Sant Kabir: Kahen kabir ek ram japhu re, hindu turak na koyi

Raziuddin Aquil

It is important to take cognizance of, even celebrate, the extraordinary life and legends of Sant Kabir (died 1518) for his continuing relevance to questions of communal harmony and social justice, which are often marred by aggressive religious contestations and political violence. As a syncretic figure, with possible Brahmin antecedents and an abandoned child brought up in a Muslim weaver’s family, Kabir is well-known as a bhakti-sant of iconoclastic ideas challenging social hierarchies and religious hypocrisies in the political context of the Lodi-Afghan rule in north India. His teachings called for peaceful coexistence of different religious groups.

Several strands of medieval bhakti movements, led by devotional poets and reformers from marginal sections of society condemned religious rituals, criticized caste or jati-based hierarchies and discrimination and advocated the need to discover Ram, a formless God, inside one’s heart. Some traditions of bhakti also styled themselves as Hindu religious movements, revolving around Sri Ram of Ayodhya. Though religious leaders such as Sant Kabir and Guru Nanak defied contentious political boundaries of Islam and Hinduism, religious fields witnessed violent formations of communities. The Sants and Gurus competed with each other, appropriated mystical and social ideas and attracted followers. In most cases, the latter went on to organize themselves as distinct communities or sects (panths and sampradays). In many cases, the followers completely transformed the original teachings of their spiritual Gurus. The communities formed around them often sought to use political power to humble and subdue each other. 

Preaching in latter half of 15th and early decades of 16th centuries, Kabir sharply criticized not only Hindu and Muslim religious leaders, but also found faults with self-styled Sufis and Yogis. It is important to reiterate here that Kabir criticized the ritual of animal sacrifice among Hindus, but he also reserved his trenchant critique for condemnation of slaughter of animals by Muslims. A long poem in the well-known compilation of his compositions, the Bijak, which has been studied by a number of reputed scholars of bhakti traditions, attacks Muslim preference for non-vegetarian food in the context of an aggressive vegetarianism, particularly against cow-slaughter, emerging in the politically volatile 15th-16th centuries. Speaking in support of vegetarianism, Kabir countered, whose farman it was to kill goats and chicken to consume them. Making it more explicit, he mocks at the alleged fake propriety and religiosity of Muslims by pointing out that they fast during the day and eat beef at night.

For Yogis, Kabir’s advice was that spiritual practices like pranayama and other forms of meditations are of no use till the heart of the person concerned was not cleansed and Ram discovered within. Exhorting the people to have a darshan of the Lord in the mirror of one’s own heart, Kabir advised in a verse compiled in a Granthavali, that the mirror needed continuous cleaning of the filth gathered on it:

Jau darsan dekhya chahiye, tau darpan manjat rahiye

Jab darpan laage kaayi, tab darsan kiya na jaayi.

Kabir’s attack on Muslim religious leaders (ulama and qazis, not sparing Sufis either) and also Yogis would make him an interesting case for appropriation in Vaishnavite-Brahminical Sagun tradition of medieval Ram bhakti. On the other hand, his non-Brahmanical Hindu followers, the Kabir-panthis, believed in the nirgun or formless God. Beginning as a Sufi disciple of Shaikh Taqi of Kara-Manikpur (later Allahabad), Kabir himself crossed all boundaries. In doing so, he was searching for common grounds as Yogis and Sufis also had done. Gorakhnath is known to have taken a position closer to Sufis, referring to them as belonging to the caste or jati of Allah, for they knew the door of the house of the Lord. Similarly, Kabir’s contemporary Sufis, who believed in the concept of wahdat-ul-wujud (monism or unity of existence), appropriated Yogic ideas and practices presented in a text called Amritkund, the Arabic and Persian translations of which were much in demand in Sufi circles of medieval India. One of the enthusiasts was a leading Chishti Sufi, Abdul Quddus Gangohi, who accessed this text from his strong position as a responsible Muslim religious leader and found no contradiction in styling himself as Alakhdas in his own mystical poetry in Hindi. He would even conflate distinctions to say that there was no difference between the notions of monistic wahdat-ul-wujud (which sections of Sufis found similar to advaita) and monotheistic tauhid (one God emphasised by the ulama).

Indeed, in the Sufi-bhakti complex of medieval India, the formless God was called by a variety of names (Allah, Ram, Rahim, Khuda or Alakh Niranjan). Kabir’s own search for common grounds through the unity of God (wahdat-ul-wujud, and not necessarily tauhid) can be seen in his claim of the possibility of complete assimilation of both the creator and creations: khaalik khalak, khalak mein khaalik sab ghat rahyo samayi. Putting it more simply, Kabir typically announced, as many Sufis and Sants would have liked to do: kahen kabir ek ram japhu re, hindu turak na koyi!

Indeed, free from prejudices, Kabir's language of devotion was considered a blessing for all. An early appreciation of Kabir's life and teaching may be seen in Nabhadas' famous Bhaktamal, or Garland of Devotees (c. 1600):

Hindu-Turak praman ramaini sabadi saakhi

Pachhpat nahin bachan sab hi ke hit ki bhashi

Around the same time, c. 1600, Anantadas composed his enchanting versified biographical text, Parchais, on the lives and works of the most popular Bhakti poets of northern India in 15th and 16th centuries. Anantadas has shown how Ravidas and Dadu Dayal tried to convince Kabir of the need to transcend the sagun/nirgun divide as well.

Ravidas pointed out that one should not have dogmatic views about them:

​You should realise that nirgun and sagun are the same.

​You must think of sagun as of butter

​And nirgun as of heated ghee.

The appropriation of Kabir was sought to be legitimised through God miraculously appearing during the course of the conversation and entering Kabir's heart. The idea was to do away with Brahman/Shudra distinction. Kabir would go to any length to make that happen. Did the Sants succeed in their mission? It is certainly time to learn from them, for it is never too late.