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.

Quotes

Poetry

• 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

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