The fifteenth century saint-poet Kabir's extempore outpourings of songs and couplets numbering thousands have been hailed widely for their deep spiritual fervour and poetic quality. They are widely read with rapture and regard by old and young alike in India. Kabir's couplets which are considered as rich gems for their spiritual message and worldly wisdom have not been rendered into English so far. Here are rhymed English verse translation of three hundred of them from a wide cross-section of the multifaced genius' utterances. Under each verse has been given a few lines in prose to help the reader grasp the underlying import of the message of the saint-poet.

A New York Review Books Original Transcending divisions of creed, challenging social distinctions of all sorts, and celebrating individual unity with the divine, the poetry of Kabir is one of passion and paradox, of mind-bending riddles and exultant riffs. These new translations by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, one of India’s finest contemporary poets, bring out the richness, wit, and power of a literary and spiritual master.

Kabir was a 15th-century Indian poet and mystic. His philosophy of life was a combination of Sufism and Hinduism teachings. Interestingly, most of his ideas were expressed in poems, which were carefully preserved to our times by his followers. This book contains 100 of his poems translated into English by Rabindranath Tagore.

Knowledge ahead, knowledge behind, knowledge to the left and right. The knowledge that knows what knowledge is: that’s the knowledge that’s mine. —Bijak, sakhi 188 One of India’s greatest mystics, Kabir (1398-1448) was also a satirist and philosopher, a poet of timeless wit and wisdom. Equally immersed in theology and social thought, music and politics, his songs have won devoted followers from every walk of life through the past five centuries. He was a Muslim by name, but his ideas stand at the intersection of Hinduism and Islam, Bhakti and Yoga, religion and secularism. And his words were always marked by rhetorical boldness and conceptual subtlety. This book offers Vinay Dharwadker’s sparkling new translations of one hundred poems, drawing for the first time on major sources in half a dozen literary languages. They closely mimic the structure, voice and style of the originals, revealing Kabir’s multiple facets in historical and cultural contexts. Finely balancing simplicity and complexity, this selection opens up new forms of imagination and experience for discerning readers around the world.