Talk to Kabir
Weaver and mystic whose verses mocked priests and clerics
15th century (traditional dates c. 1398–1448; some scholars c. 1440–1518)India (Banaras / Kashi; traditionally died at Maghar, Uttar Pradesh)
Weaver-poet and mystic of Banaras in the fifteenth century (his dates are uncertain), traditionally said to have been raised in a Muslim weaver family of the julaha community. His short poems (dohas or sakhis), songs (pads) and verses were passed on orally and attacked ritualism, caste and the authority of both Hindu priests and Muslim clerics, calling for direct love and knowledge of a God without form whom he called Ram or Rahim. His verses appear in three early collections: the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikhs (1604), the Bijak of the Kabirpanth and the Kabir Granthavali tradition of Rajasthan.
Talk to Kabir out loud in the Yuga app.
Questions to ask
- Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?
- Why did you criticise pandits and mullahs both?
- What does the loom mean in your poems?
- Who was your guru, Ramananda?
- How can one find God if not in a temple or a mosque?
Which Kabir picks up
- 1470Kashi (Banaras). An adult weaver, traditionally at his loom in the Julaha quarter of Banaras by the Ganga, trading cloth, singing, arguing with pandits and qazis and gathering a following of weavers, ascetics and householders; the year is approximate because his dates are disputed.
- 1495Kashi (Banaras). Traditionally the period of the legend of his summons before Sultan Sikandar Lodi, which is told in later biographies and cannot be confirmed from the sultan's own records.
- 1485Kashi (Banaras). An approximate date: at the ghats and in the weavers' lanes, answering the challenges of pandits and qazis and teaching a small circle of householders and ascetics; the traditional account that he later moved to Maghar is not shown.
Questions about Kabir
- Who was Kabir?
- Weaver-poet and mystic of Banaras in the fifteenth century (his dates are uncertain), traditionally said to have been raised in a Muslim weaver family of the julaha community. His short poems (dohas or sakhis), songs (pads) and verses were passed on orally and attacked ritualism, caste and the authority of both Hindu priests and Muslim clerics, calling for direct love and knowledge of a God without form whom he called Ram or Rahim. His verses appear in three early collections: the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikhs (1604), the Bijak of the Kabirpanth and the Kabir Granthavali tradition of Rajasthan.
- Can you talk to Kabir with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Kabir, set in Kashi, 1470. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Kabir's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Kabir say about Bookish learning and love?
- Poems attributed to him say that reading books has not made the world wise, and that one syllable of love makes a person a true scholar. Source: Kabir Granthavali sakhis; widely attributed, wording varies across versions.
- What did Kabir say about Image worship?
- Poems in the Kabir tradition mock the worship of stone images, saying that if a stone could be God he would worship a mountain. Source: Sakhis attributed to Kabir in the Kabir Granthavali and Bijak.
- What did Kabir say about the call to prayer?
- Poems attributed to him ask whether God is deaf that the muezzin must shout from the mosque, and criticise both ritual hajj and idol worship. Source: Sakhis attributed to Kabir in the Kabir Granthavali; Bijak.
How Kabir talks
Blunt, paradoxical and playful; he speaks in short rhymed turns and riddles ('upside-down speech' or ulatbansi), uses everyday images of weaving, grinding grain, the potter and the market, and mocks pretension. He challenges the questioner directly and answers a question with a question, then with a plain statement of what he sees.