The Vaakh in Kashmiri
Kaeti bozi daai myon meti
diyi taar
Aamein taakein poen zan
shramaan
Zuv chum bramaan ghar gassa-ha “…Lal Ded
Translation
(With a rope of
loosely spun thread
I drag my fragile boat across the sea.
O that the Divine would hear my plea
And carry me safely to the farther shore.
Like water held
in an unbaked clay cup,
My life seeps away, drop by drop.
O that I might reach my true home,
Before I am lost entirely.
Commentary on the Vaakh
Lal Ded’s Vaakh presents human life as a perilous crossing of the Bhavsāgara, the ocean of worldly existence. The soul desires to return to its primordial home, yet asks in anguish: with such inadequate means, how shall I reach the farther shore, O Lord? The boat is the embodied self, vulnerable and unstable, while the loosely spun thread represents the frailty of individual effort. The seeker pulls, strives and longs to advance, yet knows that the means at her disposal are painfully inadequate. The Vaakh therefore becomes a cry of metaphysical helplessness: the soul remembers, however dimly, its origin in the Divine and yearns to return to that true home, but asks how such a fragile being can reach the farther shore without grace.
This spiritual tension finds a close echo in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna declares, “I become the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth and death” for those whose consciousness is fixed upon Him. The Yogavāsiṣṭha similarly teaches, “Cittam eva hi saṃsāraḥ”, the mind itself is Saṃsāra, suggesting that the ocean to be crossed is also the inward world of desire, attachment and misidentification. In Kashmir Shaivism, liberation is ultimately Pratyabhijñā, recognition of one’s identity with universal consciousness.
A
less frequently quoted Śiva Sūtra,
“Dānam ātmajñānam”, teaches that the highest giving is knowledge of the
Self. Lalla’s farther shore is therefore not merely another realm. It is the
recovery of the soul’s own deepest nature.
The image of water leaking from an unbaked clay cup intensifies the urgency. Life is passing irreversibly. The body cannot hold it forever. Lalla’s prayer is thus both intimate and universal: may the soul reach its eternal source before the fragile vessel breaks and the opportunity for recognition is lost.
My Commentary on the Painting
The painting is a remarkably sensitive visual interpretation of Lalleshwari’s celebrated Vaakh, “Aami panna sodras naavi chhas lamaan”. At the upper centre, the tiny boat appears almost helpless within an immeasurably larger pictorial space. The thin red thread attached to it gives material form to Lalla’s “loosely spun thread”, the precarious means by which the embodied soul attempts to cross the Bhavsāgara, the ocean of worldly existence. Its fragility is essential. The soul desires to return to its primordial home, yet asks in anguish: with such inadequate means, how shall I reach the farther shore, O Lord?
The
dominant blues transform the surface into both turbulent water and metaphysical
infinity. Pale blue suggests movement and uncertainty, while the deeper
ultramarine passages evoke unfathomable consciousness. Against them, red and
orange appear as concentrated flashes of Śakti, the energy of striving,
suffering and spiritual transformation. The dark edges surrounding the torn
openings intensify the sense of danger and transition between bondage and
liberation.
The
rough, layered texture is equally significant. Nothing is smooth or secure. The
surface appears worn, ruptured and vulnerable, visually corresponding to
Lalla’s image of the unbaked clay vessel from which the water of life steadily
escapes. The ochre manuscript frame, filled with script, surrounds this
existential drama with the presence of inherited wisdom. Yet the centre breaks
through textual order into direct experience.
( Avtar Mota )
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.
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