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Lalla - the Yogini

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Lalla - the Yogini
A study from the perspective of Kashmir Shaivism

Author: Prof. M L Koul

Book Review by Dr. K L Chowdhury

Several years back, I had the privilege of writing an introduction to Prof. Koul’s second book, Kashmir - Wail of a Valley – Atrocity and Terror, and of reviewing his first book, Kashmir – Past and Present, both valuable treatises that deal with the history of Kashmir and, especially, the invasion into, and destruction of, her cultural, religious, and civilizational foundations by foreign proselytisers, iconoclasts and jihadis – a subject near to the heart of the author who is braving exile for the last twenty-three years like the rest of us. In that sense, the present book is of a different vintage, for it takes you beyond the mundane, beyond the strife and struggle of life in exile, into the realms of poetry and aesthetics, scriptures and spirituality, philosophy and literature, and other finer human sensibilities. He has tackled a subject not beyond the scope of his genius and come out eminently successful in portraying Lalla Ded in a different light, holding a prism of understanding in front of her soul-stirring vaakhs, creating a rainbow of seven different colours of her soulful utterances. Yes, the seven chapters of Lalla – the Yogini are transformational in understanding the true stature of Lalla Ded and her lasting impact on the consciousness of generations of Kashmiris. They impart a new persona to one about whom there is only nebulous understanding through the vaakhs that have come down through oral tradition and were never written down during her life time. They give shape and form to this saint-poetess who straddled like a spiritual colossus across the vast expanse of the valley of Kashmir. In that sense this book is a valuable addition to the extant literature on Lalla Ded.

Lalla – the Yogini is essentially a compilation of seven essays that have already appeared serially in Kashmir Sentinel. To see the whole corpus of the work in the form of a book is refreshing and inviting. It makes them quite readable.

The first essay discusses the Buddhist concept of Sunya, (or should it be Shuniya) – a depressing and cynical theory of the universe being unreal, illusory, or empty, something at total variance with a positive and real-world view of Kashmiri Shavism. Here Prof. Koul wades through the forest of literature on Shuniya, and the fierce intellectual debate between Buddhist scholars and Shavites, who finally embrace the concept of Shuniya but give it a different interpretation, which is positive and affirmative. To the Shavites the world is real, not void or empty. Shiva is the Being, Shakti the Becoming, and their unity is the Absolute Reality. In this positive world-view there is also scope to accommodate other views, and that is how Shavites accepted Shuniya and remodelled and redefined it as ‘shunyam ashuniyam iti ukhtam’, which in translation means shuniya is ashuniya, or void is non-void. It is like the multiplication of two negatives resulting in a positive in mathematics. Well, I will leave it the reader to try and make sense out of it.

Of the seven Lalla Ded vaakhs that Prof. Koul has selected here, the last sounds the best that traces Lalla’s spiritual journey as she rejects the ritualistic trappings of tanter and manter, and casts away the mind influences to be in ecstasy because she has reached a state of Suniya, and merged with Shuniya:

Tanther gali tai mather mostei
Manther gol tai mostei chyath
Chyath gol tai kehn tin a kune
Sunes shuniya meelith gav.
Shuniya for Lalla is the state of bliss, of transcendence, not emptiness nor nothingness.

In the second essay, Prof. Koul goes on to explain the concepts of Shiva as the highest metaphysical reality, being svatta siddha (self proved), prakash (light and luminosity) and jnan (knowledge, all knowing). Shiva is transcendental, beyond time and space and yet immanent, creating a web in all things and permeating everywhere while being absorbed in self. He speaks about Shiva consciousness as consciousness supreme, and touches on the various Shiva concepts from Utpaldeva’s Shiv Strotavali, to Abhinavgupta’s Tantraloke, describing the universe as a manifestation of Shiva as prakash and Shakti as vimarsha or vibrations.

Lalla was a Shiv yogini who worked her way up in the spiritual journey to experience the light of Shiva consciousness and give profound utterance to her ecstasy:

Gagan chui, bhootal chui dyan pawan to raath chui.

She speaks of Shiva’s universal presence; she experiences the thrill of merging with Shiva in the lake of immortal bliss: laya karemas amrit saras.

In the third essay on the Guru tradition in Lalla vaakhs, I would like to quote the author: “A shiva guru moulds his disciple in sync with his cultural setting and bequest. He roots him in the indigenous soil to put him on the highway of quest; his icons are native, his gods are native.” That is exactly how her guru, Siddha Srikanth, shepherds Lalla in her quest to know her innate reality. His presence and personal grace (shaktipath) breathes in her vaakhs for she holds him supreme: gwarakath hirdyas manzbag ratem; and he imparts the core precept, the kunai vachun, and tells her to peep inside herself - neber dhopnum inder achun.

The fourth essay deals with AUM, the divine Vedic symbol, the primordial sound, the ultimate reality and the spiritual charm, which equates with Brahman: om iti Brahman, om iti sarvam. It is the sacred symbol, the core mantra (bijmantra) Lalla received from her guru which transformed her from ashes to gold:

omai akui achur parum,
soi ha mali rotum vondas manz,
siu ha mali kane peth gurum to churum,
asis sas, sapdeis soun.

Lalla was a yogini in the true sense, there is no denying; she reached the prakashsthan of Yoga, the state of full union with the divine. That is what the author essays in the fifth chapter of his book. He describes Yoga as ‘the metaphor of Indian spirituality’, and provides copious references to it in the broad oeuvre of Indian scriptures. While Patanjali’s sutra underlines eight limbs of yoga from yam, niyam, asan, pranayam, pratyahar, dharna, dhyan, and samadhi, it is the Shiva yoga that offers a practical synthesis of the worldly and spiritual destiny of man, a gratification of all that defines the material world and a sublimation of spiritual pursuits, a self-realisation or self-recognition (pratybhijna) that man is a part of the macrocosm, the essence of Shiva.

The author takes us next to the doctrine of Pratybhijna that lies at the core of Shavisim, and helps our understanding of the essential tenet of Shiva philosophy. God created man in his image, the bible says, but Pratibhijna goes further in identifying man with the Brahman, the ultimate reality, and identifying the self with Brahman. Aham Brhamosi – I am Brahman; Tat tuvam asi – thou art that.

When man removes the veil of delusion that clouds his cognition, he sees himself as Brhaman. Pratibhijna is a doctrine that universalises god and man. This is the beauty of Kashmiri Shaviism. There is a god in each one of us. How can I hate another being when he is part of the universal consciousness, or Brahman? Lalla had woken to this ultimate truth through hard practice. She knew she had all that the lord has except the veil that clouded her understanding which needed to be torn asunder:

makris mal azan chalum manas,
ada labum zanies zan (self-recognition).

In the last essay on Bhakti in Lalla vaakhs, Prof. Koul defines Bhakti as motiveless service or total surrender to God, tracing its evolution from the Vedic times down to the Bhakthi movement of the Alvar saint poets, and Kabir, Guru Nanak, Tulsi and Surdas. Lalla who practised Bhakti yoga, is the ‘fore runner’ of the movement in the mountain-grit valley. Her bhakhti graduated from formal ritual worship to the subtler techniques of merger with the eternal:

deva vatta divar vatta,
petha bon chui ekavata
Kas poozi karak hatta batta,
kar pranas tu pavanas sanghata.

In the eighth chapter the author makes a strong case for preserving the pristine purity of the numerous words, phrases, and expressions of, what he calls The Lalla Ded lexicon; and in the ninth chapter he highlight the enduring influence of Lalla in Kashmir and beyond, down several hundred years, a legacy which is under threat of being appropriated, tampered with, and distorted. Creating a Lalla Ded consciousness is the need of the hour in the troubled times through which our nation, and in particular Kashmir, is going through.

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