Kabir

by Robert Bly

  In other instances, however, Bly hits the original nail squarely on the head. He takes a disembodied “Lover” at the end of one Tagore poem and turns him (her?) into “we.” And when he reverses Tagore’s “He is I” so that it comes out “I am he,” it’s at least as good a translation of the original soham, and it sounds a whole lot better. Still, the weight of change leans plainly toward invention.27

  Let’s not call these “errors in translation,” though Bly himself suggests the phrase. Let’s say instead that they mark a meeting of minds that Bly just couldn’t resist. Our review of the very different ways Kabir has spoken over the centuries to other performers, other poets, shows that this is no anomaly. In the course of half a millennium many poets found themselves before audiences who were eager to hear the voice of Kabir, and they obliged by adding their own Kabirs to the common store. They must have felt they really spoke for him, like Bly.

  In the end, I think, some of the Kabir Panthis had it right. They pictured Kabir as a force beyond time, the archetypal opponent of the demiurge Kal, whose name means Time-and-Death.28 It’s Kabir versus Kal in the world as we know it, and with Bly at his side, Kabir will be around for a good long time.

  NOTES

  1. Rabindranath Tagore assisted by Evelyn Underhill, Songs of Kabir (New Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1985 [first published in 1917][OK?]), p. 42; Kshitimohan Sen, Kabir ke Pad, 4 vols. (Shantiniketan: Vishwa Bharati, 1910–1911). Aspects of the production of Songs of Kabir have been studied by Vijay C. Mishra, “Two Truths are Told: Tagore’s Kabir,” in Karine Schomer and W. H. McLeod, eds., The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India (Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union and Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987), pp. 167–180; see especially 173–174.

  2. Linda Hess has plausibly demonstrated that lyrics traveling westward from Banaras, where they may first have been heard, tended to change clothes in their framing verses. At the beginning and end, we tend to find the thickest trappings of bhakti to Krishna or Ram. Hess thinks this was an add-on. See Linda Hess, “Three Kabir Collections: A Comparative Study,” in Schomer and McLeod, eds., The Sants, pp. 111–141.

  3. Karine Schomer, “Kabir in the Guru Granth Sahib: An Exploratory Essay,” in Mark Juergensmeyer and N. Gerald Barrier, eds., Sikh Studies: Perspectives on a Changing Tradition (Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union, 1979), pp. 75–86.

  4. Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh, The Bijak of Kabir (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983), passim, and Linda Hess, “Kabir’s Rough Rhetoric,” in Schomer and McLeod. eds., The Sants, pp. 143–165.

  5. Hess, “Three Kabir Collections,” in Schomer and McLeod, eds., The Sants, p. 113. It is possible that there once existed older manuscripts that aged through use and were consigned to the Ganges once a clear copy had been made (Hess and Singh, The Bijak of Kabir, p. 165). This explanation of the paucity of old manuscripts has been made by conservators of many scriptural traditions, however, and it is hard to know just when it might rightly apply.

  6. Gurinder Singh Mann, The Goindval Pothis: The Earliest Extant Source of the Sikh Canon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 1–50.

  7. A facsimile edition has been published: Gopalnarayan Bahura and Kenneth E. Bryant, eds., Pad Surdasji ka / The Padas of Surdas (Jaipur: Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, 1984). Kabir entries in this collection are discussed in J. S. Hawley, “Kabir in His Earliest Dated Manuscript,” forthcoming in Hawley, Three Bhakti Greats: Essays on Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir (Delhi: Oxford University Press).

  8. The most efficient access to these is provided by Winand M. Callewaert in collaboration with Swapna Sharma and Dieter Taillien, The Millennium Kabir Vani: A Collection of Pads (New Delhi: Manohar, 2000). They also figure in W. M. Callewaert, “Kabir’s Pads in 1556,” in Monika Horstmann, ed., Images of Kabir (New Delhi: Manohar, 2002), pp. 45–72. The 1614 Dadupanthi manuscript is housed in the Sanjay Sharma Museum in Jaipur. A great debt is owed to Ramkripalu Sharma, founder of the museum, for its preservation and accessibility.

  9. Tagore and Underhill, Songs of Kabir, p. 42.

  10. Dvivedi developed his views in two books: Hindi Sahitya ki Bhumika (New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, 1991 [first published in 1940]), pp. 92–93, and Kabir (New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan, 2002 [first published in 1955]), pp. 121–123. Monika Horstmann focuses on the profile of Ramanand in Dvivedi’s understanding of Kabir in “Hazariprasad Dvivedi’s Kabir,” in Horstmann, ed., Images of Kabir, pp. 115–126, and it is discussed by Linda Hess in “Three Kabir Collections,” in Schomer and McLeod, eds., The Sants, pp. 133–135.

  11. Bahadur Singh, “Problems of Authenticity in the Kabir Texts, in Horstmann, ed., Images of Kabir, p. 197.

  12. Pradeep Bandopadhyay, “The Uses of Kabir,” in Horstmann, ed., Images of Kabir, p. 31.

  13. Tagore and Underhill, Songs of Kabir, pp. 11–12, 78.

  14. Although the story of Kabir’s having “stolen” initiation from Ramanand was well known in the early part of the sevententh century—it appears in the Niranjani recension of Anantdas’s Kabir Parachai and in Priyadas’s commentary on the Bhaktamal of Nabhadas—there is no clear evidence that it was in circulation earlier. Early collections of Kabir’s own utterances are entirely silent about Ramanand, with a single possible exception. This is Bijak sabda 77.4 (ramanand ramaras mate kahi kabir ham hahi kahi thake), which would have to be an indirect reference to Ramanand in any case, and appears to be absent from early dated collections (Dadupanth, Sikh, Fatehpur). On Bijak sabda 77, see the translation by Linda Hess and Shukdev Singh on pp. 67–68 of The Bijak of Kabir and Hess’s note in support of the rendering “Ram’s bliss” instead of “Ramanand” on p. 182.

  15. For the other side of the argument, see David N. Lorenzen, Kabir Legends and Ananda-Das’s Kabir Parachai (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), pp. 9–18, 78–79.

  16. Nabhadas, Sri Bhaktamal, with the Bhaktirasabodhini commentary of Priyadas (Lucknow: Tejkumar Press, 1969), p. 479.

  17. This reading of early Sikh history is controversial but, I think, sound. Its champion, Gurinder Singh Mann, points out that Nanak himself, though not Jat by background, came from a landowning family. See Sikhism (Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003).

  18. The first scholar to explore this connection systematically was P. D. Barthwal (The Nirguna School of Hindi Poetry, 1936), followed by others such as Hazariprasad Dvivedi (Kabir, 1955), R. K. Varma (Kabir ka Rahasyavad, 1966), and Charlotte Vaudeville (Kabir, 1971; A Weaver Named Kabir, 1993). A recent exposition is that of Mariola Offredi, “Kabir and the Nathpanth,” in Horstmann, Images of Kabir, pp. 127–141.

  19. Fatehpur, pad 88, in Bahura and Bryant, eds., Pad Surdasji ka, p. 144.

  20. Gorakh Bani, sabadi 23, as translated by David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 242.

  21. The sharp contrast between Nath Yogi perspectives and those held by Kabir is not accepted by many scholars and followers of Kabir. As a case in point, Linda Hess points out that the Gorakh Bani verse just quoted is often attributed to Kabir himself in the impressive tradition of Kabir performance that emerges from the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. (Personal communication, New Delhi, September 5, 2003.)

  22. Paras Nath Tivari, Kabir Granthavali, pad 174 (Allahabad: Allahabad University, 1961) as translated by J. S. Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer, Songs of the Saints of India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 50.

  23. Muhammed Hedayetullah, Kabir: The Apostle of Hindu-Muslim Unity: Interaction of Hindu-Muslim Ideas in the Formation of the Bhakti Movement with Special Reference to Kabir, the Bhakta (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977); Peter Gaeffke, “Kabir in Literature by and for Muslims,” in Horstmann, ed., Images of Kabir, p. 161.

  24. Kabir by Abida (Mumbai: Times Music India, 2003). I am grateful to David Lelyveld for making me aware of this cassette recording.

  25. Bhimrao Ambedkar, “Annihilation of Caste,” in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches
, vol. 1 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 1936), p. 74; quoted by Maren Bellwinkel-Schempp, “Kabir-panthis in Kanpur,” in Horstmann, ed., Images of Kabir, p. 216.

  26. Dharmavir, Kabir ke Alocak (New Delhi: Vani Prakashan, 1997; 2nd edition, 1998), chapter 5, pp. 73–96.

  27. Rather than peppering the text with individual references as they become relevant, let me list them for the entire paragraph here. I will do so by means of a two-number set. The first—before the slash—refers to the translation of a given poem that was adopted by Tagore and Underhill (Songs of Kabir). The second—after the slash—cites the same poem as translated by Bly (Kabir). Citations to Tagore’s translations are by poem number; citations to Bly’s translations are by page number and refer to this edition.As follows: 43/8, 8/5, 66/37, 14/22, 42/28.

  28. For this paragraph, 72/33, 34/6, 38/9, 67/2, 39/35, 34/6.

  29. For this paragraph, 53/20, 12/23.

  30. Anon., Kabir Sahab ka Anurag Sagar (Allahabad: Belvedere Printing Works, 1975), translated as The Ocean of Love by Raj Kumar Bagga, Partap Singh, and Kent Bicknell (Sanbornton, N.H.: Sant Bani Ashram, 1982). See also Mark Juergensmeyer, “The Radhasoami Revival of the Sant Tradition,” in Schomer and McLeod, The Sants, pp. 352–354.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to the editors of the following magazines, in which these poems appeared:

  Garrett, Greensboro Review, Kaleidoscope, Kahadhenu, Lillabulero, New Work, East West Journal, Blackstone Press Postcard, Boundary, La Booche Review, Rawa Journal, Lower Stumpf Lake Review, Paris Review, Street Magazine, Ally Press, WIN, Hawaii Review, Cold Mountain Press Postcard, Kayak, Slow Loris Press Broadsides. And to Rainbow Bridge Books who kept the booklet “The fish in the sea is not thirsty,” in which many of these poems appeared, in print.

  A special thanks to David Sykes, who did the design for the Lillabulero edition, and to Karyl Klopp, who designed the original edition of this book. Thanks to Dean Bornstein, who designed this new edition, and to Sunil Dutta, who helped me with the new poems.

  We are deeply indebted to the following persons and organizations for permission to reproduce art from their collections:

  The illustrations on page 13 (Krishna Fluting, Malway, eighteenth century) and page 24 (a Mihrab in Kufic script, Deccan, Hyderabad, ca. 1800), courtesy of a private collection. The illustrations on page 16(Krishna with the Flute, seventeenth or early eighteenth century; Jamū, Pahārī, Rajput, Ross Coomaraswamy Collection); page 18 (Upapātī Nateka, “The Paramour Galant,” late seventeenth century; Basholi, Pāharī, Rajput, Ross Coomaraswamy Collection); and page 22 (Siva and Pāravatī; Indian, Paper. 213 x 1295 m., Ross Coomaraswamy Collection) appear courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Illustrations on pages 21, 29, and 30 (Charkra paintings, from Philip Rawson, The Art of Tantra, Thames and Hudson, 1973) are reproduced from the Collection of Ajit Moorkerjee, New Delhi. The illustration on page 26 (album painting representing the terrible goddess Kālī, Rājasthān, eighteenth century), Crown Copyright, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

  Beacon Press

  25 Beacon Street

  Boston, Massachusetts 02108–2892

  www.beacon.org

  Beacon Press books

  are published under the auspices of

  the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

  © 2004 by Robert Bly

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  Book design by Dean Bornstein

  07 06 05 04 03 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the

  uncoated paper ANSI/NISO specifications for

  permanence as revised in 1992.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bly, Robert.

  Kabir : ecstatic poems/versions by Robert Bly.—Rev. cloth ed.

  p. cm.

  “… based on One hundred poems of Kabir, translated by Rabindranath Tagore, assisted by Evelyn Underhill (Macmillan)”—Preface. Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 0-8070-6384-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

  eISBN 978-0-8070-9537-9

  I. Kabir, 15th cent. Songs.—Adaptations. I. Title.

  PS3552.L9K25 2004

  811’.54—dc222003022384