Vyasa is perhaps the greatest sage in the history of Hindu religion. He edited the four Vedas, wrote the 18 Puranas, the epic Mahabharata and the Srimad Bhagavata and even taught Dattatreya, who is regarded as the ‘Guru of Gurus.’

Vyasa’s Luminary Lineage

Hinduism mentions as many as 28 Vyasas before Maharshi Veda Vyasa was born at the end of Dvapara Yuga. Also known as Krishna Dvaipayana, Vyasa was born of Sage Parashara and mother Satyavati Devi under wonderful circumstances. Parashara was one of the supreme authorities on astrology and his bookParashara Hora is a textbook on astrology even in the modern age. He has also written a scripture known as Parashara Smriti which is held in such high esteem that it is quoted even by modern scholars on sociology and ethics.

How Vyasa was Born

Vyasa’s father, Parashara came to know that a child, conceived at a particular moment of time, would be born as the greatest man of the age as a part of Lord Vishnu himself. On that eventful day, Parashara was travelling in a boat and he spoke to the boatman about the nearing of that auspicious time. The boatman had a daughter who was awaiting marriage. He was impressed with the sanctity and greatness of the sage and offered his daughter in marriage to Parashara. Vyasa was born of this union and his birth is said to be due to the wish of Lord Shiva, who blessed the birth the sage of the highest order.

The Life and Works of Vyasa

At a very tender age Vyasa revealed to his parents the purpose of his life — that he should go to the forest and practice ‘Akhanda Tapas’ or continuous penance. At first, his mother did not agree but later approved on one important condition that he should appear before her whenever she wished for his presence. According to the Puranas, Vyasa took initiation from his guru sage Vasudeva. He studied the Shastras or scriptures under the sages Sanaka and Sanandana and others. He arranged the Vedas for the good of mankind and wrote theBrahma Sutras for the quick and easy understanding of the Shrutis; he also wrote theMahabharata to enable common people to understand the highest knowledge in the easiest way. Vyasa wrote the 18 Puranas and established the system of teaching them through ‘Upakhyanas’ or discourses. In this way, he established the three paths of Karma, Upasana (devotion) and Jnana (knowledge). Vyasa’s last work was the Bhagavata which he undertook at the instigation of Devarshi Narada, the celestial sage, who once came to him and advised him to write it, without which, his goal in life would not be reached.

Significance of Vyasa Purnima

In ancient times, our forefathers in India, went to the forest to meditate during the four months or ‘Chaturmasa’ following Vyasa Purnima—a particular and important day in the Hindu calendar. On this auspicious day, Vyasa began to write his Brahma Sutras. This day is also known as Guru Purnima when, according to the scriptures, Hindus should worship Vyasa and the Brahmavidya Gurus and begin the study of the Brahma Sutras and other ancient books on ‘wisdom’.

Vyasa, Author of the Brahma Sutras

The Brahma Sutras, also known as the Vedanta Sutras is believed to have been written by Vyasa along with Badarayana. They are divided into four chapters, each chapter being subdivided again into four sections. It is interesting to note that they begin and end with Sutras which read together mean “the inquiry into the real nature of Brahman has no return”, pointing to “the way one reaches Immortality and no more returns to the world.” About the authorship of these Sutras, tradition attributes it to Vyasa. Sankaracharya refers to Vyasa as the author of the Gita and the Mahabharata, and to Badarayana as the author of the Brahma Sutras. His followers—Vachaspathi, Anandagiri and others—identify the two as one and the same person, while Ramanuja and others attribute the authorship of all three to Vyasa himself.

The Everlasting Influence of Vyasa

Vyasa is considered by all Hindus as Chiranjivi or immortal, one who is still living and walking the earth for the well-being of his devotees. It is said that he appears to the true and the faithful and that Adi Sankaracharya had his darshan as did many others as well. Vyasa’s life is a unique example of one born for the dissemination of spiritual knowledge. His writings inspire us and the whole world even to this day in innumerable ways.

Reference: This article is based on the writings of Swami Sivananda in the “Lives of Saints” (1941)

The saint poet Kabir is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Born near Benaras or Varanasi, of Muslim parents, in c.1440, he became in early life a disciple of the celebrated 15th century Hindu ascetic Ramananda, a great religious reformer and founder of a sect to which millions of Hindus still belong.

Kabir’s Early Life in Varanasi

Kabir’s story is surrounded by contradictory legends that emanate from both Hindu and Islamic sources, which claim him by turns as a Sufi and a Hindu saint. Undoubtedly, his name is of Islamic ancestry, and he is said to be the actual or adopted child of a Muslim weaver of Varanasi, the city in which the chief events of his life took place.

How Kabir Became a Disciple of Ramananda

The boy Kabir, in whom the religious passion was innate, saw in Ramananda his destined teacher; but knew how slight were the chances that a Hindu guru would accept a Muslim as disciple. He therefore hid on the steps of the river Ganges, where Ramananda came to bathe often; with the result that the master, coming down to the water, trod upon his body unexpectedly, and exclaimed in his astonishment, “Ram! Ram!” – the name of the incarnation under which he worshipped God. Kabir then declared that he had received the mantra of initiation from Ramananda’s lips, and was by it admitted to discipleship. In spite of the protests of orthodox Brahmins and Muslims, both equally annoyed by this contempt of theological landmarks, he persisted in his claim.

Ramananda’s Influnce on Kabir’s Life and Works

Ramananda appears to have accepted Kabir, and though Muslim legends speak of the famous Sufi Pir, Takki of Jhansi, as Kabir’s master in later life, the Hindu saint is the only human teacher to whom in his songs he acknowledges indebtedness. Ramananda, Kabir’s guru, was a man of wide religious culture who dreamed of reconciling this intense and personal Mohammedan mysticism with the traditional theology of Brahmanism and even Christian faith: and it is one of the outstanding characteristics of Kabir’s genius that he was able in his poems to fuse these thoughts into one.

Was Kabir a Hindu or a Muslim?

Hindus called him Kabir Das, but it is impossible to say whether Kabir was Brahmin or Sufi, Vedantist or Vaishnavite. He is, as he says himself, “at once the child of Allah and of Ram.” Kabir was a hater of religious exclusivism, and seeking above all things to initiate human beings into the liberty of the children of God. Kabir remained for years the disciple of Ramananda, joining in the theological and philosophical arguments which his master held with all the great Mullahs and Brahmins of his day, which acquainted him to both Hindu and Sufi philosophy.

Kabir’s Songs are His Greatest Teachings

It is by his wonderful songs, the spontaneous expressions of his vision and his love, and not by the didactic teachings associated with his name, that he makes his immortal appeal to the heart. In these poems a wide range of mystical emotion is brought into play – expressed in homely metaphors and religious symbols drawn indifferently from Hindu and Islamic beliefs.

Kabir Lived a Simple Life

He may or may not have submitted to the traditional education of the Hindu or the Sufi contemplative and never adopted the life of an ascetic. Side by side with his interior life of adoration, its artistic expression in music and words, he lived the sane and diligent life of a craftsman. Kabir was a weaver, a simple and unlettered man, who earned his living at the loom. Like Paul the tentmaker, Boehme the cobbler, Bunyan the tinker, Tersteegen the ribbon-maker, he knew how to combine vision and industry. And it was from out of the heart of the common life of a married man and the father of a family that he sang his rapturous lyrics of divine love.

Kabir’s Mystical Poetry was Rooted in Life and Reality

Kabir’s works corroborate the traditional story of his life. Again and again he extols the life of home, the value and reality of diurnal existence, with its opportunities for love and renunciation. The “simple union” with Divine Reality was independent both of ritual and of bodily austerities; the God whom he proclaimed was “neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash.” Those who sought Him needed not to go far; for He awaited discovery everywhere, more accessible to “the washerwoman and the carpenter” than to the self-righteous holy man. Therefore the whole apparatus of piety, Hindu and Muslim alike – the temple and mosque, idol and holy water, scriptures and priests – were denounced by this inconveniently clear-sighted poet as mere substitutes for reality; as he said, “The Purana and the Koran are mere words.”

The Last Days of Kabir’s Life

Kabir’s Varansi was the very center of Hindu priestly influence, which made him subject to considerable persecution. There is a well-known legend about a beautiful courtesan, who was sent by Brahmins to tempt Kabir’s virtue. Another tale talks of Kabir being brought before the Emperor Sikandar Lodi, and charged with claiming the possession of divine powers. He was banished from Varanasi in 1495 when he was nearly 60 years old. Thereafter, he moved about throughout northern India with his disciples; continuing in exile a life of an apostle and a poet of love. Kabir died at Maghar near Gorakhpur in 1518.

~  Based on Evelyn Underhill’s introduction in Songs of Kabir translated by Rabindranath Tagore and published by The Macmillan Company, New York (1915)