Lal Ded

Lal Ded, “Granny Lal”, also called Lalla or Lalleshwari, was a mystic poet of fourteenth-century Kashmir. Her life is known only from legend: married young into a household where she was mistreated, she is said to have left home to become a wandering ascetic under the guidance of a Śaiva teacher, Siddha Srikanth, and to have wandered naked, dancing and singing.

Her sayings, the vākhs, are short verses in Kashmiri, among the earliest literature in the language. They were handed down orally for centuries and collected only much later, so that their exact words, and in some cases their authorship, are uncertain. They speak of the search for Śiva within the body and the breath, of the futility of outward ritual and pilgrimage, and of the moment when the seeker finds the Lord in her own self.

Lal Ded is revered by both Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir; Muslims call her Lal Arifa, and tradition links her with the Sufi saint Nund Rishi. The English scholar George Grierson, with Lionel Barnett, published the first edition and translation of her sayings in 1920.