2. Kabir, "Bẖūkẖe bẖagaṯi na kījai" [I cannot be a devotee when I am hungry]

This is one of two songs in our collection by Kabir the well-known fifteenth century "weaver poet", whose works circulated widely and survive in often variant forms in later manuscripts. In his life and subsequent reputation, Kabir was influential across religious cultures in India. He grew up in Banaras, and his poems shaped Sikh scripture as well as Hindu and Muslim worship. Sufis in Agra, Delhi, and Kashmir appear to have been reading Kabir's poetry throughout the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, and the Muslim tomb of "Shah Kabir" in Magahar (near Banaras) was, by Aurangzeb's reign, venerated as the dargah of a Sufi pīr (philosopher-saint). The tomb stands next to a Hindu temple memorialising Kabir's samādhi (state of oneness acheived through meditation). The Mughal emperor Akbar's official chronicle noted two other Kabir samādhis in Ratanpur (Chhattisgarh) and in Puri-Jagannath (Orissa). Kabir's work consistently propounds a philosophy of dearth, actively embracing poverty, both real and conceived. The poem selected here appears in the Sikh Ādi Granth.

The choukapata (square scroll) illustration of the poem by Jahanara Chitrakar, in her characteristic elegant style and use of colour, emphasises the intensity of religious devotion in sparse surroundings. The graphic artist Sekhar Mukherjee takes a different approach, building on the more satirical edge of Kabir's tone.