Talk:Notes on the Indian poet-mystics

Yaari

And secondarily Bulla ...
Keay and Haridas agree on Yaari's (approximate) birth year, so that's a start. The big problem is the very long lifespan Haridas gives him. In this, Belvedere turns out to have excellent agreement with Keay, not obvious at first but compelling in the end.

Belvedere's attributed lifespan is the same as Keay's, 55 years. And the kicker is this: Belvedere is very likely to be using a different calendar, the Vikram Samvat, a lunisolar Hindu calendar widely used across North India. Its starting point is 56.7 years before the Western Gregorian calendar, so do the math and there ya go.

Keay writes about the period on p 167 of his book Kabir and His Followers:

There are many Muhammadan writers of Hindi religious poetry who may have been Sufis. But the fact of their writing in Hindi shows a connection with Hindu thought. Probably many of them were directly or indirectly influenced by Kabir. These include Yari Sahib (1668-1723) who lived at Delhi, who had as disciples Keshav Das and Bulla Sahib who were also writers of Hindi religious verse, and flourished about 1730. Bulla Sahib had as his disciple Gulal Sahib, who in turn was the religious preceptor of Bhikha Sahib. Both of these, who lived in the latter half of the eighteenth century, have left Hindi religious verse. Dariya Sahib of Bihar. Dariya Sahib of Marwar, and Bulle Shah, were all Muhammadans who wrote similar poetry, and lived in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Bulla's writing in Hindi is another mark which distances him from the more famous Bulleh Shah from Lahore, in that the latter would have been far more likely to have been writing in Urdu. -- doofus-9 21:39, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Sahajo

Those gone mad in love,
All of life is transformed for them.
Sahajo says: They don’t see
Who is a beggar or a king.

Those gone mad in love,
Caste and color have disappeared for them.
Sahajo says: The world calls them crazy,
And everyone near runs off.

Those gone mad in love,
Sahajo says: Their bodies waver
And their feet stagger out of control –
Then the divine takes care.

The mind is blissful,
The body is drunk with ecstasy.
Sahajo is with no one,
No one is with Sahajo.

-- from ch 3 of Showering Without Clouds, the English translation of Bin Ghan Parat Phuhar (बिन घन परत फुहार)

Sant Taaran Taran

Taaran does not entirely belong among the other poet-mystics in this page in that a) Belvedere does not include him, b) he remained more or less in a sectarian stream, that of the Digambar Jains, c) Osho does not speak on him at length during the Pune One years when he speaks on Kabir and the rest so much, and d) his output was not all poetic, but as often scriptural / preaching. This could be seen as four strikes against him, as far as his inclusion in this page goes, but there are other factors weighing against these strikes ....

Though his subsequent lineage has remained in the Digambar Jain fold, Taran himself was open and inclusive as far as his disciples went, accepting even Muslims and not strict with Jain rules, formats and procedures. Osho does speak on him for two whole books worth of material, though these are pamphlet-sized books of one talk each from the very earliest days of his transcribed talks, Taaran-Vani (तारण-वाणी) and Sant Taaran Taran: Jeevan Aur Darshan (संत तारण तरण : जीवन और दर्शन). -- doofus-9 07:58, 29 July 2022 (UTC)