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Ravidas – from the Adi Granth 19
Identifier
017181
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Ravidas – from the Adi Granth 19
[extracted from Songs of the Saints of India – translated by Professor John Stratton Hawley and Professor Mark Juergensmeyer]
The walls are made of water, pillared by air,
sealed together with the mortar of blood,
A cell of veins and meat and bones,
a cage to hold this poor bird.
Who cares what is yours or mine?-
for we nest in this tree only briefly.
As high as you can build, as low as you can dig,
your size will never swell the dimensions of a grave;
Those lovely curls, that turban tied so rakishly-
they’ll soon be turned to ash.
If you've counted on the beauty of your wife and home
without the name of Ram, you've already lost the game.
And me: even though my birth is mean,
my ancestry by everyone despised,
I have always trusted in you, King Ram,
says Ravidas, a tanner of hides.