Kabir is perhaps one of the most outstanding examples of a poet-saint. Which statement is incorrect in regards to Kabir?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Kabir did not attempt to describe the ‘Ultimate Reality’
Option (1) Verses ascribed to Kabir have been compiled in three distinct but overlapping traditions — A correct statement (not the answer). The three are the Kabir Bijak of the Kabirpanth in Varanasi, the Kabir Granthavali of the Dadupanth in Rajasthan, and the compositions in the Adi Granth Sahib.
Option (2) Some of Kabir’s poems are composed in the sant bhasha — A correct statement (not the answer). His poems survive in several languages and dialects, and some are in sant bhasha, the special language of the nirguna poets.
Option (3) Kabir did not attempt to describe the ‘Ultimate Reality’ — Incorrect statement (the answer). Kabir described the Ultimate Reality again and again, drawing on many traditions: as Allah, Khuda, Hazrat and Pir from Islam, and as Alakh, Nirakar, Brahman and Atman from Vedantic traditions. His ulatbansi (upside-down sayings) show how hard it was to capture that reality in words, but he never stopped trying.
Option (4) Kabir is a source of inspiration for those who question entrenched religious and social institutions — A correct statement (not the answer). Kabir was and still is a source of inspiration for those who question entrenched religious and social institutions, ideas and practices in their search for the Divine.
NCERT (2025-26): “8.1 Weaving a divine fabric: Kabir … Kabir (c. fourteenth-fifteenth centuries) is perhaps one of the most outstanding examples of a poet-saint who emerged within this context. Historians have painstakingly tried to reconstruct his life and times through a study of compositions attributed to him as well as later hagiographies. Such exercises have proved to be challenging on a number of counts. Verses ascribed to Kabir have been compiled in three distinct but overlapping traditions.… …Kabir’s poems have survived in several languages and dialects; and some are composed in the special language of nirguna poets, the sant bhasha.… …Also striking is the range of traditions Kabir drew on to describe the Ultimate Reality. These include Islam: he described the Ultimate Reality as Allah, Khuda, Hazrat and Pir. He also used terms drawn from Vedantic traditions, alakh (the unseen), nirakar (formless), Brahman, Atman, etc.… …What this rich corpus of verses also signifies is that Kabir was and is to the present a source of inspiration for those who questioned entrenched religious and social institutions, ideas and practices in their search for the Divine.…” |