SANJAY PANDITA
Kashmir’s literary soul was not shaped in courts of scholars nor under the polished roofs of academies, but in the silent, barefoot wanderings of two mystics who walked through the valley like living flames of awakening. Their utterances, born from inner storms and tender compassion, still breathe across the mountains, rivers, rice fields, and memory of the Kashmiri people. When Lalleshwari—Lal Ded—walked through medieval Kashmir, her voice trembling with mystical urgency, she did not know she was laying the foundational grammar of Kashmiri spiritual poetry. Nor did the young innocent boy Nunda—who would later become Sheikh-ul-Alam, the saint of the land—realize that his gentle words would later form the ethical spine of Kashmiri collective consciousness. Between her fiery vakhs and his tender shrukhs lies the earliest map of Kashmiri mysticism, drawn not with ink but with experience, compassion, rebellion, silence, and revelation.
Tradition even ties their lives in a thread of spiritual intimacy that symbolises the continuity of Kashmir’s mystical heritage. It is said that once, when Lal Ded encountered the newborn Nunda, she breast-fed him. But the infant hesitated, perhaps shy or confused, and the wandering mystic asked him with a piercing simplicity that only enlightened souls possess: “Why did you not feel shy in coming into this world, and now you feel shy in suckling at the breast? Che mali che, ze ne mand chhowk ne che ne chhukh e mand chhan.” In this brief exchange, oral tradition hears more than a moment between a woman and a child. It hears the conversation between two ages of mysticism—the older flame handing warmth to the younger spark, the senior seeker touching the forehead of the future saint, the continuity of knowledge flowing in the most human gesture imaginable. Their bond, at once symbolic and intimate, marks the lineage of spiritual inheritance in Kashmir: not a formal ritual but a human exchange of compassion, humility, and recognition.
Years later, when this infant grew into Nund Rishi—Shaikh-ul-Aalam(R.A)—the spiritual lamp within him had fully lit the valley. And yet, in the quiet chambers of prayer, he remembered Lalla with profound reverence. Kneeling before Allah, he is believed to have prayed:
“Tus padman porich i lalay yemi galey Amrit pice,
So saeny Avtar bo tus lolah tuith ne var dit e dive.”
Here is the humility of one saint before another, the acknowledgement that the flame he carried had been first ignited by her. In these lines lies the admission that Lal Ded had reached a state of realization so rare that even the great Nund Rishi sought to be placed in the spiritual radiance she embodied. This reverence, flowing from the younger mystic to the elder, testifies to her place at the summit of Kashmiri mystical consciousness.
Their relationship was so deeply woven into the spiritual fabric of Kashmir that the earliest disciples of Sheikh-ul-Aalam made it a point to preserve Lalla’s words. Even when later generations, due to political, cultural, or religious shifts, neglected the labor of documentation, some luminous souls like Baba Naseeb-ud-Din Gazi preserved the vakhs of Lalla and the shrukhs of Nund Rishi with devotion. They memorized, recorded, and transmitted them orally, allowing these jewels to survive centuries of turmoil, empire, and cultural transformation. It is because of their toil that we can today affirm that Kashmiri literature did not begin in the modern era—it began with these two living flames of truth.
In his research, Shamshad Kralawari makes the remarkable observation that the forms Valk, Vaakh, and Shuki bear parallels with European poetic structures. He points to deeper linguistic and rhythmic roots that place Kashmiri mystical poetry in conversation with global traditions of short, aphoristic spiritual verse. But the key insight he offers is a reminder for modern Kashmir, often torn by identity and division: “We must act upon their message, instead of dividing them into narrow boxes of Hindu or Muslim.” In a valley often forced into binaries, this reminder carries the weight of centuries. The message of Lalla and Nund Rishi was never sectarian; their voices rose from experience, compassion, and the yearning for purity.
The great scholar Moti Lal Saqi summarized their poetic kinship in one crystalline line: “Vaakh and Shuruk are the two sides of the same coin.” To understand this coin—the currency of Kashmiri spiritual wisdom—one must look beyond their differences and enter the shared interior that birthed them.
Both the vakh and shrukh emerged from an oral culture where memory was scripture and speech was survival. The people of their time did not read; they listened. Poetry was not composed for manuscripts but for fire-sides, village lanes, pastoral gatherings, and spiritual circles. This necessity shaped both forms into brief, aphoristic utterances that distilled life’s greatest truths into lines that were easy to recite, remember, and transmit. But the similarity of form hides the contrast of temperament: Lalla’s vakhs erupt like sparks from an inner fire, while Nund Rishi’s shrukhs fall like dew on grass.
Lalla speaks with a voice that seems to emerge from the deepest chambers of the self. Her poetry is not crafted—it bursts forth. She is an explorer of consciousness, a rebel against rigid ritual, a seeker who burned through layers of ignorance to find the flame of Shiva within. Her vakhs tremble with metaphysical urgency. When she says, “The house burned down and I became free,” she is speaking of a fire that consumes both the external and the internal: the house of illusions, the house of ego, the house of worldly attachments. Her imagery is fire, breath, ash, melting, dissolution—verbs of transformation. She speaks in metaphors that sometimes appear abstract but are rooted in lived experience. Her poetic world is the inner cosmos, a universe lit by the single lamp of awareness.
Nund Rishi’s shrukhs, in contrast, walk through the soil of Kashmir. His voice rises from compassion, from witnessing hunger, injustice, deceit, cruelty, and human suffering in the valley. While Lalla ascends into metaphysical skies, Nund Rishi walks among shepherds, farmers, mothers, orphans, and laborers, speaking to them in simple, moral clarity. Where she burns, he heals. Where she questions, he consoles. Where she warns against illusion, he warns against deceit. His imagery draws from milk, grass, fields, cold nights, and human struggles. He gives divine counsel through the vocabulary of everyday life. His shrukhs are moral lanterns meant to guide the community. If Lalla’s poetry is a solitary pilgrim’s ascent to the peak of self-realization, Nund Rishi’s is a shepherd moving among his flock with gentle instruction.
Yet both are driven by a single yearning: to cleanse the self. Both reject hollow religiosity. Both challenge hypocrisy. Both refuse to bend before empty rituals. Lalla declares that ultimate truth lies within—no temple, mosque, scripture, or ritual can substitute for inner awakening. Nund Rishi echoes her: God is not found in performance but in pure conduct, honesty, compassion, and humility. They approach purity differently—one inward, one outward—but purity remains their shared horizon.
Even their metre mirrors their temperaments. Lalla’s vakhs are fluid, unpredictable, shaped by the rhythm of revelation. They do not fit into the Sanskritic precision of chandas nor into Persian prosody. They breathe with the rise and fall of spoken Kashmiri, breaking where a new realization strikes, flowing where contemplation deepens. Her metre is like a flame—steady, sudden, changing shape as experience demands.
Nund Rishi’s shrukhs, while not rigid, possess a more measured cadence. Many take the form of four balanced lines, reflective and proverb-like. His rhythm serves a pedagogical purpose: the verse must be easy for people to remember, recite, and apply. His metre is like a steady lantern, glowing consistently through the night.
Their imagery reflects their differing dimensions. Lalla’s metaphors revolve around the metaphysical: fire, light, breath, dissolution, stillness, and inner skies. Even when she uses earthly images, she transforms them into spiritual gateways. Nund Rishi’s metaphors come from pastoral life: grazing fields, hunger, milk, snow, toil, harvests. They carry moral clarity rather than metaphysical abstraction. Yet sky and soil are part of the same world; their union creates the ecology of Kashmiri mysticism.
Historically, they stand as the twin origins of Kashmiri literature. Before them, the Kashmiri language had not yet held philosophical depth in its own tongue. Persian ruled the courts, Sanskrit ruled the pandits, but Kashmiri ruled the common heart. It was through Lalla and Nund Rishi that the language first spoke of the soul. Lalla gave it introspection; Nund Rishi gave it compassion. Lalla gave it awakening; Nund Rishi gave it harmony. Lalla turned speech into revelation; Nund Rishi turned speech into moral instruction. Together they shaped Kashmiri spiritual poetics and defined its earliest literary consciousness.
Even their cultural roles are complementary. Lalla was a solitary rebel who walked away from home, marriage, and every rigid boundary that attempted to confine her. She refused to conform, refused to fear, refused to bow. She spoke with the unfiltered authority of direct experience. Nund Rishi was a community healer, a guide, a saint of the people. He lived among them, shared their concerns, understood their struggles, and offered counsel. If she was the blazing fire that melts illusions, he was the soft glow that warms the wounded.
To describe their relationship poetically, one might say: Lalla lit the lamp, and Nund Rishi ensured it continued to burn. She awakened the solitary seeker; he awakened the collective soul. She burned illusions; he healed wounds. She placed the mirror before the self; he placed the mirror before society. Together, they completed a spiritual circle—inner awakening and outer righteousness.
Every poet of Kashmir who came after—whether Habba Khatoon, Arnimal, Wahab Khar, or Rasool Mir—carried traces of Lalla’s fire and Nund Rishi’s fragrance. Their influence seeped into the very soil of Kashmiri literature. Even contemporary poets echo their cadences unknowingly; their rhythm has become the natural rhythm of Kashmiri spiritual speech.
Their poetic kinship, when viewed from the distance of centuries, reveals an astonishing truth: their verses are not just poetry; they are lived philosophy. They are spoken wisdom. They are the earliest scriptures of Kashmiri experience. They are a reminder that revelation does not always come through institutions but often through wandering souls who are brave enough to see truth directly.
The oral transmission of their verses—first collected by disciples, later memorized by devotees—preserved a treasure that could easily have vanished like mist in a valley constantly swept by historical forces. Baba Naseeb-ud-Din Gazi’s act of preserving these verses was not mere documentation; it was an act of civilizational protection. Without such figures, the Kashmiri language might have been bereft of its oldest spiritual poetry, and Kashmir might have forgotten the luminous bridge between Lalla’s fire and Nund Rishi’s compassion.
Modern scholarship, such as that of Shamshad Kralawari, helps unearth the deep linguistic connections of these forms and situates them in a global context. But the essence remains timeless: these poets cannot be reduced to religious identities. They are spiritual democrats. They spoke to all. They rose above all divisions. Their poetry carries no borders. Their message is for humanity.
Today, when Kashmir, like the rest of the world, struggles amidst noise, crisis, identity conflicts, and spiritual fatigue, their words return like two lamps glowing in the fog. Lalla’s vakh whispers: Look within; burn illusion. Nund Rishi’s shrukh replies: Live with compassion; walk with humility. Together they remind us that truth is a flame and compassion is its light.
Thus, the vakhs of Lalla and the shrukhs of Nund Rishi do not merely coexist—they entwine like two strands of the same sacred thread. They are distinct yet inseparable, different yet harmonious. They are the breath of Kashmir, the whisper of its soul, the beginning of its literature, and the moral compass of its people. For centuries, they have been sung, remembered, meditated upon, and passed from generation to generation like light from one lamp to another. In them, Kashmir found not just two poets but its first two philosophers, first two spiritual revolutionaries, and its eternal literary beginning.
Their poetry is not a relic; it is a living companion. It continues to guide, comfort, challenge, and awaken. And as long as Kashmir breathes, the vakhs of Lalla and the shrukhs of Nund Rishi will remain its heartbeat—two lamps glowing beside each other in the great shrine of memory.
The writer can be reached at sanjaypanditasp@gmail.com.
