Songs of the Saints of India

The verses of the great religious poets of north India stand at the fount of the Hindi language, and many would say that they also represent its greatest flowering. These poems are awash in universal themes--cruelty, loneliness, hope, infatuation, the weight of time--and are well known to Indians in every walk of life today. Their authors are revered not only as poets but as saints through a hagiographical literature that extends to comic books, TV serials, and motion pictures. Songs of the Saints of India presents six of the best known of these poets--Ravidas, Kabir, Nanak, Surdas, Mirabai, and Tulsidas--with a biographical and interpretive essay on each and a selection of representative verses in original translations. The book provides a new way to be introduced to Hinduism as it is lived today.