Sunday, October 7, 2012

DEVOTEE KABIR DAS







Kabir Das

He was born on 1389 at Lahartalao, Varanasi from a Brahmin lady but he was abandoned at birth and raised by a Muslim couple, therefore he was sometimes considered a Muslim or an outcaste. Later he was adopted by Ramananda Swami and became his disciple, but then he continued with his own Sampradaya called Nirakari, meaning that his followers worshiped the “formless”.

When he visited Puri, Kabir was wearing a Muslim cap and so the Pandas refused him entry into the temple. Suddenly they saw that miraculously all the people going in and out the temple appeared to wear a similar Muslim cap. Also, during the night the Bada Panda had a dream where Jagannatha told him directly that Kabir is a great devotee and he should be allowed to enter the temple and have Darshan.

Once the sea had come up to the Simhadvara, the main gate of the temple, and Sri Jagannatha asked that Kabir Das should be brought there to stop the sea. The King, impressed, granted him some land, now called Kabir Chata or Kabir Chaura Matha. In his honour the special recipe of watery rice called tanka torani was introduced in the daily worship to Sri Jagannatha. According to the teachings of Kabir, God resides in the heart of the worshiper, and even takes the form of tortoise or boar, so nobody is really impure. Still today, at the Kabir Choura Matha pilgrims take a spoonful of water mixed with Mahaprasadam rice, called Torani.


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