ॐ नमः शिवाय ॐ THE POEMS OF LALLA OF KASHMIR JK/NKK 86

JK/NKK 86
mal vvandi zolum,
jigar morum     |
tèli lal na:v dra:m,
yèli döly trö:vimas tötiy     ||

I burned up
impurity of mind,
killed (the desires of)
the heart.
I got the name
"Lalla"
when I devoted myself
to Him.

Note: This is sometimes printed as a half-quatrain, in which case it is often believed to be an extension of JK/NKK 74. I prefer to let it stand by itself, with half-verses. There is much uncertainty about the derivation of the name "Lalla," which in the poet's own writing was usually "Lali," and may have been a short form of Lalita. Traditional writing systems did not distinguish well between vowels, or between presence and absence of a vowel, so we can read the name in this text as "Lala" or as "Lal" (a form she used in compounds). In Kashmiri, "lol" can mean "devotion," and I am inclined toward that in this case. But Muslims like to point out, rightly, that "l'Allah" means "belonging to God," a meaning that she may have intended here. Islam, perhaps in a Sufi form, was spreading in Kashmir in Lalla's time.

ॐ नमः शिवाय ॐ