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by Prof. A.N. Dhar
Reappraising Lal Ded as a saint-poet and mystic is the need of the hour, and
the present Seminar offers an excellent opportunity to the participants to
engage themselves in serious: deliberations on the issue. Perhaps this task has
to focus first on exploring what the genuine poetic outpourings or vaakhs of the
great saint are (to be sifted from the spurious ones). Then a reinterpretation
of the genuine utterances is to be attempted with a view to removing a number of
misconceptions and erroneous notions about Lal Ded, some of them obviously based
on deliberate distortions and even lies spread to serve a vested interest. All
this will call for rigorous research-that is a challenging task in view of our
present inaccessibility to the relevant and some indispensable materials lying
unused in the State Research Library, that was years back shifted to the Kashmir
University campus at Hazratbal, Srinagar.
In spite of the severe handicaps of Lal Ded scholarship, fresh research
studies on the saint-poet can take off from the pioneering work in the
background accomplished by such scholars as Bhaskar Razdan, Grierson and
Barnett, Sir Richard Temple and Pt. Anand Kaul. To my mind, Prof Jayalal Kaul's
"Lal Ded", a subsequent publication, is a monumental little volume
that can serve as a guide-book to the prospective researchers. Compact and
packed as it is with documentary details, it has to be tapped with care as a
rich resource, being highly useful as a secondary source material. Professor
Kaul has also done a pioneering job in raising sensible and legitimate questions
about the authenticity of Lalla Vaakh -how best to establish it through a
stylistic study of the utterances as they have come down to us by word of mouth.
His intelligent grasp of what linguistic change, over a period of time, in its
bearing on the vaakhs, involves in a cross-cultural context is praiseworthy.
Some of the racial observations he has made further on the so-called evidence of
various influences on Lal Ded are valuable too. And his forceful rebuttal of the
claims some scholars have made about the fusion of various schools and creeds in
her vaakh, as if consciously attempted by her, deserves to be specially
complemented. His total rejection of the evidence put forward by a couple of
scholars that Lal Ded at a later stage of her life came under the decisive
influence of Islam, followed by her conversion to the new faith, is based on
sound and convincing arguments.
Prof. Jayalal Kaul's outstanding contribution to Lal Ded scholarship in the
book titled "Lal Ded" has been followed by another accomplished work-
the saint-poet authored by Prof. B. N. Parimoo, which too is a significant
contribution in terms of his detailed literary translation and interpretation of
the vaakhs. Its chief merit lies in the chapter-wise sequencing of the
verse-sayings aimed at demonstrating Lalla's spiritual ascent to the plane of
supreme consciousness and her union with Parma Shiva as a yogini. Both Prof.
Parimoo and his predecessor, Prof. Jayalal Kaul, have maintained that Lalla
followed the Shaivite technique of meditation based on kundalini yoga.
Subsequent works on Lal Ded brought out in the past three decades or so
include Nilakanth Kotru's "Lal Ded: Her Life and Sayings" published in
1989, a special 'Lai Ded' number of the Koshur Samachar brought out in the year
1971 and Prof. R.N. Kaul's "Kashmir's Mystic: Poetess Lal Ded alias Lalla
Arifa" published in 1999. Nilakanth Kotru too has attempted his own English
translations of the vaakhs, falling in line with the vaakh-sequence adopted by
Jayalal Kaul before him. His meanings and explanations are plain and simple,
reflecting, at the same time, a good grasp of the doctrines of Kashmir Shaivism.
As regards Prof R.N. Kaul's recent book on Lal Ded, it has some novel features
that cannot escape the attention of the thoughtful reader. It is readable and
enjoyable in view of its literary charm and lucidity of expression. The
interpretation of the vaakhs points very much to a perceptive and assimilative
mind behind the book- inasmuch as the content of the vaakhs is made intelligible
to the average reader, appealing, at the same time, to the scholar through the
author's beauty of expression. The book would have gained further in value if
the author had provided adequate details about the essentials of Trika or
Kashmir Shaivism and mysticism in general in his account of Lalla as Kashmir's
Mystic (which is the main title of the book).
The special number of the Koshur Samachar mentioned earlier is a very useful
source-material for the Lal Ded scholar who cannot, in the prevailing
circumstances, have an easy access to the materials available in the State
Research Library. Besides providing English translations of Lalla's
verse-sayings in a separate section, the journal contains useful and learned
articles in English and Hindi contributed by many competent writers from our
community and also by some well-known writers like Abdul Ahad Azad, Amin Kamil
and Prof. Rehman Rahi. It also contains two short write-ups in English
contributed by Swami Lakshman Joo and J. Rudrappa.
I should like to mention two more materials on Lal Ded before I switch on to
the other related aspects of the topic of this paper. I was able to lay my hands
on the small volume titled "Lalleshwari Remembered" by Swami
Muktananda published in 1981. The Preface by Swami Prajnananda and the
Introduction by Joseph Chilton Pearce, both thoughtfully written, are valuable
as informative pieces on Lal Ded and her sayings. Then follow English renderings
of the sayings in the form of poems attempted in the free-verse pattern. These
poems capture the essence of the vaakhs without observing accuracy in keeping
close to the form and content of the original text. They could be described as
transcreations rather than translations. Joseph Chilton Pearce justifies this
feature by observing that "a true translation is always a recreation".
The other book I acquired very recently was published in early 1999. It bears
the title "Voice of Experience : Lall Vaakh of Lall Ded / Lali Shori of
Kashmir" and contains English translations of 154 vaakhs attempted by the
author, B.N. Sopori. The vaakhs are grouped under five headings chosen as the
titles of individual chapters - 'Sadhana', 'Adventure in Space', 'Fortitude',
'Precepts' and 'Discourses with Guru (Master)'. In the Foreword, the author
himself, as translator and commentator, describes his particular approach to the
study of the vaakhs-involving scientific terms and concepts such as 'vibration',
'frequency', 'wavelength' etc. which, interestingly it seems to me, are drawn
from his professional vocabulary as a former employee of the Department of
Telecommunication. Since he is not a man of any special literary expertise, he
has not been able to develop his ideas into a coherent and systematic theory
sustainable throughout the study. He manages somehow to communicate intelligibly
in English though his command of the language is faulty at places. All the same,
he seems knowledgeable about the import of the vaakhs in terms of actual yogic
practice. As he informed me himself, he plans to bring out a second volume as a
sequel to the present one, which will contain another 150 vaakhs or so. I wonder
if all the vaakhs the author has collected are authentic as Lal vaakh. The
present volume has sold well despite what I see as its shortcomings. The
author's attempt is a laudable one.
That Lalla was a rare genius-both as a saint and as a poet-is disputed by
none, and is acknowledged by all Kashmiris, Hindus and Muslims alike. It is
essentially through the vaakhs, which she uttered as direct outpourings from her
heart rather than as consciously wrought poetic compositions, that Lalla became
very popular as a saint-poet in Kashmir. As Professor Jayalal Kaul very aptly
observes, there was no polarization between Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims in her
time; the vaakhs made a tremendous impact on the collective psyche of the two
communities. Perhaps most Muslims being only fresh converts to their new faith
were as receptive to the wise sayings of the saint-poet as the Hindus who then
must have still been in the majority as the natives of the Valley. Even after
the latter got reduced to a minority in consequence of conversions, Lalla
continued to be held in reverence as 'Lal Ded' by both the communities. She was
also called 'Lalleshwari' by one community and 'Lalla Arifa' by the other,
showing that both thought very highly of her spiritual attainment in accordance
with their religious perceptions. if a Muslim hailed her as an 'Arifa', he did
not mean to convey that she had been influenced by Islam in any remarkable way
or had accepted a new faith. Later, some Muslim scholar made deliberate
distortion of facts in asserting that Lalla had experienced inward
"illumination" only after coming into contact with Sayyid Hussain
Samnani and had then got converted to Islam. This wishful myth can't stand the
test of reason and must be exploded. It has, however, done the mischief: I
recall having read in a secondary source-material on Lal Ded that the saint-poet
has been mentioned as a convert to Islarn in some encyclopedia. If Muslim
scholars draw a parallel between Rabia and Lalla as love-mystics, this seems a
befitting comparison and should be acceptable to us. But to distort history and
try to perpetuate a lie about Lalla's faith should be rebutted with convincing
arguments as Prof Jayalal Kaul has already done on the basis of his sound Lal
Ded scholarship.
Significantly, it is Lalla's younger contemporary, Nunda Rishi or Sheikh
Noor-ud-Din Wali, acknowledged by the Kashmiri Muslims as well to have been
blessed by her at his birth, who has paid her this befitting and glowing
tribute:
That Lalla of Padmanpora (Pampore)-she drank
Her fill of divine nectar;
She was indeed an avtaar of ours (dearly loved)
O God, grant me the same boon !
There are three crucial sacred terms used in the Kashmiri text of the tribute
that are obviously derived from our shastras: deeva (god), avtaar (incarnation)
and var (boon). The words confirm that Nunda Rishi held Lalla in great esteem
and looked upon her as a saint of remarkable achievement, having all the
qualities of a divine incarnation.
Evidently, he aspires to emulate her, craving to have "his fill of
nectar" too as a boon from God. Keeping in view the content of the verse
quoted, the responsive reader when informed of the following remark about Lalla
made by Sir Richard Temple in his book titled "The Word of Lalla" (C.U.P.,
1924) will hardly give any credence to it (the remark) but reject it as a piece
of misinformation:
Lalla is said to have been influenced by the great national patron saint of
the Kashmiris named Noor-ud-Din Wali of Tsrar-i-Sharif (see p. 3. of Richard
Temple's book).
Prof. Jayalal Kaul, quoting the remark in his book titled "Lal Ded",
makes his observation on it in these words:
As every Kashmiri, Hindu or Muslim, sees it, the truth is the other way
round. Besides, Lal Ded should have been sixty, if not more, when Nunda Rishi
was born. (Quoted from p. 72 of Jayalal Kaul's Lal Ded).
Yes, the real truth is that as a saint, Nunda Rishi was greatly influenced by
Lal Ded. It was his unqualified veneration for the saint-poetess that had a
great impact on the devout Muslims, his followers. That explains why for several
centuries Kashmiri Muslims have continued to own her, delighting in memorizing
and quoting her sayings as Kashmiri Hindus do, singing the vaakhs on appropriate
occasions-festive events such as marriage ceremonies and at cultural functions.
Another important tribute to the spiritual genius of Lal Ded has been paid by
Shams Faqir in his poem  :
O you enlightened one,
Recognize the vital air and attain gnosis
To realize God:
Real worship is performed
In life's workshop itself:
What the holy scriptures truly mean
By 'the house of idols';
Lalla achieved the fusion
Of her vital air and ether,
And thus realized God;
Sodabhai (on the other hand) got lachrymose,
What would he ask of the stone image?
Lalla dropped the pitcher of water
Inside the house of idols
And attained god-realization:
Intoxicated (as a mystic) she contrived
To bathe at the confluence of 'sixteen rivers',
And she built a 'bridge'
Across the ocean of temporal existence;
She knocked off the Devil's head
And gained self-recognition;
The 'unskilled carpenter',
Having built the palace in wilderness,
Learnt a lesson from Lalla!
She had to bear with the stone
Her mother-in-law kept concealed
In the plate of rice served to her
(She stood to gain from this austerity);
Lalla went to Nunda Rishi's to teach him her doctrine -
What the rinda mystics call gnosis (irfaan);
She played 'hide and seek' with Shah Hamdan
And had a direct 'encounter' with God;
O, you learned Shams,
The sun does not have a shadow;
Lalla ascended to heaven like a cloud,
Realize God (as she did).
(Translation by the author)
The poem is, in fact, Shams Faqir's extended tribute to the spiritual
qualities and attainments of the celebrated poet mystic Lal Ded. Aware of her
religious background and her upbringing in a Shaivite Kashmiri Pandit family,
Shams Faqir uses conspicuous Kashmiri words of Sanskrit origin, derived from the
Hindu scriptures, while paying his poetic homage to the noted 14th century
saint-poet. The words include terms such as praan (vital air), jnaan
(knowledge), aakaash (ether), karmavaan (meaning life's workshop in the poem);
it generally means 'a performer of good actions' or 'a fortunate person having
performed good actions in his or her past life'. Shams Faqir is categorical in
duly recognizing Lalla's religious background and faith; he acknowledges her
individual genius as a spiritual Master and her 'ascent' to the Highest Abode.
On the basis of the internal evidence from the uaakhs, the thoughtful reader
is left in no doubt about Lalla's spiritual moorings as a yogini: her Shaivite
upbringing in a Kashmiri Brahman family. We have unmistakable clues in some of
Lalla's uaakhs about her initiation into yoga at the hands of her Guru, Sedamol,
who was an accomplished siddha as a follower of the Shaivite path. The very
first vaakh (from among many vaakhs) in which Lalla talks of her initiation into
spirituality and of the remarkable effect of the guru mantra on her, convinces
us that she immediately experienced "illumination of the Self'. She had no
reason to roach any more in search of a spiritual guide:
The Guru gave me but one precept,
"From without turn inward",
It came to me "Lalla" as God's word;
I started roaming nude.
The vaakh explicitly conveys that Lalla experienced instant spiritual
transformation and was thrown into a state of ecstasy on receiving the guru's
word. Elsewhere she says  (I
found the all-knowing Self within -in the sanctuary of my own heart), 
“I saw Shiva and Shakti conjoined in eternal embrace" and 
(that's how I attained the Abode of Light). A tone of confidence and
self-assurance, based on a sense of spiritual fulfillment and an awareness of
the ultimate truth, is clearly reflected in these utterances of Lal Ded. We are
convinced that she has got to the root of the matter and attained
self-realization. Her affirmative statements, such as those quoted, confirm her
Hindu faith throughout (call it Shaivite if you see it as a distinct cult within
Sanatan Dharma). The fact is that she had no reason to seek further direction or
spiritual succour from any visiting divine or preacher belonging to a faith
other than her own. All the so-called evidence given by the Muslim scholar to
prove her conversion to Islam is nothing but an unacceptable tissue of lies.
I should like to mention a few scholars from our own community who have made
some observations on Lalla that don't seem tenable. They seem to have supposed
or imagined that she played the role of a committed social activist, a
professional preacher or teacher of spiritual values and brought about fusion of
diverse creeds and schools of thought. Forgetting that Lal Ded didn't compose
her vaakhs as professional poets compose and publish their verses today, they
draw their own inferences on which they base very facile and untenable views as
if Lalla meant to preach and propagate a philosophy of her own through her
vaakhs. Here are the two examples that Professor Jayalal Kaul has questioned in
Chapter 5 of his book on Lal Ded:
(i) She brought about a "synthesis of the two philosophies" (the
Trika and Islamic Sufism) and this synthesis "was given to the world in
poetic sermons by the wandering minstrel through the rest of her life" (See
"Daughters of Vitasta" by Prem Nadi Bazaz, Pamposh Publications, New
Delhi, .1959, p. 129).
(ii) "The order she founded was an admixture of the nondualistic
philosophy of Saivism end Islamic Sufism" (See "A History of
Kashmir" by P.N.K. Bamzai, Metropolitan Delhi, 1962, p. 498). Again, in the
view of Daya Krishen Kachru "Lalleshwari took the best of Islamic thought
and fused it best with her own creed". (See Daya Krishen Kachru, "The
Light of the Valley" Koshur Samachar, 1971, Lal Ded Number, p. 7). This is
also questionable, especially the way it is worded.
Lalla's vaakhs convey a message of peace and harmony and one can see that she
owes it as much to her educational background in a Shaivite Kashmiri Brahman
family as to her spiritual enlightenment based on her own sadhana. There is a
definite impress of the Shaivite thought and terminology on her vaakhs. Whatever
her background, there is also evidence in the vaakhs of a state of awareness and
of an outlook far transcending cults. Her teaching is, in fact, in tune with our
Sanatan Dharma that is exceptionally catholic and all-embracing, acceptable as
much to the emancipated Hindu as it should be to the liberal Muslim. It is her
direct "encounter" with the ultimate truth as a true yogini or mystic
that explains why Lalla vaakh appeals to men of all shades of religious thought
(inasmuch as all religious paths lead to the same goal). When scholars read her
vaakhs with pre-conceived notions, they interpret them to convey that Lalla
aimed at achieving a fusion or synthesis of Vedantic philosophy and Islamic
Sufism, as if with a conscious purpose (reflective of her outlook as a thinker
and intellectual).
Professor Jayalal Kaul has been consistent in his description of Lal Ded as a
Shaivite yogini. In this connection, he has been at pains to clarify in what
ways Trika and Vedanta are distinguishable as non-dualistic philosophies. In
particular, he characterizes Shankara Vedanta as illusionist and praises the
Shaivite philosophy of Kashmir for its vie, of the world as real. As a student
of the Gita and on the basis of my reading of some of the Upanishads (in English
translation), I don't find Vedanta altogether distinct from Trika. Both
philosophies are rooted in the Vedas end are complementary to each other. If
according to Trika the world is real, a manifestation of the -pa, doesn't Lord
Krishna affirm the same truth in the Gita?
[Shloka 19, Chap. 7]
At the end of many births (of striving), the knowing one makes Me his refuge,
realizing that Vasudeva is All. A great soul of that type is rare to find.
So we see, as the Lord tells us in the, Gita,  (All
is Vasudeva), implying that God inheres in what we see as the external world,
which is as such real- a manifestation of God. This is what Trika also
emphasizes. In the Shivastotravali, Utpaldeva - celebrated Kashmiri Shaivite
philosopher and poet-gives equal importance to seeing Shiva as 
(immanent in the world) as  (transcendent
or beyond the phenomenal world). As a devotee of Shiva, he wants to have  (consciousness
of the Supreme Self) in the wakeful state - while experiencing the world through
the senses, and not merely when he is absorbed in meditation. If there were no
compatibility between Shaivism and Vedanta, Abhinava Gupta (famous Kashmiri
Shaivite philosopher after Utpaldeva), would not have attempted an
interpretation of the Gita in terms of the Trika philosophy.
A word about Shankaracharya, who is branded an illusionist by some Shaivites.
We must not forget that he is also credited with being the author of the
Sanskrit work titled Saundarya Lahari. What is mayavaad for the Vedantin assumes
the form of shaktivaad in the book mentioned as Shankara's point of view
undergoes a change. In a Sanskrit poem attributed to him, he uses the line 
as the refrain and a statement that a Shaivite believes to be very true of the
Self. I feel that the Lal Ded scholar must avoid seeing the saint and poet as an
exponent of only a particular school of thought-Trika. So long as Lalla is a
poet (and she is so preeminently), she cannot afford to be rigorously doctrinal
as a systematic philosopher. No doubt, many of her vaakhs have the preacher's
tone. She is a seeker too in a number of the vaakhs; her poetry is mystical as
the poetry of aspiration as well as of fulfillment. If we over-stress Lalla's
being a Shaivite poet, we then overlook her catholicity. In one of her vaakhs
she says clearly that she sees Shiva as no different from Keshava. How true she
sounds when she says  (I forgot
the shastras as my spiritual practice gained in depth and intensity). And as
Lalla's practice advanced, as she went up the ladder of meditation and crossed
all the hurdles-negotiated the chakras- her utterances became spontaneous as
mystical outpourings, coming straight from the heart. What interestingly cannot
escape our attention is that even when she has the preacher's tone in some of
her vaakhs, she is not overtly didactic, we don't see a "palpable"
design in the whole body of her verse sayings. That explains why her poetry is
soul-stirring.
Finally, it is the vaakhs of Lal Ded-that are aphoristic and, as such, loaded
with wisdom-on which her great popularity as a mystical poet largely rests. And
she is a great poet precisely because she is intensely spiritual and,
conversely, she is highly spiritual because she is gifted with an extraordinary
poetic sensibility. The vaakhs bear testimony to Lalla's genius as a saint and
poet in one. What the American literary critic, Helen C. White, remarks about
the mystic poet is unreservedly applicable to Lal Ded as a poet:
"It is not a strange hybrid of poet and mystic who write a mystical
poem. It is not a man who writes first as a mystic and then as a poet. It is not
even a mystic who turns over to the poet who happens to dwell within the same
brain and body the materials of his insight to be made into a work of art by the
competent craftsman. It is rather that the same human being is at once poet and
mystic, at one and the same time from the beginning of the process to the end.
(The Metaphysical Poets: A Study in Religious Experience, 1936, New York, p.
22).
REFERENCES
1. Grierson, Sir George and Barneti, Dr. Lionel 1., Lalla Vakyani,. (R.A.S.
Monograph, Vol. XVII, London,) 1920.
2. Temple, Sir Richard, The Word of Lalla, (Cambridge Univ. Pres,') 1924.
3. Koshur Samachar, Lal Ded Number (1971), Kashmir Bhavan, Amm Colony, New
De-
4. Kaul, Jayalal, Lal Ded, (Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi), 1973.
5. Parimoo, B.N., The Ascent of Self, (Motilal Banarasidas-Delhi). 1987.
6. Kotru, Nilkanth, Lal Ded, Her Life and Sayings, (Utpal Publications: (i)
Motiyar, Rainawari. Srinagar), 1989. (ii) R-2, Khanaja Complex, Main Market
Shakarpur. Delhi-110092.
7. Muktananda, Swami, Lalleshwari : Spiritual Poems by a Great Siddha
Yogini, Gurudev Siddha Peeth Publications, Ganeshpuri, India, 1981
8. Kaul, RN., Kashmir's Mystic Poetess Lalla Ded alias Lalla Arifa.
(S.Chand and Co., Ramnagar, New Delhi), 1999.
9. Dhar, A.N: 'Mysticism in the Vaakhs of Lal Ded' Prabuddha Bharata,
December, 1992, Jan.1993 & Feb 1993, issues.
10. Dhar, A.N.: Mysticism in Literature (Atlantic Publishers &
Distributors Ltd., B-2,Vishal Enclave, Najafgarh Road, New Delhi), 1985.
11. Rudrappa, J., Kashmir Shaivism (Prasaranga, University of Mysore,
Mysore), 1969.
12. Sopori, B.N. "Voice of Experience": Lall Vaakh of LalDed/Lali
Shori, 15/4, Pandoka Colony, Paloura, Jammu, 1999.
13. Kotru, N.K, Sivastotavali of Utpaldeva, (Motilal Banarasidas: Delhi),
1985.
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