MYSTICISM IN THE POETRY OF LAL DED (LALLESHWARI)

India has a long tradition of saints, poets, devotees, mystics and religious traditions
and the changing patterns of devotion from time to time and from sect to sect. The hybridity
in cultures, languages and religions in India has produced abundant material in the course of
time that has been attracting scholars all over the world. Man has been worshipping god,
nature or virtues. Mysticism is a record of man’s worship of god, almighty or the nature.
History is evident that man has been taking refuge of religion to express his mysticism.
Similarly, women who could not express their discontent against the parochial codes openly
embraced mysticism. Religion provides them the courage to attack the pompous patriarchal
and religious practices, as well as the solace and escape from the tyranny of the cryptograph
of man dominated society. This paper attempts to explore the mysticism in the poetry of Lal
Ded, the fourteenth century Kashmiri female poet. Her poetry is a confluence of Saivism and
Sufism. The religious ecstasy in her Vakhs exhibits the mysticism that is captured by a female
poet of the fourteenth century wherein the impact of Muslim intrusion was very strong in the
valley. Her poetry not only celebrates the power of the Almighty but also attack inhuman
treatment that she gets from the contemporary society due to her religious conviction. The
man dominated society attempted to suppress Lal Ded and her poetry. Even the historians
seem biased as they do not write about Ded. Still, Lal Ded emerges as one of the dominant
voices in the tradition of Indian female mystics.