Nund Rishi

Nund Rishi Poetry and Politics in Medieval Kashmir

Hardback (31 May 2024)

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Publisher's Synopsis

Nund Rishi (1378-1440) is considered one of the most important Sufi poets from Kashmir. He is revered as the 'flag-bearer of Kashmir' ('Alamdar-e Kashmir), and his poems draw upon the hyperlocal imagery of the Kashmiri literary universe. Despite his popular status as a spiritual successor of Lal Ded, Nund Rishi's poetry has received next to no attention in modern scholarship. This book embodies Abir Bazaz's enduring engagement with the poetic corpus of Nund Rishi. By unpacking the cryptic philosophical and philological riddles in the poems, Bazaz unearths a negative theology in Nund Rishi's mystical poetry. He argues convincingly that the themes of Islam, Death, the Nothing and the Apocalyptic in these poems reveal an existential politics. Bazaz further suggests that the apophatic style of Nund Rishi's poems is in turn mirrored in mystical poetry across South Asia and the larger Indo-Persian world.

Book information

ISBN: 9781009100458
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Pub date:
DEWEY: 891.499
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Number of pages: 250
Weight: -1g