider her a poet, some consider her a holywoman and some consider her a sufi, a yogi, or a devotee of Shiva. Sume even consider her an avtar. But every Kashmiri considers her a wise woman. Every Kashmiri has some sayings of Lalla on the tip of his tongue. The Kashmiri language is full of her sayings.
Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims affectionately call her "Mother Lalla" or "Granny Lalla". She is also called "Lallayogeshwari". Some people call her Lalla, the mystic.
It is said that Lal Ded was born in 1355 in Pandrethan to a Kashmiri Pandit family. Even as a child, Lalla was wise and religious-minded. When Lalla was twelve years old, she was married. Her in-laws lived in Pampur. The in-laws gave her the name Padmavati. Her mother-in-law was very cruel. She never gave her any peace. It is claimed that her mother-in-law used to put a stone on Lalla's plate (tha:l). She would then cover the stone with rice so that people would get the impression that Lalla had a plateful of rice. Lalla would remain half fed, but would never complain about her mother-in-law. Her father-in-law was a good man and he was kind to her, but her mother-in-law made her miserable. She would even speak ill of Lalla to her husband. Poor Lalla knew no happiness either with her husband or with her mother-in-law.
When Lalla was twenty-six she renounced the family and became a devotee of Shiva. Like a mad person, she would go around naked.
She became a disciple of Sidh Srikanth. She would only keep the company of sadhus and pi:rs. She did not think in terms of men and women. She would claim that she had yet to encounter a man, and that is why she went about naked. But when she saw Shah Hamdan, she hid herself saying: "I saw a man, I saw a man."
Why is Lalla so famous in Kashmir? She was illiterate, but she was wise. Her sayings are full of wisdom. In these sayings, she dealt with everything from life, yoga, and God to dharma and a:tma:. Her riddles are on the lips of every Kashmiri.
The exact date of Lalla's death is not known. It is claimed that she died in Bijbehara (vejibro:r). People like Granny Lalla do not really die. Lal Ded is alive in her sayings and in the hearts of Kashmiris.
The sayings of Lalla number around two hundred.
Five Sayings of Lal Ded
I
By a way I came, but I went not by the way.
While I was yet on the midst of the embankment
with its crazy bridges, the day failed for me.
I looked within my poke, and not a cowry came to hand
(or, atI, was there).
What shall I give for the ferry-fee?
(Translated by G. Grierson)
II
Passionate, with longing in mine eyes,
Searching wide, and seeking nights and days,
Lo' I beheld the Truthful One, the Wise,
Here in mine own House to fill my gaze.
(Translated by R.C. Temple)
III
Holy books will disappear, and then only the mystic formula will remain.
When the mystic formula departed, naught but mind was left.
When the mind disappeared naught was left anywhere,
And a voice became merged within the Void.
(Translated by G. Grierson)
IV
You are the heaven and You are the earth,
You are the day and You are the night,
You are all pervading air,
You are the sacred offering of rice and flowers and of water;
You are Yourself all in all,
What can I offer You?
V
With a thin rope of untwisted thread
Tow I ever my boat o'er the sea.
Will God hear the prayers that I have said?
Will he safely over carry me?
Water in a cup of unbaked clay,
Whirling and wasting, my dizzy soul
Slowly is filling to melt away.
Oh, how fain would I reach my goal.
(Translated by R.C. Temple)
by Prof. K. N. Dhar
CULTURAL heritage of acountry borrows measured sustenance from the philosophy of life nurtured inch by inch, by its denizens from the time, man awoke to the consciousness of self and spirit. It may well be called the culmination of quest of man from finite mooring, to infinite dimensions. At the same time, this search of man for finding his feet on the spiritual plane, can in no way be the last word on this subject, since such pursuits are cumulative in character and content. This edifice comes into being brick by brick, hammered into proper shape by savants and saints from time to time. However, it calls for reinterpretation every day in and out, so that the erring human being, with all his frailities, in not derailed into the abyss of animality. Perhaps this is the veritabie theme of the famous word of Lord Krsna in Gita "when vice prevails and virtue dwindles, I resurrect my own being for profferring refuge to the virtuous and annihilating vice completely; thus re-extablishing human values in every age". In our happy valley Lalleshwari most charitably projected such human values, so dear to Kashmiris from the dawn of history. An irrefutable proof of this attitude of concilliation instead of confrontation can be gleaned from the pages of Nilamata Purana wherein Lord Buddha has been acknowledged as an incarnation of God Avatara. Buddhism, to speak squarely, was essentially a revolt against Brahmanism, yet the catholic Brahmin with his proverbial forbearance did not use the same language or adopt the same attitude as the Buddhists had employed with respect to Brahmanism. The healthy approach of Kashmiri Brahmins was never negative in essence but purely positive. So, we can safely assert that Lalleshwari, a vigilant sentinel of Kashmiri culture displayed highest magnitude of courage and foresight in those not very auspicious times beckoning man not to discriminate on the basis of religious labels:-
<verses>
It was actually the continuation of that Catholic attitude of mind displayed by Kashmiris from times immemorial.
However, time does not maintain a uniform tenor or temper. It is at times moody and capricious; and when the political map of Kashmir was redrawn in the fourteenth century by the induction of sultans over the Kashmir scene, this accomodation of head and heart received a jolt. Kashmiris became oblivious of their pristine past; present consequently got divorced from it, mutilating its brilliant face and its attendant decorum. During those unsavoury and all the more unpalatable times, Lalleshwari fortified to her marrow by the innate strength of her conviction, rose to the occasion and strove hard put to an end to this dismal era of persecution and vandalism. In this crusade her tools were not abjuration but affirmation; bitterness changed hands with sweet and more persuasive compromise. Having elected to tread this path of self-suffering, she became a model for millions of her country-men to abjure the mundance and propitiate the sublime. It was no less than a miracle by which the sufferings of the people lost their sting and they learnt to bear up with these with stoical resistance. They were exhorted to rise above the self and reach up to the super-self at which stage pleasure or pain have no relevance or meaning. Some say it was self-deceit, fleeing from the actual life, rather self-forget-fulness to feel shy of the stark realities of life. The most apt answer to this faulty assertion is provided by ever-awake Lalleshwari herself in these words:-
<verses>
"Some may heap cavil on me, even some may curse me; They may say whatever they like to say. Some may worship me with the flowers of inherent cognition; yet I do not feel ruffled with this kind of impeachment or praise, since I am concerned with my own self and do not grudge what others have to say about me."
Muslim rule over Kashmir, for reasons obvious, sounded the knell for the use and propagation of sanskrit language. Bilhana, the famous lyricist of Kashmir had once boasted that, "In their household the Kashmiri women even speak sanskrit and prakrit as fluently as their mother-tongue." It was now an old wooden story. However, a bridge was to be built between the present and the past for which sanskrit had been a very potent instrument; but the general public had lost contact with it. Persian was the order of the day in its stead. So, Lalleshwari chose to speak to the people in their own idiom; hence Kashmiri became the vehicle of her message. In this way, she did not only make her message more intelligible and comprehensible to the masses, but also achieved the purpose of bridging the gulf between the past and the present. Present is an improved version of the past providing the base on which future can be built. In her time the friction between the past and the present was the loudest; hence, she like an expert alchemist, by her healing touch saved Kashiniri culture from being eroded and bruised. Her clarion call to assimilate human values in thoie dark days won for her the esteem and acclaim of Hindus and Muslims alike and the edge of ruthless proselytisation got blunted. It was no mean achievment on her part in uniting the lost children of one God, when every effort was being made to segregate them from each other. Her message was so universal and appealing that the tallest of Muslim Reshis of Kashmir Sheikh Noor -ud -Din Noorani made her his ideal and expressed what he owed to her in these words:-
<verses>
"That Lalla of Padmpur (Pampur) was fortunate enough in gulping the ambrosial nectarine draughts; thereby she won our adoration as an incarnation of immortal Divinity. Benevolent God, grant me also such a boon."
Lalla's message couched in quartrains called 'Vaks' is very simple and straight bereft of any curves or terseness. It is actually an exhortation to man to indulge in self-cognition. It is a readymade manual on self- education and consequent self-consciousness.
<verses>
"I felt fatigued by imessant self-search, thinking that no body could partake of that hidden perceptive knowledge; I, ultimately got immersed into it and could find admission to the Divine-bar; therein the goblets are full to the brim, but none possesses the nerve to drink these."
Mental drill is preamble to self- consciousness. At that pinnacle of self- discipline mind gets tamed automatically effortlessly:-
<verses>
"The steed of mind gallops through the sky, encompassing this whole universe. During the twinkling of an eye it can traverse millions of miles. He, who is proficient enough to put it on rails by controlling its reins, check its wayward demeanour by clipping its wings in the shape of mastering his own inhalaton and exhalation can attain the stage of self- cognition."
Worship, in the words of Lalla connotes self- introspection. It has nothing to do with external paraphernalia:-
<verses>
"Mind is the flower-seller and faith the flowers. Worship should be undertaken with the offerings of mental equipoise. Shiva is to be given a bath of tears. Incantations are to be recited in silence, without making a show of these. In this way only self-consciousness can be awakened from within."
According to Lalleshwari a realizer has to hammer out his mental attitude on these lines:-
<verses>
"He, who considers his own self and others as alike, abjures distinction between 'I' and 'you', He, who treats days and nights alike; is undisturbed by pleasure or pain. He, whose mind is bereft of duality, whose heart beats for all alike; only such a realizer can perceive the highest of preceptors-Shiva."
But, that shiva is within the self of the realizer, as inseparable from it as the smell from the flower. Immanence is self and transcendence is super-self-shiva in the language of Kashmiri monistic Shaivacharyas:-
<verses>
"Why do you beat your breast for nothing ? If you possess unwavering intelligence, you shall have to seek Him from within, Shiva is seated there and searching Him from outside will be of no avail. Do believe my word, baked with self- perception."
Withont beating about the bush, it can be safely asserted that Lalleshwari's forte was Kashmiri Shaivism. This concept of Kashmirian philosophy actually revolutionized the age-long attitudes of man, more so of the Brahmins. It advocates a caste-less society as also abhorrs Kitchen-puritanism. Hindu society ailing through its own defective approach, justified such a kind of major operation for instilling evergreen health into its rusty veins. Shaiva scholars of Kashmir diagnosed the disease rightly and prescribed such an elixir for its longevity which defied the time with its nihilistic redclaws. Had not this philosophy of life been at hand to the Kashmiris at that dismal hour of history, no Hindu worth the name, would have survived in the Land of 'Kashyapa', alien culture would have made an easy morsel of him. Lalla's Vaks, are actually a Kashmiri rendering of shiva sutras; When this philosophy was born, no such predicament was there, as was faced by Lalleshwari in her own times later on. At best, shaivas had to contend with the Buddhists, whose attitude was also home-spun and not foreign in any way; Hence, Lalla had to reclaim the lost faith of her brethren, provide a viable alternative to the enticements an alien faith was offering to the people at large; and at the same time, in performing this double duty, she had to be always cross-fingered, not invite the wrath of the rulers. It definiltely goes to her credit that while discharging her mission, she did not make a single enemy out of the other camp. To crown all, her message did cut through the man-made barriers of religions, Hindus as well as Muslims became her votaries with equal gusto. Her appeal was humanistic and not sectarian. Her approach was of positive affirmation and not of negative abjuration; consequeatly it multiplied her friends. Her ingenuity in steering safe between the two antagnostic factions is unsurpassed. She was instrumental in replacing call to steel by call to human conscience, consequently changing sourness to sweetness:-
<verses>
"We, human beings, did live in the past and we alone will be in the future also. From ancient times to the present, we have activised this world. Just like rising and setting of the sun, a usual routine, the immanent Shiva (jiva) will never be relieved of birth and death."
Lalleshwari did not preach any hard and fast religion, she even disdained ritual. She projected a way of life quite in harmony with our cultural traditions, in which a happy amalgam was made of what was good in Buddhism, Hinduism and even Islam;-
<verses>
"That transcendental- self may assume the names of Shiva, Visnu, Buddha or Brahma; I am concerned only With their efficacy in cutting asunder my worldly affections, which might be accomlished by any one of these."
Therefore, it follows from this, that she was not dogmatic or rigid either. She welcomed the healthy wafts of wind coming from any direction wlktsoever, anointing her body and soul with chaste Divinity. She always kept the windows of her mind open, rejecting what was mundane and assimilating the sublime:-
<verses>
"The Super- Lord is supervising His shop with personal care. All the aspirants are eager to take away wares of their liking. Whatever, you would elect to buy, does not admit of any intermediary; It is to be earned by your own effort, since the shop is devoid of any hinderance and even a watch is not kept over it."
This is the acme of Lalla's message. Man has been exhorted to seek his own self front within, without any external aids. Self-effort is precursor of self- education finally culminateng in self-conscionsness - Shiva - as she calls it.
As long as the silvery bellows of the Vitasta maintain their rejuvenating rhythm, as long as the virgin snow on the Himalayan heights retains its unblemished splendour and stature, the exquisite 'Vaks' of Lalleshwari soaked to the full in the inherent values of Kashmiri culture and human understanding will go on, unimpeded of course, in providing dignity to man to recognize his own self and not to run after deluding shadows; since the culture of a land never dies, the message of Lalla portraying meaningfully the humanistic attitudes ingrained in our culture, will never grow stale. Its fragrance and flavour are evergreen.
sources :Kashmir overseas association,Wikipedia,
Lal Ded once entered a temple in which her spiritual guru, Sidh, was
worshipping the idols. She wanted to show to him that God was present
everywhere and was not limited to the temple. Sidh asked her what she
had come for and she told him that she wanted to answer the call of
nature, and being naked she came into the temple for privacy. He hastily
led her out telling her that it was a place where idols were worshipped
and it would be sacrilegious to do in it what she intended to. She
asked him to show her a place where there were no idols. He led her to a
place and there Lal Ded removed some earth under which idols were
found. The he led her to another place and there too she removed the
earth and idols were found. The Lal Ded addressed to him:-
Diva wata diver wata
Heri bun chhuh ikawat
Puz kas karak huta bhatta
Kar manas pavanas sangat
Soi shela chhai patas tah pithas
Soi shela chhai utam desh
Soi shela chhai pheravanis gratas
Shiv chhui kruth tai tsen upadesh
Idol is of stone, temple is of stone;
Above (temple) and below (idol) are one;
Which of them wilt thou worship, O foolish Pandit?
Cause thou the union of mind and soul.
The same stone is in the road and in the pedestal:
The same stone is the sacred place:
The same stone is the turning mill;
Shiva is difficult to be attained, take a hint for guidance (from thy guru)
Lal Ded Memorial School
| Lal Ded Memorial School Lal Ded School |
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|---|---|
 |
|
| Address | |
| Badiyar-Bala, 2nd Bridge, Habba Kadal Srinagar, Kashmir, 190001 |
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| Information | |
| School type | Private |
| Status | Active |
| Gender | Co-Ed |
| Classes | Class LKG – 10th |
| Language | English |
| Hours in school day | 51/2 Hr |
| Classrooms | 50 |
| Sports | Cricket, athletics |
| Affiliation | J & K Board of School Education |
Demolition of building
The building was demolished in April 2009 by a private builder in order to construct a shopping complex at the site. A stay order was issued by the High Court after the building was demolished. The school has been transferred to a much smaller building in the area.[2]
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Lal Ded again visited
Autar Krishan MotaLalleshuri, the fourteenth century mystic of Kashmir, popularly known as Lal-Ded has again been visited, visited otherwise by many thinkers from across the globe till now, visited not only through books or write-ups but also through other modes of visual and performing art.
I have seen Rama Vaidyanathan, noted Bhartanatyam dancer mesmerizing audience with ecstatic dance on Lal-Vaakh. I have seen various painters paint her message and many singers begin their melody (Sufiana Qalaam or Leela) with her Vaakh (Four line poetic compositions meaning Vaakyaas in Sanskrit), a knowledge, a message and a thought so profound that it has survived safely though memory lane for many centuries and carried forward from generation to generation without any obvious distortion.
Bhaskar Razdan is reported to be the first person who collected 60 Vaakhs of Lalleshuri and translated them into Sanskrit verse. Thereafter Pt Lakshman Koul is reported to have collected 47 more raising the number to 107. Seeking help from one Pandit Mukand Ram Shastri, George Grierson, a British official in Kashmir set to add more and published his first monumental book, Lalla Vaakhini in 1920. The number of Vaakhs so collected kept on increasing. This quantitative increase also brought some dilution in her core message as some Vaakhs which did not belong to her got unintentionally added by word of mouth in her stock and being attributed to her. I personally tend to go with the opinion of Late Shri Moti Lal Saqi that many poems of Lalla which patently do not belong to her are being attributed to her. My personal observation, based on a careful study of her core message, is that the spoken language of her time and many other vital factors may some time in future bring out some authentic manuscript that would put more light on the subject. Nonetheless, a conscientious student of her philosophy and her poems does not fail in identifying and separating the real from the chaff from the grain.
The contribution of Rajanka Bhaskara, Barnett and Grierson, Richard Temple, Nila Cram Cook, Prof Jayalal Koul, Prof BN Parimoo, PNK Bamzai, PN Bazaz, SS Toshkhani and Ranjit Hoskote and some others is truly invaluable in immortalizing these celestial poems but the present review is about a distinguished addition to this list. Let me talk about Shri Jawahar Lal Bhat’s recently published and released book “Lal-Ded revisited”.
I understand that more than a decade’s work has seen the light of the day in the shape of this book. The earnest aim of the author as told by him was to ensure that the language remains as simple as possible so that a vast section of people of Kashmir among other admirers of Lalleshuri outside across various age groups could easily go through otherwise terse and deeply philosophical poems of Lalleshuri.
Shri Jawahar Lal Bhat, has created history by writing “Lal-Ded revisited”, a voluminous book analyzing afresh and in detail the famous Lalla-Vaakh of Lalleshuri (Lal-Ded). Coming to the formatting of the book — it is very well thought out and planned. Out of 560 pages — 7 pages are for contents, about 25 pages for exhaustive preface, introduction and historical perspective of Lalla-Vaakh. The most exemplary feat performed by the author is the first section of the book titled “Lalla-Vaakh” wherein one poem on one page is written in three scripts, Roman, Devnagri and Nastaliq followed by a brief but crisp translation in English. This helps the reader to read clearly the truest version of the poem in the absence of an authentic and foolproof script for which Kashmiri language has always suffered and Mr Bhat has tried successfully to tide over this handicap. The roman script of the Vaakh is followed by a reference line depicting the sources wherefrom the poem has been traced and can be further tracked. This is followed by about 260 pages “Notes section” wherein detailed notes and commentary on each poem is given. This detailed exercise is a unique and brilliant job undertaken by the author that makes each poem adequately clear to the reader.
Lal Ded has an indelible impact on Kashmiri psyche. It has remained unabated in spite of a time lapse of about seven hundred years .This could possibly be due to the poet inside her envisioning mysticism and the saint within her writing poems. She remains an unparalleled spiritual giant and a poetic wizard of Kashmir. Her poetic presentation of the universal message of Kashmir’s Shaiva Darshan and Dynamic Humanism remains beyond comparison. And through her poems, she is capable for shaping contours of Kashmiri language and literature so as to grant it a wide recognition.
Coming to the book again — the imperative need to simplify her thought in simple English language and free it from weighty poetic diction has been superbly fulfilled by the author in this book. From exclusively elite readership it has now arrived for a mass readership. The author has avoided appreciably using unnecessary metaphors, symbols and idioms that have been brought in anywhere in his English rendering. The message of each Vaakh is available in a simple but profound spiritual elixir and pointed Joyous English rendering .This quality may create a mass reader base and may attract younger generations more than before to this work who may have some issues with strict poetic translation of these poems. I feel, for this work, posterity is bound to feel indebted to the author. I quote the English rendering of some poems from the Book:–
Shuniiyukk Mae’daan Kodumm Paanus
Mey Lallie Roozum Boadh Na Hosh
Wai’Zey Sap’nuss Paanie Paanus
Adhaaa Kammie Hilli Phoall Lalli Pamposh.
(I crossed alone the wide fields of Shunya, The sights and scenes dropped my reason and senses. Soon I was awakened to the mysteries of my inner self! Thus, I Lalla with a humble background, flowered like a lotus from the marsh.)
Shiv’va keshv’va Zin’va
Kamalaz Naath Naam Daarien Yuh
Mey Abhlii Kaaeis’tein Bhav Roz
Su’va Su’va Su’va Suh.
(You may call him Shiva, Keshva or Buddha or even lotus Born Narayana, makes no difference, whoever it may be, I wish this poor woman released from the sickness of life, weak and helpless she is, unable to meet its truest purpose!)
I can quote so many poems that have been done to crystal clear rendering by the author and the book is definitely going to live long and prove useful to Kashmiris in general admirers of Lalleshuri’s Philosophy in particular. It is surely going to attract too many encouraging reviews too.
Those of us who read Lal Ded in proper perspective and context, I am sure may find a real Master in her. She is a Spiritual Guru who guides by her Vaakhs alone. And for that purpose alone ,I recommend study of this Great work -“Lal-Ded revisited”.
I conclude with a Shrukh ( Shloka ) of Sheikh Noor ud Din or Nund Ryosh that goes as under (English translation by Prof. J L Koul) ..
Aarbalan Naagraada rovukh
Saada rovukh Tchooran munz
Moodagaran gwor pandita rovukh
Raaz Hans Rovukh Kaawaun Munz
(Amid the rocks, the found was lost, among the thieves was lost the saint, among the ignorant, the wise teacher was lost, and the royal swan was lost among the crows)
Reconstructing and Reinterpreting Lal Ded
by Dr. S. S. ToshkhaniLalleshwari, Lal Ded, or simply Lalla, as many like to call her, is not just
a medieval woman poet in whose verse we hear the first heart-beats of Kashmiri
poetry-she is easily the most popular and most powerful symbol of Kashmir's
civilizational ethos. While her 'vaaks' or verse-sayings continue to dazzle us
with their high wattage incandescence, her role as a spiritual leader who
resolved the crisis of her times caused by a clash of two belief and value
systems-one indigenous and the other alien cannot but be regarded as momentous,
whether or not history recognizes its true significance. In both these
capacities it was her intervention that ensured continuity and saved indigenous
cultural structures from a total collapse at a time when the advent of Islam in
Kashmir was accompanied by an unprecedented political and social upheaval.If Lal Ded's immense impact on the Kashmiri mind has practically remained undiminished despite the passage. of almost seven centuries, it is essentially because of the fusion of the poet and the saint in her, or, to use the words of Dileep Chitre (which he has used for another great Bhakti poet, Tukaram), because of "a poet's vision of spirituality and a saint's vision of poetry" that she presents in her verses. We are amazed at her deep sense of compassion, her mystical insights and spiritual vision, her profound awareness of the human condition and her Shaiva-world view which makes her look at existence as manifestation of one, indivisible, consciousness. More than anything else, we are indebted to her for shaping the Kashmiri language in a way that it formed the basis for the Kashmiris to forge their indigenous cultural identity.
Ironically, this very image of Lal Ded as a spiritual giant and poetic genius fused into one-reinforced by the many hagiographical accounts, myths and legends surrounding her-has led to attempts at appropriating her for ideologies and causes totally alien to her thinking and temperament. We thus come across not one but several image constructs of the saint-poetess, some of them mutually irreconcilable, linked inextricably with predilections, perceptions and motives of those who have created them. And these tend to blur and distort facts about her life, making it extremely difficult for us to arrive at what we can call an authentic Lal Ded-a flesh and blood Lal Ded occupying a specific space and time in history, or at least a poetic version of what Lal Ded was or must actually have been like. With whims, fancies and notions being the basis of these various constructs, we are left with the problems of exploring the true dimensions of her creativity and of locating the real founts of her inspiration. And this cannot be settled by mere interpretations of scholarly differences or semantic hair-splitting. The task has been made immensely complicated by the intervention of nearly seven hundred years of history about which people are still hesitant to talk freely and openly.
The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the image constructs of the saint-poetess which are patently false, and have no basis in facts, but are passed on as products of genuine scholarship. These images and fabrications are being circulated persistently with surprising frequency not out of any desire to present the truth, but to suppress it. The most formidable attempt to appropriate Lal Ded in this manner comes from those who want to snatch her for Islam. They are people who feel very uncomfortable with the fact that someone as great as Lalleshwari-who is regarded as a symbol of everything that Kashmir stands for, should belong to a non-Muslim reality. Masquerading as scholars but motivated and conditioned by their religious reflexes, they try to subvert this fact by floating imaginary anecdotes about her conversion to Islam. One such anecdote that continues to be repeated with total disregard to historical plausibility is that she met Sayyid Mir Ali Hamadani, the Islamic missionary most revered by Kashmiri Muslims, and received "spiritual enlightenment” from him. Sayyid Hamadani had come to Kashmir with a large entourage of fellow Sayyids to escape the wrath of Timur and there he engaged in proselytizing activities on a massive scale. Prof. Jaya Lal Kaul has in his brilliantly researched book "Lal Ded" very convincingly proved the utter impossibility of such a meeting having ever taken place. Referring to Persian sources, he has quoted Mohammad Azam Dedamari's explicit statement that the story of her being present before the Sayyid "has not been held as proved by scholars". Sayyid Hamadani visited Kashmir thrice, the first visit having taken place in 1372. And if Lal Ded died in the reign of Shihab-ud-din, as Persian chronicles point out, he could in no way have influenced her. Persian chronicler Peer Ghulam Hassan, too makes no mention of a meeting between Lal Ded and Sayyid Mir Ali Hamadani, but states that she did indeed meet Jalal-ud-din Bukhari and Sayyid Hussain Samanani and it was at his hands that she was "converted" to Islam. ‘Bibi Lalla Arifa', a pamphlet published from Lahore, to which Prof. Jayalal Kaul has referred, is more categorical, saying that she accepted Islam at the hands of Sayyid Hussain Samanani. "This should be obvious to all", the pamphlet adds, emphasizing the claim and giving a fanciful account of the supposed meeting. According to the pamphlet, Lal Ded ran for miles together to receive Sayyid Samanani at Shopian and "being elated to receive the secret doctrine, became his chief disciple". Repudiating this claim which Sufi, the author of "Kashir", a history of Kashmir published from Pakistan, says is based on "Lalla Arifa's own later day vaaks," Prof. Kaul writes: "Not a single verse-saying of hers has been discovered up to date even among the doubtful and spurious verse-sayings ascribed to her which would bear out either this anecdote or similar other anecdotes concerning her".
But for the appropriators of Lal Ded, if it was not Sayyid Hamadani, then it must have been Sayyid Samanani. Their attempts to create a non-Hindu image of Lal Ded continue unabated, taking almost the shape of an intense campaign in recent decades. A special Lal Ded Number (1979) of Sheeraza, a journal published by the Jammu and Kashmir State Art Culture and Languages, for instance, is illustrative of this obsession which shows itself in article after article obviously with the editor's tacit agreement. One such article "Lal Ded Shah Hamadan ke Huzoor Mein" (Lal Ded in the Presence of Shah Hamadan), written by Mufti Jalal-ud-din, says, "It does not matter whether these anecdotes are corroborated by history or not. It is eventually popular belief that settles the issue". Jalal-ud-din's is not just an individual opinion-it represents a whole mindset that shows no signs of changing even today. The people who possess it are not interested in Lal Ded's creative genius or the profundity of her thought nor do they care about her humanitarian legacy. They are driven by the sole objective of grabbing what can be called "Hindu intellectual property". That is why they show Lal Ded running towards a baker's oven desperate to cover her nudity as she had seen a "man" when she supposedly encountered Sayyid Hamadani. The miracle of the oven is surely prompted by a hegemonistic design to establish the superiority of Islam over the creed of the "infidels". Sayyid Hamadani was on a proselytizing mission and what bigger fish could there have been for him to cast his net ?
The Sufi image that some have tried to foist on Lal Ded is also a mischievous and motivated construct as it is virtually an attempt to de-Hinduise her and to create confusion about her faith. The man who began it all, though not exactly with that intention, Sir Richard Temple, appears indeed to have been a confused person, saying different things at different places. At one place he says that Lalla was a Shaivite Hindu and at another place he discovers that "she deeply and quickly absorbed the Sufi line of thought after her contact with her contemporary and friend" Sayyid Ali Hamadani. Soon afterwards he counts similarities in "the doctrine and practice of Naqshbandis and the Yogic exercises of the Hindu Shaivas". Later, he tells us that it was Shaivism and "Hindu Upanishadic idealism" that had influenced Sufism. If that be the truth then how is it that she is influenced by Sufism as preached by Sayyid Ali Hamadani? Why not directly by Hindu Upanishadic thought? If Sayyid Hamadi was at all a Sufi, he was not of the type who would believe in the doctrine of Wahadat-ul-Wujud or oneness of existence and certainly not in universal brotherhood and love. The humiliating and degrading conditions he laid down in his book "Zakhirat-ul-Muluk" to guide a Sultan in treating his non-Muslim subjects are enough to prove this. The various Sufi orders said to have been introduced during that time in Kashmir were all orthodox in nature, preaching strict adherence to Shariah and not liberal humanism as is made out to be. They remained confined to the correct practice of the Quaranic beliefs and "hardly came out of zuhd, ibadat, taqwa and riyadat, the limits set by their founders", having nothing to do with the type of Sufism based on the doctrine of Mohi-ud-din ibn Arabi. Their emphasis was on proselytization and not on the belief in unity of being and universal love.
Writers like P.N.K. Bamzai and Dr. R.K. Parmu, who followed Richard Temple in his queer conclusions, created further confusion by making even stranger and mutually contradictory statements. 'Lalleshwari's association with Shah Hamadan", writes Bamzai, "was due to an identity of the faith of Sufis and Hindu mendicants and saints in Kashmir", adding that "the order she founded was an admixture of the non-dualistic philosophy of Shaivism and Islamic Sufism". One is at a loss to understand what one can make of such pronouncements which have nothing to do with history or facts of Lal Ded's life. In what way was "the faith of the Hindu mendicants and saints of Kashmir" different from that followed by the general mass of the people ? And which religious or philosophical order was founded by Lal Ded? The word "admixture" leaves one stumped, but even before one recovers one finds him saying in the same breath that Shaivism, "the dominant religion of the time", was "ossified into a set of complicated rituals". Did the "Hindu mendicants", he refers to follow any other religion then?
Dr. R.K. Parmu is even more sweeping in his statements, blissfully ignorant of how they contradict each other. Branding the entire Hindu society of Lal Ded's time as "corrupt", he tells us that "Lal Ded preached against the Shaiva religion as it was practiced by the Tantric gurus of those times". Did she really? And who were these "Tantric gurus" any way?. But wait, Dr. Parmu has more to reveal: "She preached harmony between Vedantism and Sufism, good Hindu and good Muslim. What are the sources that he and Bamzai rely upon to make such pronouncements? Which of Lal Ded's vaakhs testifies to this? Or, which historical source? Or can just whims and notions replace historical investigation?
Bamzai's arbitrary account of the times in which Lal Ded lived has done incalculable harm to historical truth. If he is to be believed, the "pious lives" that Sufi saints of that period lived had the Hindus so charmed that they decided to embrace Islam en masse ! Of course, by implication all other led impious lives. Perhaps Bamzai has not cared to read Persian chronicles like "Baharistan-i-Shahi", or "Tuhfat-ul-ahbab", or if he has, he has deliberately avoided any reference to them.
There are several verses of Lal Ded in which she refers to her attainment of self-realization and spiritual enlightenment. For her it is a real experience of life. There is no shadow of doubt or uncertainty about it in her mind. And, what is more, there is a tone of tremendous self-confidence and assurance in her verses when she tells us about her mystical illumination. As, for instance, in these lines:
Samsaras ayas tapasi
Bodhu prakashu lobum sahaj
Into this universe of birth I came
By Yoga gained the self revealing light !
(Trans. Nila Cram Cook)
Loluki naru vaalinj buzum
shankar lobum tami
suuty
My heart I parched as farmers parch the grain
And from that fire there came a wondrous boon
And Shiva in a flash I did obtain
(Trs. Nila Cram Cook)
lal bo tsayas swaman bagu baras
vuchhum shivas shakath milth tu vah
tati lay karum arnrit saras
zinday maras tu karyam kyah
I, Lalla, entered through the door of the garden of my mind
And saw Shiva and Shakti united into one, O joy!
There I became immersed in the lake of nectar
And died even while I was still alive
What will now death do unto me ?
adu lali mye praavum param gath
And then I,
Lalla, attained the supreme state.
And if that is the case, why hasn't anyone asked so far what need had Lal Ded
to go to a Sayyid Hamadani or a Sayyid Samnani, or anyone else for that matter,
to become his "murid-e-khas"? You cannot disregard or dilute the
Shaiva metaphysical content in her thought by harping on such stories and
fabrications. The secret of her phenomenal popularity, even during her own
lifetime, was the great spiritual heights she had attained and this greatness
sometimes gave her courage to even question her own Guru:
gwaras
pritshyom sasi late
yas nu kenh vanan tas kyah nav
pritshan pritshan thachis tu lusus
kenhas nishi
kyah tany drav
A thousand times did I my Guru ask
What is the name of the one who can’t be named
And asking again and again I tired myself out
How has something come out of nothing?
One cannot imagine how someone like her could have submitted meekly before
the Sayyid missionaries at the fag end of her life and agree to give up her life
long faith? Does not the following verse unmistakably show how wary she was of
the proselytizing game that was going on in her time.
ha tsyatta kava chhuy logmut par mas
kavu goy apuzis pazyuk bronth
dushi boz vash kornakh para dharmas …
O mind, why do you feel intoxicated by someone else’s wine?
Why do you mistake the unreal for the real?
Weak mindedness has let you to be overcome by others’ faith.
In another vaakh, Lal Ded says of herself: "Lalla merged herself in the
light of pure consciousness (chitta jyoti) by means of the mysterious syllable
Om, and thus did away with the fear of death". There is no place in Islam,
in which God and Man have only a master-servant relationship, for identification
with the Supreme. Nor do orthodox Sufi order entertain such thought. Mansur had
to pay with his life for saying "ana'I haq" (I am Truth).What then is the source of Lal Ded's mysticism? Where from does it derive if not from Sufism? Prof. Jaya Lal Kaul and Prof. B.N. Parimu have very clearly shown how the Shiva philosophy of Kashmir forms the basis of her thought. "As I find", writes Prof. Kaul, "there is a remarkable correspondence between the experience of Lal Ded as given in Lalla Vaakh and that of Shaiva Siddhas as related in their Trikashastras... This should undeniably prove that she was a Shaiva Yogini, not only because she uses, whenever she needs to use them, the technical terms only of Tiika Darshana but, more so, because of her concept of God, her Yoga technique her own anubhava, direct perception and experience - all these are of Trika system." Prof. Parimu is equally specific: "The key to Lalla's mysticism is the Shivadvaita or the Trika philosophy of Kashmir". The mystic strain that is so prominent in Lal Ded's poetry, in fact, combines her quest for gnostic illumination with the depth of emotional experience. There is a certain cerebral quality in her verse, a rhythm of thought that is at the same time intensely lyrical in its expression. In his book "Triadic Mysticism", Paul E. Murphy calls her the "chief exponent of devotional or emotion-oriented Triadism". He writes: "Three significant representatives of devotionalism emerged in Kashmir in the five hundred years between the last half of the ninth and the end of the fourteenth centuries, they were : Bhatta Narayana, Utpaldeva and Lalla. Predominant in all three is the advocation of a path of love unencumbered by techniques and means."
Bhatta Narayana, the direct disciple of Vasugupta, wrote the Stava Chintamani in the 9th century. The work, which Murphy calls "a love poem", has 120 verses on the communion between Shiva and Shakti "under the form of Prakasha and Vimarsha or Light and Self-Awareness". Utpala, who according to Lilian Silburn was "both mystic and genius, powerful metaphyscian, astute psychologist and above all, great poet", and "next to Abhinavagupta the most notable and audacious figure of the Self-Awareness {patibhijna) School", wrote Shiva Stotravali, described by Murphy as" the most beautiful of Shaiva love songs written in an intensely touching though simple style". Lal Ded, whose verses record her own mystic life, shares with these two Shaiva poets, who preceded her, a sharp feeling of the immediate presence of Shiva, the Divine Being. The poetry of all the three of them stems from "an intense resignation to the divine will", and reflects their vivacity, originality and deep sincerity. There is a striking similarity in many passages of theirs which can be compared for their "emotions, intoxications and sufferings", and the metaphors and images that express these. For instance, Utpala in his mystic ardour and with a mind inflamed by powerful longing approaches Shiva, the compassionate Lord, to attain communion with him and clenches Him with an impassioned cry and "holds Him in his fist":
"Here you are, I hold you in my fist! Here You are, I've seen You-where are You fleeing?"
[Stavachintamani, Tn. Paul E. Murphy]
This has a perfect parallel in Lalla, who evokes the sane image in this expression of hers:
andryum prakash nyabar tshot um
gati rot um tu karmas thaph!
I diffused outside the light that lit-up within me
And in that darkness I seized Him and held Him tight!
Images and metaphors relating to the concept of Shiva's self-luminosity
abound in Shaiva devotional poets, and the Bata or "darkness" that Lal
Ded refers to is the dark Mystical Night of anguish and suffering which
ultimately leads to the Night of Undifferentiatedness.Bhatta Narayana uses the image of the dark cavern of heart where "darkness is dissipated on all sides by the Brightness Supreme". Here too there is a striking similarity in the words "the interior cavern" used by Bhatta Narayana and "andryum" the "inner" (light) that Lal Ded has used.
Lala Ded expresses her mystical feelings-the pangs of separation from Shiva, the passionate urge to unite with Him, the desperate quest and the frustration of losing the direction, the difficulties of the path, the intensity of suffering which only strengthens her determination to seem Him face to face and possess Him, the total surrender of will and the ecstasy of the final beatitude-in imager and metaphors that are powerful and stunningly beautiful:
lal bo drayas lolare
tshandan lustum dyan kyoh rath
vuchhum pandith panini gare
suy mye rotum nechhatur tu sath
I,
Lalla, set out with burning longing
And seeking, searching, passed the day and night
Till lo! I saw to mine own house belonging
The
Pandit, and siezed my luck and star of light
(Trs. Nila Cram Cook)
lal bo lusus tshandan tu gvaran
hal mye kormas rasani shyatiy
vuchhun hyotmas taary dithmas baran
mye ti kal ganeyi tu zogmas tatiy
I, Lalla wearied myself searching and seeking
Exhausting my strength my every nerve as I
looked for Him,
I found His doors slammed and bolted
My longing became all the more intense
And I stood there watching for Him.
ayas vate gayas nu vate
semanzu svathe lustum doh
chandas wuchhum har na ate
navi taras dimu kyah bo
I came by the highway, but by the highway I did return
I found myself stranded halfway on the embankment
With the light of the day having faded away
Searching my pockets, a penny I did not find
What shall I pay now for being ferried across?
mal wondi zolum
jigar morum
tyeli lal nav dram
yell dally traavymas tatiy
I burned the impurities of the mind
And killed my desires
Then only I did my name Lalla became known
When I surrendered completely before Him
panas laagith ruduk mye tsu
mye tsye tshandan lustum doh
panas manz yeli dyuthukh mye tsu
mye tse tu panas dyutLim tshoh
In seeking 'me' and Thee' I passed the day
Absorbed within Thyself thou hadst remained
Concealed from me! I wondered for away
When I beheld Thee in myself, I gained
For Thee and me that rapure unrestrained
(Trs. Nila Cram Cook)
pot zuni wathith mot bolanavum
dag lalunaavum dayi sunzi praye
lalu lalu karith lalu vuzunovunum
milith tas man shrotsyom dehe
Waking up at the end of moonlit night
I called the 'mad one'-my mind
And soothed his pain with the love of God
Crying "It is I Lalla, it is I Lalla", I awakened the Beloved
And by becoming one with Him my mind and body became pure!
The first step in this "mystical progression" is, according to
Silvia Silburn, self-annihilation or destruction of all doubt and dualism, and
the culmination is communion with the divine, which in Shaiva triadic
terminology is self-realization of one's Shiva-nature, a stage in which nothing
remains but Shiva-consciousness-"soruy suy to boh no kenh" (He is
everything, and I am nothing). The ultimate mystical selfrealization in Lal Ded,
therefore, means absorption in Shiva.But Lal Ded does not remain hovering in the high heaven of mystic experience alone. She has her feet firmly planted on the earth. There is no tendency in her to separate the experiences of mystical life from the experiences of ordinary life. Instead of disregarding everyday experiences she elevated herself through it to the ultimate experience of liberation, which in Trika metaphysics means swatantrya or absolute freedom of will, which is the nature of Supreme Shiva Himself. Abhinavagupta explains it as expansion of one's self to include the whole universe. Kashmir Shaivism, it should be noted, does not reject the phenomenal world as unreal or illusory but regards it to be the self-expression of Shiva-His poem, His work of art, His projection of Himself on a screen which is also Shiva. Lal Ded's expression of her longing to attain oneness with transcendence, therefore, should be taken to mean expression of her feeling of unity with Shiva's immanent form also. If "Shiva is all", then to her, He is not different from the ordinary man we find on the streets-he who laughs and sneezes and coughs and yawns:
ase paande zvase zame
nyathuy snan kari tirthan
vahri vahras nonuy ase
nishi chhuy tu parzantan
Yes, He it is who laughs and coughs and yawlns
He, the ascetic naked all the year
Who bathes in sacred pools in all the dawns
But recognise how He to you is near
(Trs. Nila Cram Cook)
For Lal Ded, there is no difference between the 'I' and the 'other'
("par to pan"), immanence and transcendence, universal and individual
consciousness-subjective and objective reality being but aspects of the ultimate
reality which is one and indivisible. She sees life as an eternal and continuous
flow of consciousness:
asi aasy tu aasi asu, asav
asi dor kar patuvath
shivas sori nu zyon tu marun
ravas sori nu atugath
We have been in the past
In future also we shall be
Forever the sun rises and sets
Forever Shiva creates and
dissolves and creates again.
It is not that she is talking in riddles or in paradoxes about cycle of
births and re-births and immortality of the soul. She is talking of human life
which is a stream that flows onwards and onwards. It is this experience of
reality that is at the core of her mysticism, which begins as the quest for the
ultimate and culminates in a vision that is profoundly humanistic. And this is
what marks her as a great poet. Lal Ded is not a professional philosopher, nor
her verses any philosophical treatise, but she is deeply concerned with the
predicament and ultimate destiny of humankind.Yet Lal Ded's poetry is not the poetry of social concern in the sense it is made out to be by some scholars. In their eagerness to construct her image as some sort of a social reformer out to reform the medieval Kashmiri society and rid it of the evils afflicting it. This is again a false image, a deliberate twist given to her spiritual humanism to suit ideological considerations. There is no use digging for communitarian ideals from her verses, for they are just not there, though she does feel disturbed by social injustice and discrimination of which she herself is a victim, and is outraged by the sham and pretence that go in the name of religion. She also displays a deep sensitivity towards human suffering, her heart bleeding at the sight of the learned man dying of starvation while an utter fool beats his cook (for not having cooked a tasty dish):
gatulah akh vuchhun bochhi suuty maran
pan zan haran puhuni vavu lah
nyash bod akh vuchhum vazas maran
tanu lal bo praran tshenyam na prah
I saw a learned man dying of hunger
Trembling like dried leaves falling in harsh winter wind
An utter fool I saw beating his cook
(For not having prepared a delicious dish)
Since then I am waiting for being
free of worldly attachments.
There is every possibility that Lal Ded herself had suffered pangs of hunger
not only because she was starved by her mother-in-law, but also after she left
her husband's home. This is what this verse seems to suggest:
tsal tsetta vondas bhay mo bhar
chaany tsyanth karan panu anad
tse ko zanuni kshod hari kar
kival tasunduy toruk nad
O, restless mind! Do not fear
The one who is Beginningless takes care of you
You do not know when he will satiate your hunger
Cry to Him alone for help!
In another verse she says:
treshi, bwachhi ma kreshanavun
yany tshei tany sandarun dih
Do not torment your body with the pangs of durst and hunger
Whenever
it feels exhausted, take care of it.
It should be obvious, therefore, that Lag Ded is not unaware of the harsh
realities of life like hunger and poverty, nor ignorant of the agony and anguish
of existence. Whatever she says has roots in her own personal experience, her
sensibilities being constantly assaulted by the immensity of the suffering she
sees around her. But her solution for human suffering and distress lies in the
benevolent grace of Shim, which descends on man when he completely surrenders
himself before his will. The intensity of her social awareness turns her almost
into a rebel, even as her egalitarian ideas and ideals find expression in
spiritual terms. Shiva, she says in one of her verses, shines like the sun on
the high and the low alike:
rav matu thali thali taapitan
taapitan uttam-uttam dish
varun matu lotu garu atsytyan
shiv chhuy kruth tu tsen vopadish
Does the sun not shine everywhere alike
Or does it shine only on the best places?
Does not the water god "Varuna" enter every home?
Or does it enter only the homes
of the fortunate?
While the way she asks such disturbing questions does reveal how intricately
and intimately her spirituality is linked with her universal humanistic
concerns, it would be too much to assume that she was actually a social
activist. Yet there are people who like to persist with the theory that Lal Ded
"synthesized the best" in Shaivite and Islamic traditions, whatever
that may mean. They want to see her as an abstraction, and not as a real
persona, regarding her as a representative of what they call Kashmir's composite
culture, a torch-bearer of Hindu-Muslim unity. With obvious political
motivations, they project her as though she were a spokesperson of the present
day secular discourse and utilize her for scoring points in current political
debates, not caring to think how cliched their arguments based on false premises
have now become. Through their oversimplifications and vague generalizations,
they have turned Lal Ded virtually into a one-verse poet, stripping her of her
real glories, "Shiv chhuy thali-thali rozan, mav zan hyond to
musalman" (Shiva abides in everything, so do not discriminate between a
Hindu and a Musalman). Is that then the quintessence of her poetic thought? The
only basis of her greatness? The verse appears to be a spurious one, although
Rajanaka Bhaskara has included it in his collection of "Lalavakyani”. Lal
Ded had spent her early youth in the reign of Udyan Deva, the last Hindu king of
Kashmir, and of queen Kota Rani. Even when Islamic rule was finally established
in 1359 A.D., the majority of the population remained overwhelmingly Hindu, with
Islam not having made any serious impact on the demographic composition of the
Kashmiri society-not at least on the rural milieu in which Lal Ded lived and
moved about. To whom then has the verse been addressed? Who was discriminating
against whom? The fact is that attempts to show Lal Ded's verses as a part of
the current secular debate, are being made only as a strategy to condone the
barbarities inflicted on Kashmiri Hindus dining the six hundred years of Islamic
rule. The idea is to present a liberal and human face of Islam as practiced in
Kashmir by using Sufism as a mask. Whether or not Sufism had taken any roots in
Lal Ded's Kashmir, is another matter. The strategy seems to have worked, for a
general impression has been created that she was either a Sufi mystic herself or
was deeply influenced by Sufism.Whether or not Lal Ded had a social reformer's zeal, she was strongly egalitarian in her views and was more aware than most devotional poets about the prevailing social conditions of her times. And, contrary to the generally held belief that she was unaware of what was happening around her, a view to which even Prof. Kaul subscribes, there is enough evidence in Lalla's vaaks to show that she was very much conscious of what was going on around her, including the sweeping political changes that were taking place during her time. This is at least what the following lines of hers appear to suggest:
hyath karith rajya pheri na
dith karith tripti na man
In ruling kingdoms there is no relief
In giving them away there yet is grief
(Trs. Nila Cram Cook)
Is she not is referring here to the Kota Rani-Rinchin Shah Mir affair that
eventually brought in Muslim rule to Kashmir?Lal Ded is scathing in her attack on hollow ceremony and ritual in religion, her emphasis being on inner experience. She has no belief in "sacred places and sacred times", pilgrimages and fasts supposed to bring religious merit. She scoffs at what A.K. Ramanujam calls "orthodox ritual genuflections" and recitations. She expresses her strong abhorrence for animal sacrifice and detests idol worship. She must have surely provoked the orthodoxy at whom she misses no chance to take pot-shots. In this she reminds one of the Kannada Vachana poet Basvanna, and also of Kabir and Nanak whom she anticipated. Surely, hers was a strong voice of protest in medieval Kashmir-perhaps the only voice raised so fearlessly.
With Lal Ded not conforming to any of the image constructs built around her by those who want to reduce her to an idea or an abstraction according to their predilections, what could the real Lal Ded have been like? To reclaim her authentic persona, we have no option but to discard the motivated myths and invoke the actual text of her verses. In this context, it must be noted that Lal Ded recited her vaaks to actual audiences who were enraptured and mesmerized by her words, which happened to be in their own mother tongue. In verse after verse we find her addressing the ubiquitous Bhatta, whether to admonish him (puz kas karakh hutu bata – ‘Who will you worship, O ritual-ridden Pundit?'), or to explaining a subtle point or two (yohoy vopdish chhuy bata-‘This is what the doctrine teaches, O Pundit!'). This clearly shows that she knows her audience. Not that Lal Ded belongs to any one community-her message is certainly universal-but she does have the Pandit in mind whenever she has a point to make.
To find out the authentic Lal Ded, then, we have to rely mainly on the internal evidence that her vaaks furnish. Packed with sufficient biographical material, as the vaaks are, we can reconstruct with their help her mystic life, her experience as a woman, as a saint and as a poet, her view of the relationship between God, man and the world. An image as near reality as possible. But in this there are problems. Lalla vaaks have been orally transmitted from generation to generation and are available only in randomly available versions, with practically no chronological sequence. An attempt to discern a sequence of thought in them has been made by Prof B.N. Parimoo, who has tried to link them as thematic units under some broad divisions in his book, "The Ascent of Self". The book, written in 1978, is the first exercise of its kind undertaken by anyone and can be deservingly called a significant contribution to Lal Ded studies. "The cue to the arrangement of the verses", says the author, "is taken from the 'I-ness' categorically denoting personal experience".
But admirable as Prof. Parimoo's attempt to "re-interpret" the vaakhs is, one cannot be certain that while picking up the autobiographical threads he has arranged them according to actual chronological sequence, that is, exactly in the order they were composed. Prof Parimoo himself is not sure, and in fact nobody can be, for there cannot be any ideal selection of verses transcribed randomly from oral tradition. The author of the book, however, does not appear to have taken as much care as he should have in making his selection. Quite a number of verses he has included are obvious interpolations. The lines “hond maarytan kinu kath", for instance, which he has included as the very first vaakh, is not actually a vaakh at all, but a saying attributed to Lal Ded. His total reliance on the account of Ramjoo Malla for biographical information because it does not "tilt the purpose of this book" appears to be rather curious.
Before referring to the text, therefore, we have to be sure how far genuine it is. This accentuates the need of a critically valid text of Lalla Vaaks-something that has not been attempted quite seriously so far, except a solitary attempt made by Prof. Jaya Lal Kaul. Laments Prof. Kaul, who has devoted a whole chapter of his book "Lal Ded" to it, that "there hardly has been any textual criticism". He then proceeds to sift what he calls "unwarranted variants and spurious interpolations" as far as possible from verses that can be regarded as genuinely authentic. Of the total 258 vaaks that circulate in the name of Lal Ded and occur in various collections, he has included only 138 in his collection and even their authenticity he is not prepared to "vouch for". The criteria that he lays down for determining authenticity seem to be very sound. These according to him should be: "The evidence of diction and prosody, and the quality and cast of thought, the way it is organized in the process of expression, in a word, the characteristic style of Lal Ded". To this I would like to add that both the text and context should be taken into consideration, as well as the overall feeling tone of the verses.
Prof. Kaul has pointed out : "There are 35 verses that occur both in ... collections of Lal Ded's verses, and in Nurnamas and Rishinamas, the biographies of Nund Rishi, which include his shrukhs; three verses occur in Lalla vaakh as well as in Rahasyopadesha, the verse sayings of Rupa Bhavani (1620-1720), three quartrains that belong to one Azizullah Khan (early 19th century) have been ascribed to Lal Ded by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles in his Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs". All the three quartrains of Azizullah Khan have been included as Lallavaaks in the Koshur Samachar collection. Interestingly, one of these quartrains has been translated by that great Indian translator A.K. Ramanujan in the name of Lal Ded, and quoted as such by K. Sachchidanandan, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, in one of his papers on women poets of India. The verse, as given in the Lal Ded Number of Koshur Samachar is as follows:
daman basti dito dam
thitay yithu daman khar
shastras swan gatshi haasil
wuni chhay sul tu tshandun yar
Obviously, neither the diction (she could never have used words like ‘yaar'
or 'haksil’) nor the quality and cast of thought of this verse is that of Lal
Ded, but it continues to be ascribed to her again and again. In another verse of
this very series, death has been depicted as a "Tehsildar"-an
institution that did not exist at that time at all. The confusion prevailing in
this regard is mainly due to interpolations, a game indulged in by many, not
without a strong element of deliberateness. Lines from other poets heavily laden
with Persian and Arabic words have been passed on as Lal Ded's as in an attempt
at what can be called linguistic subversion. Some of her ardent and overzealous
admirers too have tried to put words in her mouth, though out of reverence for
her. The total incompatibility of diction seems to have never bothered the
perpetrators of such distortions. Yet nobody can claim that the language in
which Lallavaakhs have been passed on to the unsuspecting inheritors of her oral
legacy is the language in which they must have originally fallen from the
celebrated poetess' mouth. The only sure way to ascertain their authenticity
would be a linguistic comparison with extant Kashmiri works of periods
immediately preceding or succeeding Lal Ded, as written evidence of no
contemporary work is available. These works are the 'Chhumma Sampradaya' verses
which can be assigned to the 11th or 12th century, 'Mahanaya Prakasha' by Shiti
Kantha, 'Banasur Katha' by Avtar Bhatta and 'Sukha-dukha Charit' by Ganak
Prashast. I had the good fortune of studying all these works while preparing my
doctoral thesis on the linguistic peculiarities of 'Banasura Katha', and so I am
aware of their significance in presenting a somewhat coherent picture of the
medieval development of the Kashmiri language and their immense value in tracing
earlier forms of a good number of Kashmiri words. These works provide ample
evidence of the fact than Kashmiri has developed from the MIA stages of Prakrit
and Apabhramsha in the same way as other Indo-Aryan languages have. Anyone who
cares to go through these works will be able to gain valuable knowledge of the
linguistic situation that actually prevailed in Kashmir from the 11th-12th
century to the end of the 15th. If would be useful to give here one example each
from the above mentioned works to give a feel of the state of Kashmiri language
used during this period:-
bhava svabhave saba avinashi
sapana sabhava vi uppanna
te az niravidihi agam prakashi
idassa dishti kachi vipachhanna
(Chumma
Sampradaya)
yasu-yasu jantus samvid yas-yas
nila pita sukha-dukha-swarup
udayis datta samanyi samaras
kama kampana tas-tas anurup
(Mahanaya
Prakasha)
dhik-dhik myaanis yadava zammas
vanati atsa majja kachan
yudha kara namet swakammas
ushe atha chhon iha than
(Banasura
Katha)
him zan tape viglyos pape
kukaram chitto
(Sukha-dukha
Charit)
A detailed description of the linguistic features of these works is not
possible here; but one can clearly notice the thread of linguistic development
that runs through them. Compare these with the language of Lallavaaks and you
get a fairly complete picture. Grierson has called the language of Lal Ded's
vaaks "Old Kashmiri", but it does not require any special insight to
see that it is quite "modern" compared to the language of the
illustrations cited above because of the many changes it has undergone due to
oral transmission. However, we can come as near to an authorized version as
possible by reconstructing their text with the help of Banasur Katha and
Sukh-dukha Charit. This is a desirable but extremely difficult task.Even so, those who take the deliberately distorted and mutilated text to be genuine, ignoring the fact of its massive interpolation, must know that Lal Ded could in no case have used the heavily Persianised language of the 19th or early 20th century nearly six hundred years back. It is of utmost importance therefore, that to arrive at authentic Lal Ded, we should discard all the spurious elements introduced by those who are interested in building false image constructs.
Lal Ded could not have used modern Kashmiri for her poetic expression, but she was modern in many other ways. She had in her the characteristic modern self-reflectiveness, the insistence on accepting as authentic only what she herself could experience directly, the broad catholicity of outlook that called for tolerance of diverse views and made her define her relationship to God in terms of oneness of all existence, the deep existential anguish she felt while reflecting on the human condition. She was modern in the universality of her concerns, in her choice of metaphor and image, in her rejection of every kind of sham and pretence, in her fearless assertion of what she saw as truth. Indeed, at times it appears that she is more modern then most of the contemporary Kashmiri poets.
Lal Ded's struggle as a woman has been largely overlooked. She may not have been a conscious feminist in the sense the term is understood today, but she did show the courage of resisting the oppressive structures of patriarchy and refusing to play the traditional role of a submissive daughter-in-law. Rebelling against social tyranny, she broke the shackles that bind a woman even before her birth, and asserted her right of taking her own decisions. She challenged the orthodoxy and threw the rigid codes of dress and decorum followed by the medieval society of her times to the winds and roamed about with barely any clothes on like the great Kannada Shaivite poetess, Mahadeviakka. Perhaps it was her last act of defiance against a social set-up whose arbitrary and gender discriminatory rules she did not find acceptable.
It is in accordance with these facts that we shall have to reconstruct the image of the great saint-poetess of Kashmir, noting that she does not fit into most of the image-constructs that have been built around her. The Shah Hamadan anecdote and the so-called miracle of the oven seem to be an insult to such a fearlessly and fiercely independent woman. She started her spiritual journey as a tormented soul, but attained a stage where self- realization and self-awareness gave her tremendous inner strength and the confidence that derived from that strength:
kesari vanu volum ratith shal
I dragged the lion from
its den like a jackal.
It is this that explains the pervasive influence that Lal Ded has on Kashmiri
psyche to this day. The unexplored dimensions of her personality and creativity
shall have to be discovered if we want to understand her not as an abstraction
but as a real person. She is quintessentially Kashmiri, having shaped the
Kashmiri language and literature, as she did, but she is also universal in her
appeal. Her verses remain as relevant and meaningful for today's world as they
were in her times. Let me conclude by quoting a line from one of her own most
powerful vaaks:
yim pad lali vany tim hridi ank
Brand on your heart
what Lalla spoke in verse!
by Dr. S. S. Toshkhani
Kashmir in Early European Verses
Filed under:
angrez,
anomalous dreams,
poem,
thingsthatremindmeofkashmir
Kashmiri Butterfly in Byron's Infidel
-0-
Kashmir in forced exiles and paradise lost
~ lines from 'Zeinab and Kathema' (1809) by Percy Bysshe Shelley, husband of Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame), and a friend of Lord Byron. This poem was about a Princess from Paradise - Kashmir - forceable taken to Hell - England.
-0-
Kashmir in evil that ignites poetry
All of these works were the by-product of Bernier's description of Kashmir traveling in Europe, including the work that directly influenced these poets - by a novel called The Missionary (1811) by Sydney Owenson. Influenced by more recent travelogues too, this story was about a Missionary traveling from Goa who falls in love with a Prophetess of Kashmir named Luxima whose brave 'Sati' death causes a revolution.
As rising on its purple wing
The insect-queen of easter spring,
O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer
Invites the young pursuer near,
And leads him on from flower to flower
A weary chase and wasted hour,
Then leaves him, as it soars on high,
With panting heart and tearful eye:
So Beauty lures the full-grown child
With hue as bright, and wing as wild;
A chase of idle hopes and fears,
Begun in folly, closed in tears.
If won, to equal illd betrayed,
Woe waits the insect the maid,
A life of pain, the loss of peace,
From infant's play, or man's caprice:
The lovely toy so fiercely sought,
Has lost its charm by being caught,
For every touch that wooed it's stay
Has brush'd the brightest hues away
Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone,
'Tis left to fly or fall alone.
With wounded wing, or bleeding breast,
Ah! where shall either victim rest?
Can this with faded pinion sir
From rose to tulip as before?
Or Beauty, blighted in an hour,
Find joy within her broken bower?
No: gayer insects fluttering by
Ne'eer droop the wing o'er those that die,
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own,
And every woe a tear can claim
Except an erring sister's shame.
~ Lines from "The Giaour" (1813) by Lord Byron.
A work of romantic Orientalism that looks at contrast between Christian
and Islamic ideals. This was also one of the first works in which
Vampire made an appearance.
His biography was written by Thomas Moore who went on to make Kashmir famous with his Lalla Rookh. Byron was father of Ada Lovelace, the first programmer.
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| Not the purple queen of Kashmir June 2013. Kochi. |
Kashmir in forced exiles and paradise lost
There [in Cashmire's vale], Heaven and Earth are ever bright and kind;
Here [in Albion], blight and storms and damp forever float,
Whilst hearts are more ungenial than the zone -
Gross, spiritless, alive to no pangs but their own.
There, flowers and fruits are ever fair and ripe;
Autumn, there, mingles with the bloom of spring,
And forms unpunched by frost or hunger's gripe
A natural veil o'er natural spirits fling;
Here, woe on all but wealth has set its floor.
Famine, disease and crime even wealth's proud gates pollute
~ lines from 'Zeinab and Kathema' (1809) by Percy Bysshe Shelley, husband of Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame), and a friend of Lord Byron. This poem was about a Princess from Paradise - Kashmir - forceable taken to Hell - England.
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Kashmir in evil that ignites poetry
The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his way;
Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet
Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
His inmost sense suspended in its web
Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,
Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
A permeating fire; wild numbers then
She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
The beating of her heart was heard to fill
The pauses of her music, and her breath
Tumultuously accorded with those fits
Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,
As if her heart impatiently endured
Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,
And saw by the warm light of their own life
Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil
Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,
Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,
Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips
Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.
His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled
His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet
Her panting bosom:...she drew back a while,
Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,
Like a dark flood suspended in its course,
Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.
Alastor (1815) by Percy Bysshe Shelley, about a man traveling from Arabia finding perfection, a woman, in Kashmir
All of these works were the by-product of Bernier's description of Kashmir traveling in Europe, including the work that directly influenced these poets - by a novel called The Missionary (1811) by Sydney Owenson. Influenced by more recent travelogues too, this story was about a Missionary traveling from Goa who falls in love with a Prophetess of Kashmir named Luxima whose brave 'Sati' death causes a revolution.
At last, through the branches of a spreading palm-tree, he beheld, at a distance, the object who had thus agitated and disturbed the calmest mind which Heaven's grace had ever visited. She was leaning on the ruins of a Brahminical altar, habited in her sacerdotal vestments, which were rich but fantastic. Her brow was crowned with consecrated flowers; her long dark hair floated on the wind; and she appeared a splendid image of the religion she professed - bright, wild, and illusory; captivating to the senses, fatal to the reason, and powerful and tyrannic to both.
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| The modern popular sketch of Lal Ded | POSTED BY : VIPUL KOUL | ............EDITED BY :ASHOK KOUL |
LAL DED is great
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