Kabir was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint.
34 Facts About Kabir
2.
Kabir's writings influenced Hinduism's Bhakti movement, and his verses are found in Sikhism's scripture Guru Granth Sahib, the Satguru Granth Sahib of Saint Garib Das, and Kabir Sagar.
3.
Kabir questioned what he regarded to be the meaningless and unethical practices of all religions, primarily what he considered to be the wrong practices in the Hindu and Muslim religions.
4.
Kabir suggested that "Truth" is with the person who is on the path of righteousness, considered everything, living and non living, as divine, and who is passively detached from the affairs of the world.
5.
Kabir's legacy survives and continues through the Kabir panth, a religious community that recognises him as its founder and is one of the Sant Mat sects.
6.
Generally, Kabir is believed to have been born in 1398, on the full moon day of Jyeshtha month at the time of Brahmamuharta.
7.
Many Followers of Kabir believe that he came from Satloka by assuming the body of light, and incarnated on a lotus flower and claim that the rishi Ashtanand was the direct witness of this incident, who himself appeared on a lotus flower in the Lahartara Pond.
8.
Kabir is widely believed to have become one of the many disciples of the Bhakti poet-saint Swami Ramananda in Varanasi, known for devotional Vaishnavism with a strong bent to monist Advaita philosophy teaching that God was inside every person, everything.
9.
The Dabistan-i-Mazahib states Kabir is a "Bairagi" and states he is a disciple of Ramanand.
10.
Kabir's family is believed to have lived in the locality of Kabir Chaura in Varanasi.
11.
Kabir's poems were in vernacular Hindi, borrowing from various dialects including Braj, Bhojpuri and Awadhi.
12.
However, except for Adi Granth, significantly different versions of these texts exist and it is unclear which one is more original; for example, Kabir Bijak exists in two major recensions.
13.
Kabir's poems were verbally composed in the 15th century and transmitted viva voce through the 17th century.
14.
Kabir Bijak was compiled and written down for the first time in the 17th century.
15.
Rabindranath Tagore's English translation and compilation One Hundred Poems of Kabir was first published in 1915, and has been a classic reprinted and widely circulated particularly in the West.
16.
Kabir adopted their terminology and concepts, but vigorously criticized them both.
17.
Kabir questioned the need for any holy book, as stated in Kabir Granthavali as follows:.
18.
Kabir rejected the hypocrisy and misguided rituals evident in various religious practices of his day, including those in Islam and Hinduism.
19.
Kabir urged people to look within and consider all human beings as manifestation of God's living forms:.
20.
Kabir is the child of Allah and of Ram: He is my Guru, He is my Pir.
21.
Kabir, nevertheless, criticized practices such as killing and eating a cow by Muslims, in a manner Hindus criticized those practices:.
22.
Kabir's couplets suggest he was persecuted for his views, while he was alive.
23.
Kabir called the slanderer a friend, expressed gratefulness for the slander, for it brought him closer to his god.
24.
The legends about Kabir describe him as the underdog who nevertheless is victorious in trials by a Sultan, a Brahmin, a Qazi, a merchant, a god or a goddess.
25.
Songs of Kabir were collected by Kshitimohan Sen from mendicants across India, these were then translated to English by Rabindranath Tagore.
26.
New English translations of Songs of Kabir is done by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.
27.
Kabir's legacy continues to be carried forward by the Kabir panth, a religious community that recognises him as its founder and is one of the Sant Mat sects.
28.
The followers of Kabir are vegetarians and abstain from alcohol.
29.
Kabir's verses were incorporated into Adi Granth, the scripture of Sikhism, with verses attributed to Kabir constituting the largest non-Sikh contribution.
30.
Some scholars state Kabir's ideas were one of the many influences on Guru Nanak, who went on to found Sikhism in the fifteenth century.
31.
Neeraj Arya's Kabir Cafe marries Kabir's couplets with contemporary music adding elements of rock, carnatic, and folk.
32.
Documentary filmmaker Shabnam Virmani, from the Kabir Project, has produced a series of documentaries and books tracing Kabir's philosophy, music and poetry in present-day India and Pakistan.
33.
Kabir's poetry has appeared prominently in filmmaker Anand Gandhi's films Right Here Right Now and Continuum.
34.
Schomer states that for Kabir, woman is "kali nagini, kunda naraka ka, juthani jagata ki ".