The essence of spirituality is seeing God in one and all. God being omnipresent is what Kashmirs saints and Rishi’s taught through their philosophical verses which still ring through the shrines in the valley.
Yus chu yeti, Suei chu tati,
Suei chu prath jaaye ratith makaan,
Suei chu pyade, Suei chu Rathi,
Suei chu soruiy, Gapith paan.”
He who is here, is also there
For it is he who holds a home everywhere
He is the pawn, he is the chariot
He is everything, unseen and unknown.
Kashmirs patron saint Nund Reshi or Sheikh Noor ud-Din Wali, also popularly known as Sheikh ul-Alam, was a mystic, poet philosopher- who renounced worldly life and lived in a cave for about 12 years. Although it was during his time Kashmir converted from Hinduism to Islam but he is revered across religions . His verses are called shruik – philosophical and spiritual poetic couplets, poetic device of his time.
He along with Hindu saint poetess Lal Ded, represent the composite culture of kashmir. Where saints and Rishi’s talked about people in peoples language. Both the saints were against organised religion.
Lal Ded was born in Kashmir early in the 1300s, probably to parents of some Hindu persuasion. Her vakh (verses, sayings) suggest an early education in her father’s house and eventual marriage into a Brahman family of Pampor, where her mother-in-law treated her with dispiriting cruelty.
Nund Rishi
Malla vuchum moshi khywan
Haakas dapan chui kacch
Baekir khyavan daekir travaan
Mashidyan dapan yi chuv yacch”
I saw a preacher eat beef today,
Complaining all greens were weed.
Eating sweet breads, burping away,
Telling the mosque it was the ogre’s greed.
Lal Ded
I have seen an educated man starve,
a leaf blown off by bitter wind.
Once I saw a thoughtless fool
beat his cook.
Lalla has been waiting for the allure of the world to fall away.
wooden bow and rush grass for an arrow: A carpenter unskilled and a palace to build: A shop unlocked in a busy bazaar:
A body uncleansed by waters holy-
Oh dear! who knows what hath befallen me?