Kabir

Kabir (fifteenth century) was a weaver of Benares, raised Muslim, shaped by the Bhakti and Sant traditions, and claimed after his death by Hindus and Muslims alike — the legend that his body turned to flowers, to be divided between burial and cremation, exists because both communities wanted him. He mocked temple and mosque with equal cheerfulness and insisted that whatever you are looking for is already inside you: the fish thirsty in water, the musk deer hunting the scent it carries. His verse survives in several streams, including the Bijak and the Adi Granth. Our English comes from Rabindranath Tagore’s Songs of Kabir (1915), cited song by song.