Weaver-poet of Varanasi; most represented bhagat in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji
Bhagat Kabir
A Muslim weaver of Varanasi who attacked the pretensions of Brahmins and mullahs alike in blunt vernacular verse and taught devotion to a formless God. Five hundred and forty-one of his compositions are in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, far more than any author outside the Gurus, and his influence on Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's generation was large.
Life and place in the scripture
Kabir belonged to the julaha caste of Muslim weavers in Varanasi, a group of recent and low-status converts. The legends make him a foundling raised by a weaver couple and a disciple, by trickery, of the Vaishnava teacher Ramanand. His verse shows a man who worked at his loom, scorned both the Veda and the Quran as grounds for pride, and sought God within. He is said to have died at Maghar, a place Hindus considered inauspicious, to make a point.
His sayings were collected by Sri Guru Amar Das Ji, probably from the Goindwal region where they circulated, and Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji included them in the Adi Granth, with the long acrostic Bavan Akhri among them. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism counts 227 hymns and 237 saloks, and other sources count differently. Where the Gurus disagreed with him, Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji occasionally added a response in the text. The inclusion of a Muslim-born weaver as the single largest non-Guru voice in the scripture was a deliberate statement about caste and creed.
Kabir panthis, Hindu reformers and Sikhs all claim him, and the versions of his verse in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, fixed in 1604, are among the earliest datable texts of his work.[EoS][EoS][Mann]
What the sources disagree on
- Dates
Traditional 1398-1448; modern estimates about 1440-1518. Shown as circa.[EoS]
Images
A later artist's imagining of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Bhai Mardana meeting Bhagat Kabir, from the Punjab Hills in the late 1700s. Whether such a meeting took place is not established.
Unknown, Late 18th century. Public domain. Source
A detail showing Bhagat Ravidas beside Bhagat Kabir, from a Mughal painting dated 1625 and catalogued at the National Museum, New Delhi.
Unknown, 1625. National Museum, New Delhi, 79.444 (as credited on Commons). Public domain. Source
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