Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 03-29-08
Lalla /Lal Ded
/Lalleshwari /Lal Arifa (d. aft.1353)
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"I DIDN'T TRUST IT FOR A MOMENT, BUT I DRANK IT ANYWAY,
THE WINE OF MY OWN POETRY."
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Lalla lived in Kashmir during the first part of the 1300s. In
that period, Kashmir was home to devotees of Shiva and devotees
of Vishnu, to Islamic Sufis and to followers of Tantric Buddhism.
Lalla's poems reflect all she learned from these, but synthesized
to become the expression of her own devotion in colloquial Kashmiri,
rather than the Sanskrit of contemporary philosophical writing.
The variety of her names reflects the wide appeal of her poems:
In Hindi, she is Lal Ded (grandmother Lal); in Sanskrit, Lalleshwari
(Lalla the yogini); while to Muslims, she is Lal Arifa.
Lalla was apparently from a family of Brahmins near Pampore; her poetry shows her knowledge of Sanskrit and of the Hindu scriptures. Tradition says that she left her husband after some years of an unhappy marriage to become a student of Hindu and Sufi teachers. Then she became an itinerant preacher throughout the Kashmir Valley, singing her vakhs (songs) of Shiva and of the search for truth, through an inner spirituality rather than dogma and ritual.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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1. Translations (there is some repetition, but there are also different versions of the same poems):
(a) Two links to138 vakhs. The notes sometimes assume knowledge of Saiva terminology; the poems do not.
(b) A link to the text of George Grierson's and Lionel D. Barnett's 1920 Lalla Vakyani; there, starting at p. 25, are Grierson's versions of over 100 vakhs (with the transliterated originals from various manuscripts), followed in Appendix A by a selection of translations by Hinton Knowles. You can also download the work as a PDF file.
(c) A biographical essay, by P.N. Razdan, and 37 vakhs, some with commentary.
(d) Links to 12 poems, from various translators.
(e) Links to 11 poems, some translated by B. N. Paramoo, others by Coleman Barks.
(f) In an essay by Sheila Trisal, seven vakhs, in transliteration and in a translation by Pt. Prithvinath Raina.
(g) A brief essay and five poems: three translated by Richard Carnac Temple and two by Grierson.
(h) In an essay, another five poems, translated by Temple
(i) Use your browser's search function to go to "Lalla" for four poems, translated by Barks.
(j) More from Barks: two poems: "The soul, like the moon," and "On the way to God"; at another site, go to "Lalla" for "Self inside self. You are nothing but me"; and elsewhere, "Whatever I do, the responsibility is mine."
(k) At the right, three vakhs: "Being born, I didn't crave for fame," "Oh man! Why are you trying to twine ropes of stand?" and "What can you do with these five, ten or eleven?" The originals are also given.
(l) Five vakhs translated by Donald C. Traxler: "I came by the road, but left not that way"; "If I could scatter the southern clouds"; "It covers your shame and wards off the cold"; "Beneath you is a pit, you're dancing on top"; and "Who can stop winter's dripping from the eaves?" For each the transliterated Kashmiri original is also given.
2. The proceedings of a 2000 seminar, "Remembering Lal Ded in Modern Times": links to 12 essays by various scholars (most of whom quote passages from Lalla); to a bibliography through 1999; and, in Section 3, twenty vakhs given in transliterated Kashmiri and in a translation by Neerja Mattoo.
3. Other essays, etc.:
(a) "Lal Ded - Lalleshwari: Forerunner of Medieval Mystics" (2001), by P.N. Kaul Bamzai and Koshur Samachar, which explains the historical background and translates several poems.
(b) Click on "J" for an abstract of a 2002 conference presentation (more detailed than most abstracts) by Lal Jadusingh, "Metaphysical Doctrines and Yogic Practices in the Verses of Lalla," which describes the vakhs' syncretism.
(c) A review by C.S. Lakshmi of a 2004 theatrical presentation in India, "Performing Lal Ded," based on her life and writing.
4. A description and three brief reviews of Jaishree Kak Odin's 1999 study and translation, To the Other Shore: Lalla's Life and Poetry (for excerpts, see below, under "In print").
5. Although Lalla is mentioned only once (see "Lal Ded"), this 2001 essay by Madhu Kishwar, "Traditional Female Moral Exemplars in India," is a useful introduction for western readers to the roles of women --- both deities and devotees.
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[After a substantial study (pp. 1-99) of the background, the textual history, and the themes of Lalla's vakhs, Jaishree Kak Odin provides her translation of the 148 poems whose attribution appear certain. Odin also provides the Kashmiri originals in transliteration. The notes are useful, as is a concordance of the various collections of Lalla's work:]
Odin, Jaishree Kak. To the other shore: Lalla's life and poetry.
New Delhi: Vitasta, c1999. (xiii, 191 p.)
LC#: PK7035.L3 Z795 1999; ISBN: 818658806X
Includes bibliographical references (p. [182]-189) and index.
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[Coleman Barks has translated 111 of Lalla's songs. More accurately, he has, in his term, "re-worked" the poems from earlier translations, so he calls himself the "second translator" (p.12). The introduction recounts the Lalla traditions:]
Naked Song. Lalla; translations by Coleman Barks. Athens,
GA: Maypop, c1992. (79 p.)
LC#: PK7035.L3 N35 1992; ISBN: 0961891645
Includes bibliographical references (p. 14).
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[A study by B.N. Parimoo that interprets 100 of Lalla's vakhs and gives the Kashmiri original of each, in both script and transliteration:]
Parimoo, B. N. The ascent of self: a re-interpretation of
the mystical poetry of Lalla-Ded / translation and commentary,
B. N. Parimoo; foreword, K. L. Shrimali. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1987. (xxxii, 217 p., [4] leaves of plates: ill.)
LC#: PK7035.L3 Z8213; ISBN: 8120803051.
Bibliography: p. [210]-212. Includes index.
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"It gave me the daring..."
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[On Lalla's own songs:]
I didn't trust it for a moment,
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.
It gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces. [Barks,
p.71]
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"Let them...."
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[On both opponents and followers:]
Let them hurl abuses at me or lecture me
Let them call me what they wish
Let them offer my flows of devotion
I am untouched, so what will they gain by it? [Odin,
p.135]
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"Also these flower offerings that someone brought."
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[To Shiva, perhaps an early poem:]
You are the sky and the ground.
You alone the day, the night air.
You are all things born into being.
Also these flower offerings
that someone brought. [Barks,
p.21]
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"Whatever your name is...."
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[And a later poem:]
Whatever your name is, Shiva, Vishnu,
the genius who inspired Scherazade,
savior of the Jains, the pure Buddha,
lotus-born God, I am sick. The world
is my disease, And You are the cure,
You, you, you, you, you, you, you.
[Barks, p.22]
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"How can you depend on it?"
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[A warning, and then a conclusion that for some, a warning is useless:]
Below you a pit and above it you are dancing
Tell me, O, dear, how can you depend on it?
Everything you accumulate will be left behind
Tell me, O, dear, how can you enjoy your repast? [Odin,
p.141]
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"... a waste of time."
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Don't talk to a fool about knowledge
Giving molasses to a donkey is a waste of time
Don't plant seeds in the sandy river bank
Don't waste oil over bran cakes. [Odin,
p.159]
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"Hold air in a fist and... tie an elephant with a strand
of hair."
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[The difficult way:]
Name and fame is like water in a sieve
Whoever has the strength to hold air in a fist
and who can tie an elephant with a strand of hair,
he is the one who will certainly attain bliss. [Odin,
p.163]
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"He and only he...."
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Who can hold the drippings in freezing mid-winter?
Oh, who can hold the wind in one's clenched hand?
He and only he who crushes the five sense-organs and tears them
into shreds;
He alone can hold the sun in the midst of pitch darkness. [Parimoo,
p.80]
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"Cursed be your fasts and religious ceremonies."
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[Several passages of advice to seekers:]
Don't torture your body with thirst and starvation
When the body in exhausted, take care of it
Cursed be your fasts and religious ceremonies
Do good to others, for that is the real religious practice. [Odin,
p.160]
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"Choose to be a recluse, or choose a family, the village
job."
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If you've melted your desires
in the river of time, choose
to be a recluse, or choose
a family, the village job.
If you know the pure Lord within you,
you'll be That, wherever.
[Barks, p.63]
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"This is a friendly practice, and it leads to some truth."
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If you're wise, be foolish.
If you can see, squint.
Though you can hear, sit
dumb as an old rock.
Whatever anyone says,
listen and agree.
This is a friendly practice,
and it leads to some truth. [Barks,
p.66]
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"Your awareness is the truth about God."
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Don't talk of different religions.
The one reality is everywhere,
not just in a Hindu, or a Muslim,
or anywhere else! Realize:
your awareness is the truth about God. [Barks, p.76]
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"...waiting for my love of this place to leave me."
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[And descriptions of her own search:]
I saw a wise man dying of starvation.
Leaves fall in the slightest
wind in December.
And I saw a wealthy man beating his cook
for some mistake with the spices.
Since then, I, Lalla, have been waiting
for my love of this place to leave me
[Barks, p.22]
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"Will I know the road?"
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Where did I come from, and how?
Where am I going?
Will I know the road?
This life is empty breath.
If I can hear one clear truth,
I'll be fortunate. [Barks,
p.61]
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"How do I know?"
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I ground my heart in the mortar of love
Evil thoughts left me and I became calm
I burned and roasted the heart, and tasted it myself
How do I know if this practice will let me live or die? [Odin,
p.136]
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"Sing, Lalla, wearing the sky."
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[On the joy of fulfillment. (As in the songs of other devotees, the nakedness in the first poem here may refer to the putting off of external attachments):]
Dance, Lalla, with nothing on
but air. Sing, Lalla,
wearing the sky.
Look at this glowing day! What clothes
could be so beautiful, or
more sacred? [Barks, p.17]
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"I recognized the Self in me."
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When my mind was cleansed of impurities, like a mirror of
its dust and dirt,
I recognized the Self in me:
When I saw Him dwelling in me,
I realized that He was the Everything and I was nothing. [Parimoo,
p.115]
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"I preached what I practiced."
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I put into practice whatever I read, the unread was lost to
my consciousness;
I dragged the lion down the forest by his silken mane as if he
were a jackal!
I preached what I practiced,
That way did knowledge dawn on me and I won the goal. [Parimoo,
p.181]
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Jaishree Kak Odin's 1999 study, To the Other shore: Lalla's Life and Poetry, is based on recent research and so the best introduction to Lalla (see above, under "In print"), but here are two other useful sources:
[This collection contains an essay by A. K. Ramanujan, "On Women Saints," which is a valuable analysis of the similarities and differences in the lives of the women saints in India; Lalla is among those discussed:]
The Divine consort: Radha and the goddesses of India / edited
by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff ( Beacon paperback;
734). Boston: Beacon Press, 1986, c1982. (xviii, 414 p., [16]
p. of plates: ill. (some col.)
LC#: BL1225.R24 D58 1986; ISBN: 080701303X
Papers presented at a conference held June 1978 at Harvard University,
sponsored by the Center for the Study of World Religions. Includes
index. Bibliography: p. 383-403.
[Originally published: Berkeley, Calif.: Berkeley Religious Studies
Series, c1982. ISBN: 0895811022]
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[Romila Thapar's history of India to 1300 provides useful background information on religious and other aspects of Indian history. Note especially pages 348-57 on the rise of the devotional movement (bhakti) of which Lalla is a later representative. The book has a helpful chronology and glossary. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Thapar, Romila. Early India: from the origins to A.D. 1300.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. (555 p.)
LC#: DS436.A3 T43 2004; ISBN: 0520238990
Includes bibliographical references and index
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Updated 03-29-08