Lalleshwari

Lalleshwari (1320–1392), locally known mostly as Lal Ded, was a Kashmiri mystic of the Kashmir Shaivism school of philosophy in the Indian subcontinent. She was one of the first poets of early modern Kashmiri language, and she developed a new style of spontaneous poetic composition known as "Vaakh" (literally, oral style). Out of her original compositions less than 300 are available today.

Quotes

Poetry

• I can dispel the clouds, drain the sea, or cure someone hopelessly ill. But to change the mind of a fool is beyond me.
• I trapped my breath in the bellows of my throat, and a lamp blazed up inside, showing me who I really was. I crossed the darkness holding fast to that lamp.
• I didn't believe in it for a moment
  but I gulped down the wine of my own voice.
  And then I wrestled with the darkness inside me,
  knocked it down, clawed at it, ripped it to shreds.
  • The Poems of Lal Ded, poem 48, p. 10
• It covers your shame, keeps you from shivering.
  Grass and water are the food it asks.
  Who taught you, priest-man,
  to feed this breathing thing to your thing of stone?
  • The Poems of Lal Ded, poem 59, p. 15
• They lash me with insults, serenade me with curses.
  Their barking means nothing to me.
  Even if they came with soul-flowers to offer,
  I couldn’t care less. Untouched, I move on.
  • The Poems of Lal Ded, poem 92

From Kashmiri Poetry

• yi yi karu'm suy artsun
  yi rasini vichoarum thi mantar
  yihay lagamo dhahas partsun
  suy Parasivun tanthar.
  • 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.
    
  • Lal Ded Vekhas
• Whatever work I've done,
  whatever I have though,
  was praise with my body
  and praise hidden
  inside my head.
  • Naked Songs, p. 18

External links

• Ranjit Hoskote: I, Lalla, The Poems of Lal Dĕd, translated from the Kashmiri with and Introduction and Notes, Penguin India, July 2013
• Barks, Coleman: Naked Songs, Maypop Books, 1992