Part 46 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through Indian poetry. Janabai, the Marathi poet-saint associated with the Varkari devotional tradition, brings the world of domestic labour into poetry. Her songs imagine devotion not as something separate from ordinary responsibilities, but as a presence that can enter sweeping, grinding, cleaning and caring. Her voice also challenges the assumptio…
Part 32 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through Indian poetry. Andal, the Tamil poet-saint associated with the Vaishnava bhakti tradition, is remembered for devotional poems in which the desire for the divine becomes vivid, personal and embodied. Her works, especially the Tiruppavai and Nachiyar Tirumoli, unite ritual, song, longing and communal practice. This essay explores key ideas and …
Part 22 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through India’s poetic heritage. Tukaram, the seventeenth-century Marathi saint-poet, is remembered for abhangs: devotional songs that speak in a direct, intimate voice. His poetry belongs to the Varkari tradition associated with devotion to Vithoba of Pandharpur. Rather than presenting spirituality as a privilege reserved for learned elites, Tukaram…
Part 3 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through India’s poetic heritage. Mirabai, the sixteenth-century poet associated with Rajasthan and the Krishna bhakti tradition, composed songs of intense devotion, longing and spiritual independence. Her poems often speak in the voice of a lover who cannot accept a life without the beloved. In this tradition, Krishna is at once a divine presence and …
Part 2 of The Poetry Pulse’s 100-part journey through India’s poetic heritage. Kabir’s couplets are brief, but their compact form carries layers of spiritual, ethical and social criticism. One famous doha imagines a potter shaping clay, while the clay reminds the potter that one day the roles will reverse: the person who handles the earth will eventually return to it. Versions of this couplet dif…
