Part 22 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through India’s poetic heritage.Tukaram, the seventeenth-century Marathi saint-poet, is remembered for abhangs: devotional songs that speak in a direct, intimate voice. His poetry belongs to the Varkari tradition associated with devotion to Vithoba of Pandharpur. Rather than presenting spirituality as a privilege reserved for learned elites, Tukaram …
Part 3 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through India’s poetic heritage.Mirabai, the sixteenth-century poet associated with Rajasthan and the Krishna bhakti tradition, composed songs of intense devotion, longing and spiritual independence. Her poems often speak in the voice of a lover who cannot accept a life without the beloved. In this tradition, Krishna is at once a divine presence and t…
Part 2 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through India’s poetic heritage.Kabir’s couplets are brief, but their compact form carries layers of spiritual, ethical and social criticism. One famous doha imagines a potter shaping clay, while the clay reminds the potter that one day the roles will reverse: the person who handles the earth will eventually return to it. Versions of this couplet diff…
