Publisher's Synopsis
Kabir was an extraordinary oral poet whose works have been sung and recited by millions throughout North India for half a millennium. He was perhaps illiterate, and he preached an abrasive, sometimes shocking, always uncompromising message exhorting his audience to shed their delusions, pretensions, and empty orthodoxies in favor of an intense, direct, personal confrontation with truth. Thousands of poems are popularly attributed to Kabir, but only a few written collections have survived over the centuries, The Bijak is one of the most important anthologies, being the sacred book of the Kabir Panth and the main representative of the Eastern tradition of Kabir's verses. Shukdev Singh and Linda Hess have accomplished a translation of real grace and remarkable accuracy. The introduction and notes explore Kabir's work, place it in its initial context, and explore its meaning for modern time.
