Kashmir stays some of the global’s maximum contentious geopolitical flash issues. In April 2025, India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed international locations that proportion a annoying border, got here dangerously just about a significant war of words after militants attacked Indian vacationers close to the preferred lodge the city of Pahalgam in Indian Kashmir. In contrast backdrop, media protection of Kashmir frequently specializes in violence and department.
What’s lost sight of on this protection is Kashmir’s immense creative, highbrow and religious heritage, one formed through centuries of interreligious and intercultural change.
As a student of Sufism – traditions inside of Islam that emphasize internal transformation, love of God and a non-public connection to the divine – I’ve spent a number of years finding out the Kashmiri mystic and poet Nund Rishi.
Often referred to as Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani, Nund Rishi lived from about 1378 to 1440. He based the Rishi Sufi order, whose teachings emphasised simplicity, compassion, devotion to God and handle others.
The Rishi Sufis understood their custom as each Islamic and deeply rooted in Kashmir’s non secular previous. Their adoption of the Sanskrit phrase “rishi,” which means sage, mirrored that reference to the area’s Hindu non secular previous. Nund Rishi’s poetry likewise attracts on each Hindu and Islamic symbols and concepts. That legacy endures as of late.
Internal of the Charar-e-Sharif shrine, devoted to the Kashmiri Sufi saint Nund Rishi, in Jammu and Kashmir, India.
Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Pictures
Kashmir, the valley of philosophy and poetry
Because the 3rd century B.C.E., Kashmir has been a middle of studying and the humanities for Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims alike.
Below the reign of Ashoka, an emperor who dominated from 304 to 232 B.C.E. and performed a pivotal rule in spreading Buddhism throughout Asia, Kashmir turned into a significant middle of Buddhist studying.
As royal patronage shifted within the 7th century, give a boost to for Buddhism declined and Kashmir emerged as a middle of Hindu literature and philosophy. Starting within the 8th century, it additionally turned into crucial hub for Shaivism, a significant department of Hinduism that worships Shiva because the perfect deity.
Kashmir’s Shaiva Hindu thinkers produced a few of South Asia’s maximum influential texts on awareness. As an example, the ninth-century textual content the Spanda Kārikās describes awareness as “spanda,” or vibration, an energetic and dynamic pressure.
Within the tenth and early eleventh centuries, the Hindu Shaiva student Abhinavagupta produced influential works on artwork, drama and literature. He argued that poetry and theater turn out to be feelings equivalent to love, sorrow and concern into “rasa” – a shared revel in that audiences can admire with out being crushed through their very own private issues. For Abhinavagupta, this brief freedom from the person self helped provide an explanation for why attractiveness, awe and beauty may just transform spiritually transformative.
Nund Rishi was once impressed through this wealthy legacy. Whilst the Rishi Sufi custom was once no longer the one instance of interreligious change, it turned into some of the area’s maximum influential expressions of a shared non secular tradition.
Poetry of a Hindu mystic
Kashmir progressively turned into a predominantly Muslim society after the Shah Mir dynasty got here to energy within the 14th century. Sufism was once some of the primary techniques Islam unfold in Kashmir, as Sufi academics expressed Islamic teachings in phrases that resonated with Hindu non secular traditions and native tradition.
Nund Rishi was once influenced partly through the 14th-century Shaiva Hindu mystic and poet Lal Ded, one in every of Kashmir’s maximum respected non secular figures. Lal Ded turned into well-known for her quick non secular poems known as “vakhs,” which means “speech” or “saying.” Those verses expressed complicated non secular concepts in easy, on a regular basis Kashmiri.
Lal Ded’s poetry inspired other folks to hunt God inside of themselves, observe willpower and acknowledge that non secular fact may just no longer be discovered via outward rituals by myself. As an example, one in every of her vakhs is going:
I used to be passionate,full of longing,I searchedfar and vast.
However the daythat the Fair Onefound me,I used to be at house.
On this vakh, Lal Ded writes that what she sought a ways away was once already provide inside of her, expressing the concept that the divine may also be discovered inside of oneself.
Lal Ded’s poetry additionally emphasised that the seek for the divine transcends non secular barriers. As an example, one in every of her vakhs is going:
Shiva abides in all this is, in all places.Don’t discriminate between a Hindu and a Muslim.In case you are smart, know your self.This is true wisdom of the Lord.
Lal Ded writes that the divine may also be discovered inside of oneself through Hindus and Muslims alike.
Handed down orally for hundreds of years, those vakhs turned into one of the most earliest and maximum influential works of Kashmiri literature and had been liked through each Hindu and Muslim communities.
Nund Rishi – a Sufi impressed through Hindu knowledge
Proceeding Lal Ded’s poetic legacy, Nund Rishi wrote quick poems known as “shruks.” Those poems used photographs from unusual lifestyles to warn in opposition to greed, non secular hypocrisy and an over the top attachment to worldly possessions. He strongly rejected caste divisions – a social hierarchy according to delivery prevalent throughout South Asia. In a single in style shruk he wrote:
Caste is of no need in fancy gatherings.Caste isn’t written on one’s face.Caste gained’t make your frame portions impure.In case you carry out your tasks – there’s no caste.
His poems additionally mirrored on demise, equality and humanity’s dependence on nature.
On the time, Persian was once the language of the royal court docket and literary tradition. Nund Rishi, then again, composed his teachings in Kashmiri, the language spoken through unusual other folks. This made his non secular classes more uncomplicated to grasp, keep in mind and move down.
Nund Rishi additionally paid tribute to Lal Ded, sometimes called “Lalla,” in one in every of his shruks. Right here, he praises her non secular knowledge and calls her an avatār, or an exceptionally holy and divinely impressed individual:
That Lalla from Pamporedrank divine nectar, cup after cup.She was once a loved avatār amongst us.O’ God, grant me her imaginative and prescient and data!
Despite the fact that Nund Rishi was once a Muslim, he noticed within the Hindu saint Lal Ded a type of religious attainment.
Kashmir’s interreligious traditions as of late
Nund Rishi’s position of burial, Charar-e-Sharif, stays a respected pilgrimage website for each Hindus and Muslims even as of late, and the poetry of each Lal Ded and Nund Rishi transcends non secular barriers and resonates with each communities.
Girls reciting Nund Rishi’s poetry at his tomb.
Small booklets in their poetry are bought on side road corners throughout Srinagar, the capital of India’s Jammu and Kashmir territory, and their verses are frequently recited at “mushairas,” or public poetry gatherings.
All over one consult with to Khanqah-e-Moula, a shrine within the center of Srinagar devoted to the respected 14th-century Persian Sufi saint Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, I encountered a Muslim devotee moved to tears as he recited Lal Ded’s verses. Once I requested why he was once reciting the poetry of a Hindu mystic at a Muslim shrine, he responded, “Lal Ded is our spiritual grandmother. How could I not honor her when I make this visit?”
This spirit continues to form Kashmir’s literary tradition, which is formed through the Rishi legacy of searching for knowledge throughout non secular barriers. This affect may also be discovered within the works of modern Kashmiri poets and writers who proceed to attract on Lal Ded, Nund Rishi and different Rishi Sufi poets and saints.
A meeting to recite the poetry of the Kashmiri Sufi saint Nund Rishi.
Mushaira gatherings and literary fairs additionally stay in style venues for sharing new poetry. In those gatherings, this shared literary custom is well known throughout non secular barriers, revealing every other facet of lifestyles within the valley.
Highlighting those lesser-known portions of Kashmir’s historical past does no longer imply denying the area’s geopolitical and sociopolitical demanding situations or romanticizing the previous. Quite, the tale of the Rishi Sufi order provides a counterpoint to the narratives of divisions that dominate discussions on Kashmir as of late.
