20. Lall Dedh: Guran won-nam kunui...

گورن وونم کُنُے وژُن

نیبرٔ دوپنم اندر اژُن۔

سُے میْے للہِ گو واکھ تہِ وژُن،

توے میْے ہیوتم‌ ننگے نژُن۔

 

Goran wonunam kunui wachhun,

Nebrih dopnam andar achhun.

Sui mey Lalle go waakh te wachhun,

Tawai mey hyotum nangai nachhun.

Vocabulary:

گورِ: Guru: Teacher/Mentor

وژُن: Precept/instruction

واکھ: Faculty of speech/Voice

نژُن: Roam/Dance

Grierson’s Translation:

My teacher spake to me but one precept.

He said unto me, ' from without enter thou the inmost part '.

That to me became a rule and a precept,

And therefore naked began I to dance.

The Guru, or spiritual preceptor, confides to his disciple the mysteries of religion. Lalla's account is that he taught her to recognize the external world as naught but an illusion, and to restrict her thoughts to meditation on her inner Self. When she had grasped the identity of her Self with the Supreme Self, she learnt to appreciate all externals at their true value. So she abandoned even her dress, and took to going about naked. The wandering of Lalla in a nude condition is the subject of more than one story in Kashmir. Here she says that she danced in this state. Filled with the supreme rapture, she behaved like a madwoman.

The dance, called tandava, of the naked devotee is supposed to be a copy of the dance of Siva, typifying the course of the cosmos under the god's rule. It implies that the devotee has, wholly surrendered the world, and become united with Siva.

Jaya Lal Koul’s translation:

My guru gave me but one precept:

“From without draw your gaze within

And fix it on the inmost self”.

Taking to heart this one precept,

Naked I began to roam.

Nand Lal Koul’s translation:

بچن ایک مرشد نے مجھکو بتایا,

کہ باہر سے اندر ہی چلی جا.

اسی کو ہدايت رشادت میں سمجھی,

لگی ناچنے مست ہو کر میں ننگی.

My translation:

My mentor told me one only precept,

i.e., withdraw from outside and go to the inside.

That precept became my speech and precept,

(That precept turned out to be absolutely true),

Therefore, I started to roam around naked.

Explanation:

My mentor gave me just a one precept. The precept that one must search the God inside rather than outside of oneself. I caught hold of this precept and made it my own part of Karma and therefore I started to roam around without any worldly attachment.

Wakh is one of the five parts that constitute Karma in the Saiva Philosophy. The other four being: the hand or the faculty of grasping; the foot or the faculty of walking; the anus or the faculty of excretion; sex or reproductive faculty.

If we go by the alternate meaning of the third line then it will connote that since the precept turned out to be true, I started to roam around naked without caring for anyone else in this material world and my inner world had nothing to do with my outworldly appearances.