among these collections indicate that
they have no single source. For further
information see Charlotte Vaudeville
(trans.), Kabir, 1974; Linda Hess and
Shukdev Singh (trans.), The Bijak of
Kabir, 1983; John S. Hawley and Mark
Juergensmeyer (trans.), Songs of the
Saints of India, 1988; Nirmal Dass, Songs
of Kabir from the Adi Granth, 1991; and
David Lorenzen, Kabir Legends and
Ananta-Das’s Kabir Parachai, 1991.
Kabirpanth
Religious community whose members
are followers of the northern Indian
poet-saint Kabir. Some Kabirpanthis are
ascetics, and some are householders.
The group’s most important center is
located in Benares (where Kabir is
believed to have lived) and houses an
ascetic community. Although in his
poetry Kabir rejects ritual, worship, and
reliance on anything but one’s own
unmediated experience—a context
implying the practice of yoga—the
Kabirpanth has taken on all of these
conventional religious trappings. The
community’s sacred text is the Bijak, a
collection of poems and epigrams
attributed to Kabir. Its sacred centers
have pictures of Kabir, who has become
an object of worship. Elaborate rituals
are performed on certain prescribed
days. This situation is ironic because it
appears that many of the practices Kabir
condemned have been adopted by the
community professing to follow his
teachings. Given Kabir’s continual
emphasis on the need for unmediated
personal experience of the divine, the
notion that he would be seen as the
founder of a sect would itself have been
outrageous to him. For further informa-
tion see David Lorenzen, “Traditions of
Non-Caste Hinduism: The Kabir Panth,”
in Contributions to Indian Sociology,Vol.
21, No. 2, 1987.
Kadambari
Sanskritromance novel authored by the
writer and dramatist Bana(7th c.), who
was a contemporary of the northern
Indian emperor Harsha. The love story
between the main characters, a princess
named Kadambari and a prince named
Chandripida, is but one element of the
book’s complex plot. The Kadambari
was left unfinished at Bana’s death. It
gives a detailed picture of Indian life
during Bana’s time.Kadru
In Hindu mythology, the daughter of the
divine sage Dakshaand sister of Vinata.
Kadru gives birth to a line of serpents,
whereas her sister’s children are born as
eagles, the most famous of whom is
Garuda. The well-known hostility
between these species is attributed to a
conflict between Vinata and Kadru: one
day they are arguing about the tail color
of a certain celestial horse, with Vinata
arguing that it is white and Kadru assert-
ing that it is black. The disagreement
becomes more intense until they finally
agree that whoever is wrong will become
a slave to the other. To ensure her victo-
ry, Kadru persuades a number of her
snake children to hang from
the back of the horse. From a distance
the tail appears to be black. (Some of
her children disapprove of such dishon-
esty and refuse to participate. In revenge
Kadru curses them to die in the snake-
killing sacrifice performed by King
Janamjeya.) When Vinata sees the black
snakes, she believes she has been
defeated and serves Kadru under
extremely harsh conditions for many
years. Vinata is finally rescued by her
son Garuda, who discovers the fraud
behind Vinata’s defeat and embarks on
a program of killing snakes that has
never stopped.Kaikeyi
In the Ramayana, the earlier of the two
great Indian epics, Kaikeyi is the second
wife of King Dasharatha, the mother of
Bharata, and foster mother to Rama,
the epic’s protagonist. Kaikeyi is directly
responsible for one of the mostKaikeyi