Today’s poem is another one I remember from growing up: “Moko Kahan Dhundhe Re Bande,” one of Kabir’s best-known and most frequently sung poems.
Kabir’s poems have survived both in manuscripts and through people singing them, so there isn’t one definitive text. I began with this compact five-line version before listening to the longer forms people sing.
The poem
मोकों कहाँ ढूँढ़े बंदे, मैं तो तेरे पास में।
ना मैं देवल ना मैं मसजिद, ना काबे कैलास में।
ना तो कौन क्रिया-कर्म में, नहीं योग बैराग में।
खोजी होय तो तुरतै मिलिहौं, पल भर की तलास में।
कहैं कबीर सुनो भाई साधो, सब स्वाँसों की स्वाँस में॥
Roman transliteration
Moko kahan dhoondhe bande, main to tere paas mein.
Na main deval, na main masjid, na Kaabe Kailas mein.
Na to kaun kriya-karam mein, nahin yog bairag mein.
Khoji hoy to turtai milihau, pal bhar ki talaash mein.
Kahain Kabir, suno bhai sadho, sab swaanson ki swaans mein.
A deliberately plain translation
Where do you search for me, person? I am close beside you.
I am not in temple or mosque, not in Kaaba or Kailash.
Not in any rite or ritual, not in yoga or renunciation.
If you are a seeker, I will meet you at once, within a moment’s search.
Kabir says: Listen, brother seeker, I am in the breath of every breath.
This is only a reading aid. Bande can mean a person, servant or devotee, while sadho addresses a seeker or holy person. “The breath of every breath” stays deliberately close to Kabir’s final phrase rather than trying to explain it.
First reading
Kabir was another of the poets I was required to read growing up, and this poem in particular stayed with me. I am not especially religious, but I grew up surrounded by religious ritual and went to an all-boys Catholic school.
The poem suggests that much of what surrounds religion is cultural affectation and unnecessary to “knowing God.” That was an interesting contrast to the importance placed on following rites exactly, something drummed into us early.
I also have to admit that Kabir referring to himself in the third person in the final line amuses me greatly.
Hearing it
I listened to Dastaan Live performing the poem at the Mahindra Kabira Festival. It was an unexpectedly folk-rock rendering of what I had always pictured as a soft and self-reflective set of lines. This reading wasn’t for me, but it did give the poem a more upbeat interpretation.
Reading a polished translation
Here is Rabindranath Tagore’s (of course!) translation from the 1915 Songs of Kabir:
O servant, where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee.
I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:
Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation.
If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time.
Kabir says, “O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.”
Tagore’s version feels much more scriptural than the plain translation, but it captures the rhythm of Kabir’s repetition well.
What I learned
Most of what we know about Kabir’s life is tangled up with later legend. He is thought to have lived in fifteenth-century Varanasi and worked as a weaver in a Muslim julaha family. Tradition links him to the Hindu teacher Ramanand, but trying to file Kabir under either religion rather misses the point.
Temple is paired with mosque, and the Kaaba with Mount Kailash. Kabir is taking aim at both traditions. He then turns on ritual, yoga and renunciation for good measure. Nobody gets to claim a private route to God.
Kabir is associated with nirgun devotion, the idea of a divine reality without form or attributes. He isn’t rejecting spiritual experience here. He is rejecting the idea that we need a sacred building, a long journey or a perfectly observed ritual to reach it. The answer is already beside you, in “the breath of every breath.”
Kabir was an oral poet. His songs passed from singer to singer and were written down by other people later, which is why collections and performances don’t always use exactly the same words. The longer versions sung today aren’t simply mistakes added to a fixed original. They are part of how the poem has lived.
Tagore’s English version has its own history. It appeared in Songs of Kabir in 1915, drawing on texts collected by Kshitimohan Sen, with help from Ajit Kumar Chakravarty. Its “dost” and “thou” belong to the English devotional language of that period. That may be where some of the scriptural tone I heard comes from.
Rereading it
Until I read the history, I had missed the Hindu and Muslim comparison Kabir makes by placing temple beside mosque and the Kaaba beside Kailash.
The line or image I kept thinking about
Given how deep and meaningful this poem is, I am surprised that what stays with me most is its repetitive syntax. Kabir tells us again and again what God is not, giving more weight to the moment when he tells us what God is. I suspect I will find myself reaching for that construction in my own writing.