Early modern India was a place of much religious creativity and the interaction of various traditions. The majority of India’s people practiced one or another of the many forms of Hinduism, while its Mughal rulers and perhaps 20 percent of the population were Muslims. And a new religion—Sikhism—took shape in the sixteenth century as well (see India: Bridging the Hindu/Muslim Divide). Certainly there was tension and sometimes conflict among these religious communities, but not all was hostility across religious boundaries. In the writings of Kabir (1440–1518), perhaps India’s most beloved poet, the sectarian differences among these religions dissolved into a mystical and transcendent love of the Divine in all of its many forms. Born into a family of Muslim weavers, Kabir as a young man became a student of a famous Hindu ascetic, Ramananda. Kabir’s own poetry was and remains revered among Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike. Document 15.4 contains selections from his poetry, translated by the famous Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore in the early twentieth century.

Kabir

Poetry

ca. Late Fifteenth Century

O servant, where dost thou seek Me? Lo! I am beside thee.

I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba° nor in Kailash:°

Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation.

If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: . . . Kabir says, “O Sadhu!° God is the breath of all breath.”

It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs;

For the priest, the warrior, the tradesman, and all the thirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God. . . .

The barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter—

Even Raidas° was a seeker after God.

The Rishi Swapacha was a tanner by caste [an untouchable].

Hindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no mark of distinction.

Within this earthen vessel° are bowers and groves, and within it is the Creator:

Within this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars.

The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;

And within this vessel the Eternal soundeth, and the spring wells up.

Kabir says: “Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved

Lord is within.”

Your Lord is near: yet you are climbing the palm-tree to seek Him.

The Brâhman priest goes from house to house and initiates people into faith:

Alas! the true fountain of life is beside you, and you have set up a stone to worship.

Kabir says: “I may never express how sweet my Lord is.

Yoga and the telling of beads, virtue and vice—these are naught to Him.”

I do not ring the temple bell:

I do not set the idol on its throne:

I do not worship the image with flowers.

It is not the austerities that mortify the flesh which are pleasing to the Lord,

When you leave off your clothes and kill your senses, you do not please the Lord.

The man who is kind and who practices righteousness, who remains passive amidst the affairs of the world, who considers all creatures on earth as his own self,

He attains the Immortal Being, the true God is ever with him.

There is nothing but water at the holy bathing places;

And I know that they are useless, for I have bathed in them.

The images are all lifeless, they cannot speak; I know, for I have cried aloud to them.

The Purana° and the Koran are mere words; lifting up the curtain, I have seen.

Kabir gives utterance to the words of experience; and he knows very well that all other things are untrue.