Kabir

Kabir (fl. 15th century) was an Indian devotional mystic poet and saint whose work shaped the Bhakti movement within Hinduism. His verses appear in the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib, as well as in the Satguru Granth Sahib of Saint Garib Das and the Kabir Sagar of Dharamdas. He remains a significant figure in Hinduism, Sikhism, and Sufism. Kabir studied under Ramananda, who founded the Ramanandi Sampradaya.

Born in Varanasi, in present-day Uttar Pradesh, Kabir was known for his sharp criticism of organized religion. He attacked what he saw as meaningless and unethical practices in both Hinduism and Islam. During his life, he faced threats from followers of both faiths. After his death, both Hindus and Muslims who had been inspired by him claimed him as their own.

Kabir taught that truth belongs to those who follow righteousness, see the divine in all living and non-living things, and remain detached from worldly affairs. To know truth, he said, one must drop the ego, or the sense of "I." His legacy continues through the Kabir panth ("Path of Kabir"), a Sant Mat sect that considers him its founder. Its members are called Kabir panthis.

Details of Kabir’s birth and death are uncertain. Some historians place him between 1398–1448, others between 1440–1518. Many followers believe he came from Satloka in a body of light and appeared on a lotus in Lahartara Pond, witnessed by the rishi Ashtanand. Other accounts say he was found as an infant at Lahartara Lake by a Muslim weaver named Niru and his wife Nima, who raised him.

Kabir became a disciple of the Bhakti poet-saint Swami Ramananda in Varanasi, a tradition of devotional Vaishnavism with a strong Advaita (monist) philosophy, teaching that God dwells within everyone and everything. Early texts link him to both Hindu Vaishnavism and Islamic Sufism. The Persian text Dabestan-e Mazaheb, in its two manuscript versions, is the earliest known source with biographical details, describing Kabir as a "Bairagi" (Vaishnava yogi) and a disciple of Ramanand. His family is believed to have lived in the Kabir Chaura area of Varanasi. The Kabir matha there celebrates his life, and a nearby house called Nīrūṭīlā holds the graves of Niru and Nima.

Kabir’s poems were composed in Sadhukkadi, also called Panchmel Khichri, a mix of dialects including Khadi boli, Braj, Bhojpuri, Marwari, and Awadhi. He also wrote in pure Bhojpuri, as in poems like *mor hīrā herāïl bā kichaṛe me*. His verses cover various aspects of life and call for loving devotion to God, using simple words focused on devotion, mysticism, and discipline.

Kabir and his followers called his orally composed poems "bāņīs" (utterances). These include songs and couplets known as dohe, śalokā, or sākhī, the latter meaning "witness," implying the poems are evidence of truth. Works attributed to Kabir include the Kabir Bijak, Kabir Parachai, Sakhi Granth, Adi Granth (Sikh), and Kabir Granthawali (Rajasthan). Except for the Adi Granth, these texts exist in significantly different versions, and it is unclear which is most original. The Kabir Bijak, for example, has two major recensions. The most thorough scholarly analysis of these versions and translations is credited to French scholar Charlotte Vaudeville. Westcott noted 82 works attributed to Kabir. Shyamsundar Das published two marked manuscripts in 1928, one dated 1504 and the other 1824.

Kabir’s poems were composed orally in the 15th century and passed down by word of mouth until the 17th century, when the Kabir Bijak was first written down. Scholars note that this oral transmission across regions and generations led to changes, interpolations, and corruptions. Whole songs were fabricated and new couplets inserted by unknown authors, attributed to Kabir not out of dishonesty but from respect and the creative nature of anonymous oral tradition in Indian literature. Scholars continue to work to identify which poems truly came from Kabir.

John Stratton Hawley observed that surviving collections show distinct personalities of Kabir. In Western (Rajasthani) collections, Kabir appears more devotional, while in Eastern (Punjabi) collections, he seems more like a down-to-earth householder swayed by love’s intensity. Today, Kabir’s poems appear in many publications and websites, but the debate over authenticity continues. It is certain that minor changes have occurred over centuries, and poems by others may have been attributed to him.