Siv va: ki:Sav va: zin va:
kamàlaza na:th na:màdö:rin yuh |
mè abali kö:sytan bavà-rvaz,
suh va: suh va: suh va: suh ||
Shiva or Keshava or Buddha or
He who is known as the
Lotus-born Lord (Brahma),
may he cure me, a weak woman,
of the sickness of
embodied existence.
Either He or He or He or He.
Note: I am convinced that here Lalla was allowing some feminist sarcasm to creep into her teaching. First of all, Lalla knows perfectly well that Jin/Zin (Buddha) was a religious leader and not a deity. The only thing that these four names have in common is that they all represent male personages, whether human or divine. They represent different sects (Shaivism Vaishnavism, Buddhism, and Vedic Hinduism), but sectarianism was of no interest to Lalla. She refers to herself as a "weak woman," but she uses a term that is pure Sanskrit to do it (as are most of the words in this poem). We know that in Lalla's time many women in Kashmir could speak and read Sanskrit, and we know that she could at least read it (she told us so in JK/NKK 45, which I will translate soon). There was no sense in which Lalla could have been called "weak." She is commenting wryly on the predominance of male figures in religion, and saying that she doesn't care which of them cures her of the sickness of embodied, reincarnating existence, as long as one of them does.
ॐ नमः शिवाय ॐ
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