Showing results for "Kabir" in Themes & Styles

Although Kabir (1398-1448, or in the Samvat calendar 1440-1518) was born of Mohammedan parentage, in his youth he became a disciple of a noted Hindu ascetic, Ramananda. As a spiritual teacher, he decried the meaningless rituals of both Islam and Hinduism, and preached a path of righteousness, which involved respect toward all things in creation, and detachment from worldly preoccupations. While his teaching provoked hostility from both Muslims and Hindus, after his death each religion claimed him as a saint.

Whilst Europe endured the Dark Ages in the 6th & 7th Centuries, devotees of Shiva and Vishnu in Southern India were creating the Bhakti Movement. Some of these exponents, as in our volume, were bestowed with the title of saint but some had the additional title of sant, swami or goswami. Broadly speaking, Bhakti poetry, as in Hinduism itself, is divided into ‘Nirguna’, the idea that the divine is formless as exampled by Kabir and ‘Saguna’, which interprets the divine as having physical form as captured by Mirabai.