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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