The Word of Lallâ the Prophetess: being the Sayings of Lal Ded or Lal Dîddî of Kashmîr (Granny Lal), known also as Lalêshwarî, Lallâ Yôgîshwâri and Lâlîshrî, between 1300 and 1400 AD

Abstract

KASHMIR, as the author of this erudite work remarks in his introduction, is the home of wise saws and proverbial sayings; and of the latter none are held in higher repute than the Lalla-vakyani, the “Sayings of Lalla,” mainly because those sayings, couched in the form of hymns or lyrics, illustrate the Shaiva Yoga form of the Hindu religion on its popular side, and depict by the medium of metaphor and simile drawn from everyday life the actual hopes and fears of the common folk who nominally followed that system of religion and philosophy. Lalla herself, or Lai Ded as she is commonly called, lived in the fourteenth century of the Christian era, and appears to have spent much of her life in wandering about in a nude state, dancing and singing ecstatically. She was, as her verses indicate, a yogini or female exponent of the Yoga discipline associated with the worship of Shiva, one of the two great gods of neo-Brahmanic Hinduism: but while expressing in her life and poems the utmost devotion to this aspect of the Hindu religion, she was influenced to no small extent, as Sir Richard Temple points out, by the ideas and teaching of the Muham-madan saints of Kashmir, chief among whom was Sayyid All Hamadani, leader of the Nakshbandi Order of Sufis. Though no authentic manuscripts of Lalla's poems now exist, the veteran scholar, Sir George Grierson, has succeeded in collating a tolerably complete text of her verses, which were originally composed in a now obsolete form of Kashmiri and were handed down orally from generation to generation, and it is this text which Sir Richard Temple has translated into English verse. The Word of Lallâ the Prophetess: being the Sayings of Lal Ded or Lal Diddi of Kashmir (Granny Lal), known also as Laleshwari, Lallâ Yogishwâri and Lâlishri, between 1300 and 1400 A.D. Done into English Verse from the Lallâ-vâkyâni or Lal-Wakhi, and annotated by Sir Richard Carnac Temple. Pp. xiv + 292. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1924.) 16s. net.