Lal Ded once entered a temple in which her spiritual guru, Sidh, was worshipping the idols. She wanted to show to him that God was present everywhere and was not limited to the temple. Sidh asked her what she had come for and she told him that she wanted to answer the call of nature, and being naked she came into the temple for privacy. He hastily led her out telling her that it was a place where idols were worshipped and it would be sacrilegious to do in it what she intended to. She asked him to show her a place where there were no idols. He led her to a place and there Lal Ded removed some earth under which idols were found. The he led her to another place and there too she removed the earth and idols were found. The Lal Ded addressed to him:-
Diva wata diver wata
Heri bun chhuh ikawat
Puz kas karak huta bhatta
Kar manas pavanas sangat
Soi shela chhai patas tah pithas
Soi shela chhai utam desh
Soi shela chhai pheravanis gratas
Shiv chhui kruth tai tsen upadesh
Idol is of stone, temple is of stone;
Above (temple) and below (idol) are one;
Which of them wilt thou worship, O foolish Pandit?
Cause thou the union of mind and soul.
The same stone is in the road and in the pedestal:
The same stone is the sacred place:
The same stone is the turning mill;
Shiva is difficult to be attained, take a hint for guidance (from thy guru)
~ ‘Life Sketch of Laleshwari – A Great Hermitess of Kashmir’
by Pandit Anand Koul
The Indian Antiquary
November, 1921
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I now have the answer to the all important question, ‘If whole of Kashmir is holy, where does one pee?’
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My favorite Lal Ded story :
Once The Seer was standing under a Chinar tree which was upon a busy road. As was Her fashion She was naked ( how could a person roam naked in Kashmir in what is considered a mini Ice age era has always puzzled me.)
She was generally ignored by most of the people, but after some time she noticed a young man approach her. When he got nearer She crossed Her legs and covered the upper portion of Her body with Her hair.
Bemused, the young man asked her " why try to cover yourself now ??"
Lal Ded replied " to all the people who crossed here, I was just a mad Woman, but you approached me as a man, and I only did what a lady is expected to do at such time".
In my humble opinion if one has to understand the fire, the brutal directness of Her poetry, one must believe in this story first.
Dinesh
Seems to be variation of the story drawn from Islamic sources about meeting of Lal Ded with Hamdani. Given that most of the stories come from oral traditions, these stories in the end tell little about the figures themselves but more about what the teller wanted those figures to mean.
Beloved valley of ascetics is doomed because of her two sons- one was illiterate and other arrogant.
Evolution is language of freedom.
‘What name can you give to the source from which all names have sprung?’
Lal Ded