Mullah dyuthum narai bharan,
Dolah guharan paran kyut;
Alai balai panas niwaran,
Amrit chhakan biyan kyut.
Malan asan hanga phut shubali,
Pakan alit walit ket;
Khewan gusht kasam nali,
Katshi tali tsalek patila het.
Rotsan nah tah khiwan balbali,
Achan tahtsalan katsi tali het.
Yusa ror chheh saran sangaran palan,
Sui kunih piyin malan yit!
I saw a priest blowing out fire (and)
beating a drum to others;
All evils presenting to himself,
Nectar sprinkling to others.
The priest have nice big turbans on their heads;
They walk about daintily dressed.
Dressed in priestly robes they indulge in mutton.
They run away with the cooking pots under the arm-pit.
They pretend that it does not agree with them (yet) they go on eating.
They watch and run away (with the food) under their arm-pit.
Whatever noise rolls in lakes, hills and rocks,
May it come and fall on priests!
~ Nund Rishi (trs. Anand Koul,1930)
While in Lal Ded’s sayings the criticism of orthodox religious establishment of Brahmins was sharp, her silence on the orthodoxy of ‘mausulas’ (‘Muslims’ of Pandit Shrivara) is perhaps understandable, that particular orthodoxy was not yet primal at the source of power, and it was not her concern. This criticism came only after her time, when the religion of the state completely changed, it comes from sayings of Nund Rishi. In the above given verses, he presents a caricature of a muslim priest, a Mulla.
Interestingly, the only oft quoted clue to Nund Rishi from Jonaraja’s Dvitīyā Rājataraṅginī is about arrest of a certain popular Mulla/Moulvi Noorud Din during the time of Ali Shah (Zain-ul-Abidin’s elder brother) time for being a rebel.
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