India's Kabirvad Banyan Tree

This Old Tree with Doug Still
India’s Kabirvad Banyan Tree - Transcript
Season 2, Episode 9
February 5, 2025

Doug Still  00:00
You're listening to This Old Tree, the show about heritage trees and the human stories behind them. I'm Doug Still.

[sounds of birds and nature]

Imagine a tree with a canopy that covers nearly four and a half acres. Its widest spread is 204 meters, or 669 feet, large enough to accommodate two football fields end to end. More like a forest than a single tree, its multiple trunks are like columns supporting a protective dome of waxy, paddle-shaped leaves, 80 feet high. Walk inside and the air changes, cool and comfortable. Your eyes adjust to the shade to see monkeys, birds, fruit, bats, people and a temple. 

[Raga music]

Recently, I visited such a tree in India. Its name is Kabirvad, and it is spectacular. It's a banyan tree, Ficus benghalensis, which is a type of strangler fig. I'll explain later in the episode. I was invited to see it by my friend Srinivas Reddy, who goes by the name Srini. That's him playing the raga music you're listening to now, with two friends on tabla. He's a professor of classical literature and music at the Indian Institute of Technology in Gandhinagar, which is a half day's drive from Kabirvad. The famous tree is located on an island in the Narmada River near the city of Baruch. And I'm going to tell you about our trip and what we saw. 

But that's only half the story. The name Kabirvad means “Kabir’s banyan” in Gujarati, the language spoken in the state of Gujarat where the tree has stood for at least 500 years, but perhaps much longer. Kabir was a mystic poet and saint from the turn of the 16th century, and if you're from India you not only know who he is, but you can likely recite a few lines from his poetry. But if you're like me and most everyone else outside of India, Kabir, well… he's a cultural icon waiting to be discovered. One legend has it that Kabir lived on the island for a period, used a “datun” or twig as a toothpick which he discarded, and it grew into a grand, enormous tree. 

Learning about Kabir became a centerpiece of my trip to Gujarat, and I'll share a few of the conversations I had with people who helped me begin to understand his spiritual force in the culture. I also had the great pleasure of interviewing one of the leading experts on Kabir’s poetry and iconoclastic worldview, Linda Hess, an author and professor at Stanford University. 

[This Old Tree theme song - Dee Lee]

So join me on this special, extended episode as I try to find the essence of the great Saint Kabir and what his legacy has to do with the magnificent banyan tree known as Kabirvad. I'm Doug still, and this is This Old Tree.

Kabir Poem  03:23
A leaf broke from the branch  
The wind blew it away 
Once apart, when will they meet? 
It falls so far away

Doug Still  03:36
A public tree dispute first brought Srini and I together during the COVID epidemic. Virtually anyway. We met when, as City Forester of Providence, Rhode Island, I held a public meeting on Zoom to explain why three beautiful London plane trees along South Main Street needed to be removed for a utility project. The trees stood right next to a community garden and landscape art project known as 10,000 Suns. The community organized a protest, upset about losing these important arboreal members of the neighborhood. People attached ribbons and messages to the trees, and there was a three day sit-in that Srini took part in and played sitar for the demonstrators. 

The tree lover in me loved their energy and I sympathized, but I was in the middle. Sadly, the trees were planted directly on top of a large electrical conduit located below the sidewalk, rather than the usual location within the street. All alternative options to save them had been explored and exhausted. The public meeting was tough, but at least we announced that 62 replacement shade trees were scheduled. I think everyone would rather have just kept the three mature trees. 

Fast forward to 2024 when Srini reached out to me regarding another tree matter. We got to chatting, and he invited me over to meet in person. We bonded right away by eating specialty mangoes, playing Beatles music, and especially by talking trees. We went out to South Main Street to remember the three trees that were lost. 

Srinivas Reddy  05:07
So we’re on South Main Street, and yeah, this is where these three beautiful London plane trees stood. If you took a picture of those trees from this perspective, you'd have these three beautiful trees, and right behind, you'd see the great three smoke stacks of Providence, you know? 

Doug Still
The power plant.

Srinivas Reddy
The power plant. So it's like, I think it's beautiful. It's a poignant statement. You know, the trees go and power the power…

Doug Still  05:32
This is right next to a garden. Yeah, we need to let people know and have input…

Srinivas Reddy  05:37
Yes, but that's exactly what happened! The input just falls on deaf ears, you know, but, but, I mean, the trees did come down, but I learned so much personally from that whole experience. I think people that were involved in that learned so much. But, yeah, it was a very personal thing. 

Doug Still  05:57
He was a visiting professor at Brown University, but he told me he was returning to India the following semester to teach at IIT Gandhinagar. As I tend to do, I asked him, “What's the most famous tree in India?” Unsure, he sent information that led us to Kabirvad, the massive historical banyan tree not too far from IIT. The descriptions were tantalizing to us both. Of course, I wanted to know more about Kabir and the tree’s legend, and began locating source material. I asked Srini what the best references are, and he stopped me right there. “You can't really learn about Kabir in books. You have to experience him.” His words stuck with me. I couldn't quite grasp what he meant, but an invite was extended to visit him in India, to see the tree and find Kabir. "If you can get yourself there,” Srini said, “I'll take care of you.”

[sound of an airplane landing]

Months later, that happened. After a 20 hour trip, I landed in Ahmedabad, a large city known for its textiles near the IIT campus where Srini was in residence. There are 23 IIT campuses throughout India, but this one was in Gandhinagar, the state capital of Gujarat. Both the city center and campus are relatively young and modern, located opposite each other along the river Sabarmati. The campus had only been completed and open to students since 2015. The landscape is flat and vegetation lush. I saw new construction everywhere along the highway from Ahmedabad, but the campus itself is a green oasis. Langurs, which are large leaf-eating monkeys, roam the campus, as did a big, bulky type of antelope known as a nilgai that shocked me the first time one passed by. Birds are everywhere, including a nest of spotted owlets I found in the hollow of an old tree.

The first day I had been out learning how to identify the native trees, which were unknown to me as a foreigner. Funny enough, I was asked to lead a tree walk on campus the following week, so I had a lot of catching up to do. In 12 short years the campus had become an arboretum. I learned about neem trees, the Java plum or jamun tree, the towering burflower, orchid trees, and many more. It was here that I saw a banyan tree in person for the first time,

Kabir Poem  08:30
The tree said to the leaf, 
“Listen, leaf, to what I say. 
Here's how things are in this house. 
One comes, another goes.”

Doug Still  08:43
This banyan was standing in a courtyard in a paved area. It was a young tree, but it was already bursting out of a pavement opening only about five by five feet wide. The trunk was becoming hard to distinguish among massive “roots” dropping down from the upper branches into the limited soil, and they were becoming trunks themselves. These aerial roots are a growth feature of the banyan which, as I said, is a type of fig tree of the genus Ficus. There are over 800 Ficus species around the world, about 96 of them in India, although the number is disputed. Ten of them are common, and they thrive in wet, subtropical climates. But not all fig trees have aerial roots. That is a feature of strangler figs, a subgroup, of which Ficus benghalensis is a member. 

A strangler fig has a unique life. It starts as a very small seed. Think of the tiny seeds you crunch on as you bite into a fig bought at the grocery store, about the same size. A sticky seed, if it's lucky, might get discarded and land in the crotch of a branch in the upper canopy of another tree, of any type. There it germinates, and there is enough moisture and organic debris for the seedling to survive, for a while anyway. Very soon, the seedling pushes out thin, hair- like roots that dangle down along the trunk of the host tree, or sometimes just in open air, as far out as the seedlings branches might reach. 

Eventually, if the seedling lives long enough, an aerial root will reach the ground below, and a power shift occurs. The fig is now able to draw its own water and nutrients from the soil. The flexible roots start to form wood, thickening and hardening into trunks with extra energy. The fig's upper branches start to reach for the sky to access better light, more aerial roots grow and drop in a tangle to vigorously grow around the trunk of the host tree and solidify, forming a network of trunk roots. The process speeds up eventually, you guessed it, the strangler fig expands so much that the trunk of the host tree cannot grow its cambium layer squeezed. The host tree dies and decays over decades to the point where you can't even tell one was there, except for the hollow left within the column of fig tree roots. But the fig isn't done, not by a long shot. As branches spread horizontally, long and strong, they continue to drop aerial roots, new trunks form, and new canopies of waxy leaves reach for the sky. And so on and so on, spreading and repeating. Growing in this way, banyan trees in particular have the largest canopies in the world. 

The banyan tree is an ecological marvel. A single tree interacts with and supports a huge number of birds, bats, animals, invertebrates and smaller plants of many types. In India, entire villages spring up around them and below them. It's the National Tree of India, and it is sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It's important to Muslims as well, especially in Sufi traditions. The stories and mythology around banyan trees are many and varied, and I don't have the space to touch on them here. If interested, let me point you to Michael Shanahan's book, Gods, Wasps and Stranglers: The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees. I interviewed Mike for an early episode about the Edison Banyan in Fort Myers, Florida. So you can check that out when you have some time. 

It's incredible to me that such a minuscule seed holds the right genetic information, the key to something so important and much larger. Metaphors about fig seeds found their way into Indian culture thousands of years ago within the Upanishads. The Upanishads are a collection of Sanskrit texts written between 800 and 100 BC that expand on the earlier ritualistic texts called the Vedas. They contain foundational ideas in Hinduism about philosophy and spiritualism. I learned about them in Illuminating Worlds: An Anthology of Classical Indian Literature that Srini had just published and shared with me, for which he did the translations. I included a link to it in the show notes. 

Srini includes a passage from the Chandogya Upanishad within his book, which has a conversation between a father and a son that reads as follows - and pardon my pronunciations. 

“Please, wise father, teach me more,” said Shvetaketu. And Uddalaka Aruni replied, “So be it, my son. Bring a fig over here.” “Here it is, wise father.” “Cut it open.” “It is open, wise father.” “What do you see there?” “Many tiny seeds, wise father.” “Break one of those seeds.” “It is broken, wise father.” “What do you see there?” “Nothing at all, wise father.”

Then he said to him, “My son, there is a subtle essence which you cannot see, and truly, my son, it is because of the very essence that this great fig tree stands tall. Trust me, my son. That which is the subtle essence of the true self is the whole world. That is the truth. That is the self. Shvetaketu, you are that!”

This was an idea that one can see again and again. To find man's purpose, and sense of self, and God, one needs to look inward, not toward dogma or the grandiose. The nature of the universe can be found in a seed, a drop of water, a flower. As I came to learn, Kabir expressed these same themes 1000 years later.

Kabir Poem  14:45
Don't wander in outer gardens 
Your body is abloom 
Sit on eight lotuses 
and behold the countless forms within

Doug Still  14:59
Looking at the banyan tree in the paved courtyard at IIT, I thought it was like an elephant in a cage, bucking at its enclosure. Its outer aerial roots fell harmlessly to the pavement outside the tree pit, if they weren’t already pruned away by maintenance staff. But tied up inside it was so much more, an essence that suggested the history of India itself. My thoughts went to Kabirvad, the Ficus benghalensis that we planned to visit the following week.   

[connecting tones]

But that had to wait. It was Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights and a national holiday. It was special to be there at that time. We lit small clay lamps called “deepa” that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness. We visited a classroom of children learning about Diwali, and then dropped in on a campus celebration around a gorgeous “rangoli” on the pavement of a courtyard, which is a design made of colored powders and sand during festivals. Life slows down a bit, and Srini and I were invited to friends’ homes for several dinners and brunches. Friends, and new friends are often welcomed into the home at Diwali to celebrate the holiday and share delicious homemade food. It was also the perfect time for me to ask questions about Kabir, and I brought my mic. 

We’re going to take a short break. When we return, we’ll listen to what people had to say, off-the-cuff, when asked about Kabir. I also meet with Linda Hess, a leading authority on Kabir, who speaks about experiencing him through music and song. 

[This Old Tree theme music]

This is the story of visiting India’s Kabirvad banyan tree. You’re listening to This Old Tree. 

[raga music]

Doug Still
What's your name? 

Abhia Lakhia
Abhia Lakhia

Doug Still
So who was Kabir to you?

Abhi Lakhia  17:19
He was a poet, a kind of a Sufi, kind of basically like an old poet, a romantic in the stories I heard, yes. Also somebody who kind of was not Hindu, Muslim or anything like that. You know, he was revered as a poet. But that's it.

Doug Still  17:43
Abhi and his family had invited Srini and I to dinner. We were having drinks up on the roof of his family home, a 400 year-old house in a ”pol,” one of the historic, tightknit neighborhoods of the Old City in Ahmedabad. You can hear the fireworks of Diwali in the background. Everyone I met in India at least knew who Kabir was. 

To Abhi
Do you know any of his songs or poems? 

Abhi Lakhia  18:10
No, but maybe without knowing them. Because you know all these Hindi songs and stuff, they all actually come from, right? All kinds of old sayings and shayaris and poetry. I guess he was a shire Shayarer? [laughs]

Doug Still  18:28
I don't know what that is. 

Abhi Lakhia  18:30
Yeah, it's like this double saying, you know, it's a thing, shayari, it's a poetry, a public poetry.

Doug Still  18:40
Abhi hit on something I learned almost right away. Saint Kabir didn’t associate with any one religion, even though Hindus, Muslims, and Jains all claim him. But he was a spiritual figure nonetheless. Here’s an explanation from a man I met at a garden party named Jayraj Bhatt, a businessman and uncle to Rajiv Bhatt, a friend of Srini and one of the tabla players in the music we’ve heard. 

Jayraj Bhatt  19:05
The theme about his poems was spirituality, because basically he was a saint, a kind of Saint which was above all the religions. Because Kabir always said that the inner, the inner realization of the truth, is above all the religions. Because he made it so clear - a difference between religion and spirituality. Religion is about all mental beliefs, dogmas, or theories and kind of rules, whereas spirituality is freedom, is the realization, is the vision, is the experience. That is what he always insisted. And so one story is, very famous in India about Kabir, that when he died, when he left his body, the Hindus - Hindu means the religion that is prevailing in India - so the Hindus said that he is a Hindu saint, so we will take him to the cremation ground. But the Muslims, the other faith, they said no, he is a Muslim Saint. Because he talked about everybody, because he was above all the religions. So he always said, be true to your religion - whatever religion, whatever faith you have - but be true, then you will get the truth. But if you are not true inside, if you are not sincere, you will not get anything.

Doug Still  20:49
For some Indians, Kabir was the source of a life lesson that comes in the form of a doha - d,o,h,a - which is a two line, rhyming couplet in Hindi verse. Here's one from the wife of Rajeev, after we found a quiet place to talk. 

To Anuja
Okay, could you state your name? 

Anuja Bhatt
My name is Anuja.

Doug Still
Anuja, and you're going to read a doha. 

Anuja Bhatt
That's right, a Kabir doha. [Kabir Doha, okay] Doha spoken in Hindi. And the meaning is, be slow and everything will be all right.

Doug Still  21:26
Wonderful. Thank you. [Thank you.] 

The next doha is from Sudanshu Sharma, a professor of chemistry at IIT who invited me to meet him in his office. He's also a poet himself.

Sudhanshu Sharma  21:38
My memory about Kabir Das, which is his full name, goes back to when we were reading about his birth stories and the couplets that he used to write, which in Hindi are called as dohas. So this goes back to my school days, and we had, you know, usually in schools, you have a prayer ground, and then you assemble, and then prayer happens. So there is one couplet which every day we used to recite. It is (doha in Hindi). It means, “I was looking for the bad things around the world, and I could not find them. But when I looked inside my heart, I found that I was the worst person in this world.” So it means you have to correct first yourself, then only you can see the world. 

Doug Still
Wow. So this was the couplet which you used to recite every day. 

Sudhanshi Sharma
Every day. And this is where I got  that. This is Kabir.

Doug Still  22:44
It's amazing that you have these memorized, but you've been thinking about them your whole life. 

Sudhanshu Sharma
Yes. 

Doug Still
It's been said that Kabir means different things to different people. Not a lot is known about his actual life. So people find the Kabir they want to find. At another gathering, I actually met a man named Kabeer, so I had to ask him about it. 

To Kabeer
Okay, could you state your name?

Kabeer Jesusa  23:08
My name is Kabeer, and my last name is Jesusa.  

Doug Still  23:12
Wonderful. And could you tell me about how you were named Kabeer?

Kabeer Jesusa  23:16
That's very interesting. I was named by my father after the famous Saint Kabir. My father was in post office, and he used to read a lot of books that used to come in the mail. And he had in his mind that when his second child would be born, he would likely name him after the Saint Kabir. If it is a boy.

Doug Still  23:39
I see, so you're the second child.  

Kabeer Jesusa  23:41
Yes. I feel it had an important role to play in how I think and how I developed my character. I remember that when I was in school, people used to ask me, what is the meaning of my name. And my teachers used to tell me that there used to be this famous Saint Kabir, and I used to always be curious and go to the library to see who Kabir was. And it was at that moment of time when I used to read his dohas. I realized how he used to weave complex ideas, spiritual ideas, into simple words.

Doug Still  24:15
Could you recite one?  

Kabeer Jesusa  24:20
Yes, there is this very important one of the first dohas that I remembered learning. The Doha goes as (poem in Hindi verse). The meaning of this doha is that a student is asking that in front of me, I have my teacher and I have my God. So whom should I go to first? Kabir Das says that you should first go to your teacher, because if a right teacher is not there, you would have never met your God. So in Indian tradition, because this most important doha made me realize the importance of finding a right teacher in your spiritual journey.

Doug Still  25:03
I met Kabeer’s father and mother at this family gathering, and they had to be the sweetest people in the world. Everyone I met was so friendly and welcoming, down to the person. Srini is part of a wonderful community in Gujarat, I could see why he wanted to return to India after years of being away. 

Gujarat is a relatively conservative state in India. Alcohol is banned, and there are many traditional norms that are important to practice within Gujarati culture. The state has its own language, and the cuisine has a sweet side to it. Narendra Modi, the conservative Prime Minister of India, was born in Gujarat and rose to power here. He has particular pride for the state, and his government has made considerable investments in modernizing its infrastructure. 

A long, difficult history of division between Hindus and Muslims exists. It’s a deep-seated conflict that persists strongly in some pockets, but is fought against just as strongly in others. In my limited exposure, I found that the people of Gujarat look out for each other. According to Srini, you must depend on other people in India. Social isolation is not really an option. Everyday existence - food, transportation, information, contacts - is helped greatly if you “know a guy,” or know someone who knows a guy. That’s essential to get things done and make life work. People are highly connected by cell phone via an extensive 5G network that reaches everywhere. 

And as an urban forester used to managing trees in sidewalks, I couldn’t help but observe the streetscapes during our several visits into the dense urban center of Ahmedabad. India is rough around the edges, and I mean that quite literally along the streets. Curbs are often lacking, and parking areas in front of nice buildings are dusty and unpaved. The transition between building and street is filled randomly with bikes (called cycles), motorcycles (called bikes), parked rickshaws or “tuk-tuks,” cars, and yeah, garbage littered everywhere. Pedestrians just sort of walk along the side of the street around everything, the chaotic traffic flowing around you. I had to learn the unofficial right-of-way rules that all Indians know, get over the fear, and build trust that drivers of moving vehicles saw me and would adjust, horns beeping.  Add to that lots of stray dogs, and sometimes cows.

And the city trees were remarkable to me. They squeeze into the tightest, most inhospitable places, wherever they can without tree lawns or planned spaces. In holes in the pavement, compacted open soil, against buildings, in very narrow medians, sometimes smack dab in the middle of the street with no “tree pit” to speak of! But there they were, growing nonetheless, astounding to the eye of a western arborist. In particular, Neem trees survive in these tough conditions that would doom a linden, oak, or maple tree. 

One last observation - and some foreshadowing prior to the visit to Kabirvad - smoke is everywhere. Wherever you go - the center of Ahmedabad, the countryside, the campus of IIT, there is always a little smoke in the air, and sometimes a lot. Said Srini, and this is a direct quote, “There is always something on fire in India - garbage, leaves, incense, or even people.” It adds to the larger smog problem, a serious air quality issue. One morning I got up and looked directly at the sun at sunrise, its rays mediated through smog. But this is not news. For a visitor, it's just part of the experience, and I have to say you just kind of get used to it. Surprisingly, this doesn’t make India smell “bad.” It’s a bit smoky, but incense wafts from homes and concession areas, and the trees, shrubs, and flowers are highly fragrant and make the air sweet. 
 
Kabir poem
Much thinner than water, 
subtler than smoke,
swifter than wind, 
Kabir's friend. 

Mahatma Gandhi was born in Gujarat, in the port town of Porbander. Following his return from South Africa, he established an ashram on the outskirts of Ahmedabad and lived there for twelve years. It was comprised of very simple buildings surrounded by farmland on the banks of the Sabarmati River, although now an urban neighborhood of the expanding city. It became a meeting place and symbol of resistance during the Indian Independence Movement. Today it is a charming little museum that you can visit. Srini took me there, and we chatted about Kabir and his influence on Gandhiji.

Doug Still
So we're at Gandhi's ashram. Yes, does it go by another name?

Srinivas Reddy  30:15
Sabarmati Ashram is a specific name. And then I think Satyagraha Ashram, you know, the insistence on non violence, or insistence on truth was, I think, the other name. But, yeah, this is, this is one of my favorite places to come. It's so peaceful. You like, really feel Gandhiji’s presence.

Doug Still  30:36
And the rivers right behind us.

Srinivas Reddy  30:39
Yeah, the Sabarmati river is right behind us.

Doug Still  30:43
And we just walked by Gandhi's house, and we're sitting underneath a tree next to a small building. Who lived in this building?

Srinivas Reddy  30:51
Mirabai lived here, one of Gandhi's British devotees.

Doug Still  30:55
Very small rooms, very simple.

Srinivas Reddy  30:58
Simple living, high, thinking.

Doug Still  31:01
And you used to come here, you said when you lived in Ahmedabad.

Srinivas Reddy  31:05
Yeah, regularly. I loved coming here. I mean, we lived closer, so it was fun to just come in the morning, especially in the morning, it's really peaceful.

Doug Still  31:12
But we were talking about Kabir. And I have a question about Kabir [sure], and Gandhi, [okay], a very basic question. [yeah] How did the teachings of Kabir, or the songs of Kabir, influence Gandhi?

Srinivas Reddy  31:27
I don't know specifically, like there might be some instances we could look up. I'm sure Gandhi quoted Kabir verses from time to time. That's something we could research. But from my knowledge of both of those people, certainly, probably the biggest theme that you could get to was having Hindu-Muslim unity. I mean, Kabir himself belonged to both communities, and kind of always preached a message of communalism. And enjoying in the bliss of, you know, just God, whatever you want to call that force. And I think, as we know from Gandhiji's own life, a very committed Hindu but very much dedicated to harmony between Hindu and Muslim communities. So in that sense, I think they're both very committed to the idea of transcending these, you know, religious or communal boundaries, and just seeing the common humanity and the common land and the common situation and common home that we all share. 

And celebrating that Kabir - I mean, I'm from South India, but especially in North India, my guru is from North India and actually spent his first job in Ahmedabad. He used to quote Kabir lines to me all the time, because that's how it is. Every part of India has their poets, but, you know, Kabir is kind of one of those that really made its way all across India. It's like folk wisdom. So his doha, these two line couplets. You know, your people's grandmas will say sometimes, or my grandfather used to say one to me all the time, you know,

Doug Still  33:05
Passed down from generation to generation.

Srinivas Reddy  33:09
Yeah, it's like folk wisdom, you know. And they're very simple, but beautifully put little phrases, you know, yeah, this is the wisdom that gets passed down orally. And they're all contextual for life, you know? Like something happens where you know somebody does somebody wrong, or some trouble happens, and then you know your mom will quote some Kabir or some veda or some whatever, that will explain that situation and make everything okay, or give you the right advice to deal with it.

Doug Still  33:39
I love that. I can't remember my grandparents quoting any poetry to me. [both laugh] But you know, there's folk wisdom that gets passed down when you don't even realize where it's from, right? I think of like, people quote Shakespeare all the time, and they don't know it. 

Srinivas Reddy  33:56
That’s right, that's right, which is interesting, because… so like, in that case, you're quoting Shakespeare, which probably Shakespeare did write. Let's say, but you don't know it's him. Whereas in India, what often happens is people come up with a verse, and it probably wasn't written by Kabir, but they're like, “Oh, well, Kabir said this.” 

Doug Still  34:19
So it's almost Kabir-like, something he would have said. 

Srinivas Reddy
He would have said, exactly. 

Doug Still
So it's more of a feeling. 

Srinivas Reddy  34:23
It's more of a feeling, totally. And then there's always a little twist to Kabir poems, you know? 

Doug Still
A turn.

Srinivas Reddy
Yeah, a turn. And that always, that's what brings the insight, right?

Doug Still  34:34
Contrariness. 

Srinivas Reddy
Yes, exactly.

Kabir Poem  34:43
If the seed is God’s form,
then, pandit, why talk on 
about knowledge?

No body, no mind, no ego, 
no three qualities.
Nectar and poison bloom, 
countless fruits ripen 
on one tree. 
So the Vedas and wise ones say. 
Kabir says, I agree.
Now tell me
who gets caught
and who goes free.

If the seed is God’s form,
then, pandit, why talk on 
about knowledge?

Doug Still  35:19
I turned to Linda Hess, a writer, scholar, and Professor Emerita in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She’s written five books on Kabir and numerous scholarly papers. A specific focus of hers is to understand Kabir’s words as oral tradition, as songs to be performed and listened to live. We had a delightful conversation.

To Linda Hess
Linda, thanks so much for joining me on This Old Tree. 

Linda Hess
It's fun. 

Doug Still
How long have you been studying Kabir and how would you describe your work and what you do?

Linda Hess  35:54
Well, a really, really long time. So well, if you want a really clean number, let's say I started in the mid to late 70’s, although we could say even a little earlier, but let's say that. That's when I worked in India on a PhD dissertation that was all about Kabir. So that's a long time ago, isn't it? Yes, and I've been working not with equal intensity every single decade, but anyway, with a lot of intensity at the present moment, on a very big collection of Kabir poetry. It's going to be published by Harvard University Press in a series of translations of Indian literature from many languages.

Doug Still  36:42
When do you expect that out? 

Linda Hess  36:45
Sometime in the next year. We're just completing, I have a co-author on the book, and we're completing all the last checking right now. 

Doug Still  36:54
Great. So on the most basic level, who was Kabir? How would you describe him in your words?

Linda Hess  37:01
So Kabir lived in the 15th century. Almost nothing can be said with certainty about him, because we don't have documentation. We have a lot of stories. But to understand who he was, even a little, you have to think about authors and kind of cultural situations in India, quite differently than you would here or in Europe. 

But anyway, he lived around in the 15th century and on until about the early couple of decades of the 16th century, meaning he died around 1518, we believe. He was a weaver, which was a fairly low status community in the still teeming holy city of Varanasi in north India, which is a Hindu pilgrimage center on the Ganges River and has been, some say, it's the longest continuing, existing, ancient city, 1000’s of year old city that has never stopped being alive. So he lived there in a culture that was a mix of Hindus and Muslims. He probably was illiterate, and yet he composed this great poetry, and he didn't write it down. And yet we have so many poems with his name on them. So the reason that we have that, is that so much of Indian literature came alive in an oral tradition, especially this type of literature, meaning vernacular literature, literature in poetry, in the language that people speak and are raised up in, and poetry that's understood by ordinary people, not Sanskrit, not elite Poetry. So it traveled. It was some - it traveled on the oral tradition, and eventually people started writing it down. 

So anyway, he was this amazing, powerful person, uneducated in a formal way, of a very humble class of people. Didn't write, didn't read, sang, spoke, people gathered around him, and what he composed had an amazing effect on people. But he was part of a tradition of poets who did that, poets and singers. 

Doug Still
I see. Did he have a guru? 

Linda Hess
So everything you might ask will be controversial. The only things we know for sure, he lived in Varanasi. He was a weaver. He lived approximately that time. Everything else is disputed. Most people believe he did have a guru, and the Guru's name was Ramananda, and he was a very famous Brahman who, normally at that time, a Brahmin wouldn't take on a low caste person like Kabir. But there are stories about how it happened, and these are some of the popular stories about Kabir and other poets. 

Doug Still  40:15
You mentioned that he was born in Varanasi. Did he travel as well throughout his life?

Linda Hess  40:21
Your guess is as good as mine. He could well have traveled. But of course, there are places far to the east and far to the west of Varanasi who claim he was there. Far to the east is the city of Puri in Odisha, where there's a kind of pilgrimage spot that says, “This is where Kabir was.” And far to the west, as you know well, in Gujarat, there's this famous tree, and everyone, they say that Kabir was there and did some great things there. I don't know if he traveled. He might have traveled.

Doug Still  41:00
So that brings me to a point that different religious traditions claim Kabir as their own. Could you explain that? What's universal in his poetry and ideology?

Linda Hess  41:11
He was very remarkable in this regard. Most of the great poets, you know, there's a there's a long tradition of devotional, mystical poets in the different regions of India who composed or wrote depending on whether they were writing in their vernacular language, as opposed to writing in an Elite language like Sanskrit or Persian. So these poets can usually easily be associated with either Hindu traditions or Islamic mystical traditions - Sufi traditions, starting, you know, around the 13th, 14th century, when there were more and more Muslims living in India. But Kabir, Kabir was a person who really transcended those identities, deliberately. He refused those identities. He criticized those identities. And he himself came out of a very mixed culture, family and community. They were identified as Muslims, and yet they still had a lot of Hindu influence in their lives. And you can tell that by what comes up in his poetry and by what we know about the culture of those days. 

So he was a very sharp observer of society, even though he was also a very deep mystic whose poetry probes the sort of most profound nature of what it is to be a human being. And what it is to understand, you know, our body and our mind and our confusion and our suffering and the possibility of our liberation and what people talk about as God or ultimate reality. All of that he probed in a deeply inward way, but he also observed society, and he had a very sharp critical eye, and he criticized all kinds of foolishness and hypocrisy. And he criticized caste in a very fearless sort of a way. And he relentlessly criticized religious sectarianism and fighting and hatred. 

So he urged people to get beyond all that. And so that is why different religious communities can claim and identify with him. Sufis, Muslim Sufis, he became important in those communities, and you can still see that, mainly in Pakistan, not as much in India, Sufi singers sing Kabir Hindus definitely claimed Kabir and more and more over the centuries, the stories about him made him look more and more close to the Hindu communities. The Sikhs claimed him and actually wrote him into their sacred book. Their sacred book, which is called the Guru Granth Sahib, has a lot of poetry in it by the Sikh gurus and also by the non Sikhs who they revered. And of those non Sikh mystics, Kabir is the top one, the one that they have the most, the largest collection, so remarkable. Everybody could claim him, but nobody could possess him. 

If they really read his poetry, if they really listened to those songs, they would see that one of the ironies of a teacher like Kabir, and there have been others. In fact, most of the founders of religions in history have been like that. You know, they'll teach something, and then their followers will form it, will get themselves institutionalized, and then they will turn it around, upside down and pervert the teachings of that teacher. So even though he constantly tried to wake people up to their delusions, including their religious identities and hostilities, the second he was born, the legend says - I'm sorry, the second he died, according to this popular legend, the Hindu and Muslim devotees started fighting over his body, and the Hindus said, we must burn him. We must cremate him and recite, you know, mantras from the Vedas. And the Muslims said, “No, we must bury him and recite verses from the Quran,” and they actually start to fight. They pull out their weapons. 

And you know, this is a supreme irony when it comes to Kabir, right? Somebody goes and lifts, lifts up the shroud under which the body has been laid, and there's nothing there but a pile of flowers. So the Hindus take half of the flowers, and the Muslims take half of the flowers, and they bury it, or they burn it, and they recite the mantras and verses that they want to recite. Also, I'd like to say that you don't have to be religious to claim him. There, he is popular among secular people too, because of his eye on society and because of his sort of profound, what might call egalitarianism and humanitarianism. I know quite a few people who claim his greatness and who sort of put aside the more mystical and religious stuff, and who really just claim him as a great humanitarian.

Doug Still  47:01
How would you describe his poetry? Do you have an example of a particular poem that is essential in his philosophy or the way we think about him?

Linda Hess  47:13
I would choose one to represent his sharp, satirical observation of the social world and also of human psychology. You know, he nails us. And I would choose one or two which would be powerful observation. You know, he urges people to wake up, wake up, and so they would be observations about the imminence of death and how that's right in front of us, and how we've refused to look at it. And there would be some very beautiful poems of actual liberation and joy. Kabir is most famous for two types of forms, poetic forms. One is what I would call a song poem, which has, like eight lines or something, that really is sung. That's how it's come through the centuries. And one is a couplet, which is a kind of pithy, proverbial thing that gets quoted everywhere, and also it can be sung. 

Doug Still  48:26
I’d like to ask you about the songs of Kabir. So you've written this wonderful book, Bodies of Song: Kabir, Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India. In it, you said that to understand Kabir, you need to engage with “learning in the body.” Could you describe what you mean?

Linda Hess  48:46
Yes, so very simply, we could just think about the difference between reading a poem on a page and singing. You know, if you think about that for five seconds, then you understand what I mean by “learning in the body.” If you sing, even if you listen to music and you're not singing, your whole body is engaged in a way that it is unlikely to be when you're reading a poem on a page. Of course, if you really, deeply read poetry, it will because it speaks in rhythms and sounds and metaphors. You will be engaged in a bodily way, but it's much more refined. Just sing and see what that means. It engages your breath, your voice. You vibrate, you feel it in different parts of your body. You want to get up, you want to jump, you want to sway. That's the power of music. 

Doug Still
I think we've all felt that. 

Linda Hess
Yes, so when I turned from my work as a writer, scholar, translator, which was mainly based on texts - that's the way I was trained, studying literature - when I turned, and I'd been thinking about doing this for years, before I finally did it to a project where I was living with singers in this vibrant folk music tradition.

Doug Still  50:14
…and that's the Kabir Project?

Linda Hess  50:16
Well, no, the Kabir Project opened, I mean, began independently of me, and I began my work independently of it, and we met in the field near the beginning of both of our projects. So the Kabir Project was also engaged very much in these living singing traditions. But I came independently to work with the living singing traditions, with my you know, this was in the year 2002 and I had been in the village with this famous - now even more famous - singer, whose picture is on the cover of my book. 

Doug Still
What's his name? 

Linda Hess
His name is Prahlad Singh Tipanya. He's a village man. He lives in Madhya Pradesh in central India, in this Hindi speaking region. And he, by the time I started my project in the beginning of 2002, he was already pretty well known. But today, 22 years later, he's a very famous kind of… and I started my project at the beginning of that year, and Shabnam started her project, which is a filmmaking project, late in that year. And we met in his area, and we said, “Oh, wow. Our projects are very similar.”

Doug Still  51:40
A quick aside. Shabnam Virmani is a documentary filmmaker who has made a series of incredible films about Kabir and the contemporary musicians who perform his work for audiences. She just published a book called Burn Down Your House: Provocations From Kabir. I'll include it in the show notes.

Linda Hess  52:00
And then we started hanging out together, and we really hit it off, and we loved being together. And so in many ways, our projects intersected.

Doug Still  52:09
Was there someone you met through the Kabir project that surprised you, or that also helped deepen your understanding of Kabir?

Linda Hess  52:20
Yeah, many people. And you can meet these people in Shabnam's films. The films are really great. Sometimes it would be some old man. Again, I got this from Shabnam. She found some of these people, some old man in a village who is never going to be on an international stage. He's never even going to be on a stage in the local, you know, provincial capital, or in Delhi, like some of these singers are, but he is amazing. You know, he is, I'm thinking of one particular person in one of her films, who was not literate. He was an old man, but the knowledge he had was just amazing. You know, people have internalized this and embody it themselves in the way he could speak about it, the way he could gesture about it, you know. 

Oh, I should mention that the people for whom Kabir is particularly iconic, are low caste people. Dalits, who - Dalit is the name that is preferred by people who used to be called untouchables, who were the most degraded and oppressed of anybody in the caste system of India. For them, Kabir is a great hero because he was, although not technically, of the Dalit or formerly untouchable class, he was of a very low status in the caste system. And now they feel that his greatness enhances their status and respect in the society, and it does. And each one of these experiences shines in its own right. You know, all of them are there in my memory and in my gratitude.

Doug Still  54:15
I’d like to turn now to Kabir and trees. Are there any tree references or metaphors in his poetry, and specifically about banyan trees?

Linda Hess  54:25
You know, I don't know any in all of his poetry and song that I've encountered. I have never seen a particular reference to the banyan. The tree comes up as a metaphor quite often. Usually it's not a particular tree. The tree is mostly a metaphor, and it's a metaphor, again, for something in the human body, and for yogic experience that happens in the human body. So the fullest evocation of the tree is of a very strange upside down tree, whose roots are in the air and that is full of paradoxes. It has no branches trees or leaves, but it flourishes and flowers. Then there are other sorts of lovely, random imagery of trees, including, for example, and I can quote this. This is a couplet that's pithy and nice, but I have to dig it up for you again. It's a symbol of transiency and an exhortation. It's an exhortation to wake up and to live while you're alive. It says, you know, a wind comes and blows the leaf far from the tree. Once it's far from the tree, it's never going to come back to the tree.

Doug Still  55:52
What is the likelihood that Kabir visited the island on the Narmada River, where Kabirvad stands?

Linda Hess  55:59
Let us imagine that he did. Because Kabir sometimes, in fact, often people - including the singer that I work with, and including some scholars who appreciate that - this kind of poetry and this kind of song and this kind of life in the living culture goes beyond what you can document historically. They will say things like, “Kabir is more than an individual. He's like a flowing river that tributaries come and join and that lives in the lives of the people.” So let's say that Kabir is there, still. You visited that place. You found that people go there because they feel that Kabir is there. Let's say he was there. 

And actually, the amazing quality of the banyan tree - how it sends forth its branches and they become new trunks, and it spreads and spreads - is a wonderful metaphor for the oral tradition itself, which spreads like that. You know you can use a metaphor of river and tributaries and rain, but the banyan tree itself is a beautiful metaphor like that, that grows and takes on its own life, and has new trunks and shelters people, and inspires in places where you wouldn't have guessed it at the beginning. It's a great living monument to Kabir. 

Doug Still  57:30
I’m going to end with this question. What does Kabir poetry mean to you, personally?

Linda Hess  57:36
Yeah, it means a very vibrant experience which most deeply has to do with an inner awareness of stillness, which we very rarely know. But then emanating out from that, I see how that relates to the whole fluctuating, colorful world. He was able to do both of those things.

Doug Still  58:06
Linda, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. I learned so much about your thoughtful research, and about Kabir.

[This Old Tree theme music]

Linda Hess  58:14
Well, it was wonderful to be on such a show as yours. I really like your show, so thank you for asking me.

Doug Still  58:23
After another short break we visit Kabirvad. This is This Old Tree. 

[Raga music]

Doug Still
As I said, in India it helps to know a guy. A professor and colleague of Srini’s at IIT happened to be a former manager with the Gujarat State Forest Department, the bureau that manages Kabirvad. Hearing that we were going to see Kabirvad, he made a call. Soon, we had an appointment to meet the current state forester the day of our upcoming journey, a man named Ronak Kevadiya. Srini and I met the young forester late morning on a Thursday in the City of Bharuch, and also met up with three other friends interested in seeing the tree with us: a professor of Earth Sciences named Vikrant Jain, his son Shrenik and another student. The forestry department provided a sit-down lunch, and then I interviewed Mr. Kevadiya. He had only had a couple months on the job as Range Forest Officer. I asked him about his responsibilities. 

Ronak Kevadiya  59:42
As forest officer, it is my duty to protect forest land, then grow some plantations of the trees. So we have to manage our wildlife that is staying inside the forest. We have to give some livelihood to the forest department people and all these are the main responsibility. Apart from this, we have also responsibility of preserving our heritage banyan tree, that is called as Kabirvad. It is declared as a protected tree for us. So no one can go inside, no one can harm the tree. 

Doug Still
Is it a sacred grove? 

Ronak Kevadiya
Yes, it is sacred grove because it is being named after Saint Kabir. So, Saint Kabir is our very renowned bhakti saint. He was there in the 15th century in India, 15 to 16th century, I think yes. So it is named after a saint. So there is some religious belief also associated with history, yes. So it is considered as very much as a sacred grove of not only Bharuch, but also the whole of Gujarat and the whole of India. 

Doug Still  1:00:51
What does it mean to be a sacred grove in India? Does it mean there are extra protections?

Ronak Kevadiya  1:00:56
Yes, extra protection. We can't allow anyone to cut any Banyan branches or prop roots. So we are also taking measures to help grow the tree. So like we are whatever the new prop roots are there. So we enclosed that prop root in one steel cage and one tube so that it can go into the ground very easily. 

Doug Still  1:01:18
I see, so the aerial root, yeah, the branch, you put a tube around it.

Ronak Kevadiya  1:01:23
Yes, around root so we can ensure the safety also. So what we are doing is we are putting some steel tubes around their prop roots. We fill that tube with manure and soil and everything, so that it can grow in some growing environment, so that it can go into the ground very early, and it can establish into a well formed trunk.

Doug Still  1:01:43
Ronak didn’t come with us, but he assigned two foresters as guides. They were more like park rangers, impeccably dressed in well-pressed uniforms with epaulets, caps, badges, and polished shoes. Our fired up entourage drove 30 minutes through rural countryside with wandering groups of water buffalo and Dalits working the fields, many of them women.  We parked near the ferry boat that would take us across the Narmada river to the island. Concession booths lined our walk to the river, offering water, snacks, fruit, and souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims visiting Kabirvad.

We got a sweeping view of the river as we descended down some stairs to the shoreline. It was smooth and calm, flowing very slowly. 

[live audio of group walking]
There are sheep and goats. It suddenly got very hot. 

Doug Still
There are crocodiles in the Narmada, but disappointingly, I didn't see any. Our group walked onto a floating dock made of plastic cubes, about 50 yards long, out to where the boats moor. We were really feeling the heat now, 95 degrees, but it felt even hotter in the direct sun. We waited for the ferry to arrive, and we were joined by groups of Indian tourists, mostly families. There were 29 of us on the boat. 

[live audio on the boat]
So is that it or across the water? That's the island. It must be Kabirvad.

Doug Still
On the other side, we hopped out and walked up a hot, dusty slope. 

[live audio of group walking]
We're passing a herd of goats. I'm holding on to my mic. 

Doug Still
There were more concessions staffed by people who looked like they were struggling. We walked under an arch of connected logs, possibly made of cement, that looked like a schematic elephant. There was a wall of green ahead, but it was hard to tell what Kabirvad was at this point. But clearly we were to enter through an archway of foliage. We stepped through.

Kabir Poem  1:04:06
Now I'll know only 
the king's story. 
Breaking forth from the luminous center,
Ram's light, the guru’s word, the path.

A tree, form of the infinite,                
revealed by awareness.
No trunk or branch
no flower or fruit,
nectar flowing, sound undying.
A bee, aroused by the sweet scent
of a lotus, presses the twelve
to its heart.
In the midst of sixteen a blast of wind.    
Fruit blooms in the sky.
Meditation in utter simplicity 
waters the tree.        
Earth soaks up the sea.

Kabir says, I’ll walk with anyone
who has seen that tree

Doug Still  1:04:59
The air was immediately cooler. Our eyes adjusted to the dark shade, the bright sun left behind. There, the tree’s full glory came into focus. To truly appreciate a banyan, you need to stand beneath it, or inside it. A stunning conglomeration of trunk groupings spread out as far as we could see, connected in both upper and lower canopies with large horizontal branches as thick as trees. Surprisingly, large expanses of open ground separated the trunks, calling us to walk in and explore, to look up and down, and directly through. Kabirvad appeared to be a woodland with a high canopy, spacious and airy. But it wasn’t a woodland, not really. It was one tree. 

The “wow’s” left our mouths, and we all fanned out a bit, although the Gujarati foresters stayed close to me. Each trunk was a feast for the eyes, pulsing with intertwined aerial roots and trunks and branches. The amount of biomass was stunning. I could see up close how horizontal branches were supported with new trunks, but also sent new scaffold leaders straight up into the canopy dome. The  steel tubes that Ronak spoke could be seen scattered around, protecting the thin, dangling aerial roots from damage. They were painted yellow by the Forestry Department. Indian families crowded in front of trees and sat on branches to pose for photos. I took a lot of pictures myself. 

Concession tables were along the path inside the tree too, and one thing was very noticeable. A very loud, pounding sound reverberated everywhere made by a machine crushing sugarcane. You couldn’t escape the noise, except maybe on the far end of the site. My thought was such a thing wouldn’t be allowed next to the General Sherman tree or another National Park Service attraction in the States. But despite Kabirvad being a sacred grove, people were living and working here, surviving under the protective branches. Probably like people have for five centuries. Another pervasive sound was the swish swish of straw brooms wielded by female workers, raking the ever-falling debris from the tree into piles. The piles are swept to the edges, and to get rid of them they are burned. The smell of smoke pervaded the air.

Our group gathered again on the central paved path, which took a turn into an open plaza. On one side is a three story building, possibly a guest house for visitors or pilgrims. Next to that is a house, but most importantly a pink, modern temple to Kabir can be found here. We took our shoes off on the steps and climbed up to the second floor overlooking the landscape. Photography was not allowed. The whole scene was remarkable. A small complex of buildings inside a tree!

A few other species of trees were growing in this center area along with Kabirvad’s banyan trunks. Some grew up against buildings, causing cracks in masonry and pavement. If given to their own devices, the trees would obviously reclaim this plaza, and the buildings within it. Banyans are strangler figs, after all!
 
We continued to walk through the tree. Families of langurs were everywhere, the same monkeys seen at IIT. They were leaping in the trees, on the walls, and on the ground, very active. The babies were adorable. Langurs coexist with humans without much harassment or conflict. Other animal life was plainly visible. One area of canopy above had a colony of very, very large bats fluttering about. They are the Indian Flying Fox, or Giant Fruit Bat. The wingspan is 4 to 5 feet, one of the largest bat species in the world. They eat fruit and help disperse seeds. They were impressive, and quite intimidating.

Eventually, we reached an area at the far, far end of the tree. Srini, Vrikant and I and sat down on a log to have a chat

Doug Still
You were born ready, Reddy?

Srinivas Reddy  1:09:30
From day one, I was born Reddy. [laughter]

Doug Still  1:09:34
Well, we're here sitting under Kabirvad, and after spending a bit of time here, what are your general impressions?

Srinivas Reddy  1:09:44
It's just kind of breathtaking, actually, to see the tangle of life that can create a structure like this. I feel like it's a type of architecture, natural architecture. 

Doug Still  1:09:58
I think a tangle is a good word. Yeah.

Srinivas Reddy  1:10:02
Yeah, and you can't really figure it all out. It's too complex to, you know, map it all out, because it flows on top of each other, itself. It happens over hundreds of years, and then you just see this architecture. That was the word I was telling Vikrant, it seems like a type of architecture.

Doug Still  1:10:20
Yes, with spaces in between, large spaces.

Vikrant Jain  1:10:26
Yeah, it's really fascinating. I have never seen such a large tree in terms of the area and yes, Srini mentioned, it provides a natural architecture. Besides this, I'm also seeing its impact and its relationship with the river and…

Doug Still  1:10:46
…that's your specialty, studying the river. 

Vikrant Jain  1:10:49
Yeah, that's my interest, to work on the river, to understand the river behavior, and processes. And what I'm seeing is that this big tree is able to hold this space on this big, big river. It's a high energy river. The Narmada is known for that. And if you see the older satellite images, they are the areas where the bank rose and has been there. But this tree is really intact, is yet holding the space. And so it's maintained that space for itself. 

So with them, we come to know that we don't know the exact age. But the idea is that it may be 400, 500 or maybe 1000 years old. There is no dating of this tree. And in fact, we don't know that which is the main trunk. And without knowing the main main trunk, it cannot be dated. That's the thing.

Doug Still  1:11:38
Srini, what are you hearing and smelling and sensing.

Srinivas Reddy  1:11:45
Well, we came across the river in this boat. So we had some life signs of the boats and the river moving along. But the big thing that I was smelling was the smoke. You know, people are gathering the leaves, and burning the leaves, which also creates kind of a mystical atmosphere when the smoke goes up into the branches. 

Doug Still
That's right, I hadn't thought of that.

Srinivas Reddy
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, you know - temples also have a lot of smoke. You're burning incense, and so it kind of, it's like you're entering this tree temple. That’s the feeling I got when we first got here. And it has a kind of aura about it, and it's kind of dark inside. And in terms of the look, though, what I was thinking is like it looks like this creature, you know, moving its hands and then putting hands down somewhere, and then like another arm is coming somewhere else and putting its five fingers down. It's like this huge tree creature.

Doug Still  1:12:43
And I'm seeing these protective metal tubes around the aerial roots. The people are messing with sometimes, and they want to protect the tree. Is there anything you didn't expect?

Vikrant Jain  1:12:57
No, but it's really nice to see how well it has been protected, because they are saying that if those small, these tree roots are there, and when they grow during winter time period, these langurs actually eats those branches, so they protect those branches, and that's always there. I was not expecting that they are so young, because this protection was started around 10 or 15 years old. So it means that all this, like muscular branch branches, it looks like 50 or 60, years old. But now, now, yeah, we know that they are only 10 or 15 years old. So the growth of tree is faster, and that is very fast, that is very fast, and it can be explained by the presence of the river - lots of water, lots of nutrients. Everything is there, and the tree is strong. 

Doug Still
So the soil looks rich.

Vikrant Jain
The soil is rich. So all those things are there, and the tree is growing with the support of the forest department. 

Doug Still  1:13:56
So the legends have it that the banyan's life began when Kabir was here in the late 15th century. But it's not a stretch to imagine that the tree is older, in my opinion, just because it's so large and already spreading its branches when he was here. Now that you've seen it for yourselves, could you see why Kabir might set up and live here for a few years.

Srinivas Reddy  1:14:21
Yeah, well, sitting under the banyan tree is a big part of Indian culture everywhere, especially for Sadhus and spiritual people. So I could very well see him, you know, finding the tree. And I think the story is that he had a banyan tree that he was using as a toothbrush, right? Or a banyan branch. So the banyan tree was probably here already, and then it maybe grew really big after him. 

Doug Still  1:14:49
That could be. We saw a lot of banyans across the river.

Srinivas Reddy  1:14:53
We did. The funniest thing to me is that there's a temple to Kabir, which is totally not Kabir. 

Doug Still  1:14:58
Yeah, that's right. [both laugh]

Srinivas Reddy  1:15:02
I mean, the tree is a Kabir temple. That's how I feel. I mean, that's why he came. The power of the tree, it has its own holiness and sacred quality to it. 

Doug Still  1:15:13
What do you think Kabir would have thought of you describing it as a temple?

Srinivas Reddy  1:15:17
I think you have been okay with that. You know, he'll talk about, like, the temple within, the temple in your heart, like some kind of sacred thing inside. Maybe this is, yes, a reflection of that sacred thing outside. More so than a temple, or…

Doug Still  1:15:36
A human built temple, yeah, with hierarchy.

Srinivas Reddy  1:15:39
This is not institutional, it's nature. And I think he would be happy with that.

Doug Still  1:15:45
I imagine there has always been a community under this tree too, that welcomed him in.

Vikrant Jain  1:15:52
Yes, it is possible. 

Doug Still  1:15:55
Do you think the reverence for Kabirvad reflects something profoundly Indian? Or maybe that's a limiting question. Maybe perhaps human, profoundly human?

Srinivas Reddy  1:16:08
Yeah, and maybe Indian too. I mean, even though I feel sad when I see a lot of littering that happens in India, we have a deep love for trees. We do. It's part of our culture where people worship trees. People intentionally do not cut down trees when there's building going on. 

Doug Still
So there's a sacred grove… 

Srinivas Reddy
Yeah, a sacred grove. So there's a deep love for trees. And so there's that, but then that also attaches to our general sense of spirituality, no matter what religion you come from. Indians are, I would say, very spiritual people. We believe in things beyond the human part. And I think trees and nature are a big part of that spirituality. So this is a good combination of those elements. 

I'll add one thing - I'm so glad that Vikrant came and that, Doug, you came to India. I mean, I tell people all the time in America, I'm like, come to India, and no one comes. But you totally came! 

Doug Still
Oh yeah, I wasn't gonna pass that up. 

Srinivas Reddy
So thank you for coming.

Doug Still  1:17:14
I knew this sprawling banyan on the Narmada River was one of the great trees of the world. For me, it had to be experienced in person. As I learned, Kabir and his songs are best understood when felt in the body through music and shared community. Similarly, Kabirvad is best understood in the body, through the senses. Eyes registering the dark, tangled complexity of nature; skin feeling the cool air; nose smelling smoke and dusty, fallen leaves; ears listening to the motor of the sugarcane smasher, as well as the sounds of birds, voices, and the sweeping of leaves; tongue tasting the salty lemonade purchased at the concession stand.This is a different way of experiencing nature than I’m used to in the States. Tree and human presence are integral. Communities of people and communities of nature have coexisted here for centuries. History, culture, and spiritualism are interwoven within the banyan’s many trunks. That’s what makes this tree special. For many, finding the great Saint Kabir and marveling at Kabirvad are one and the same. 

[This Old Tree theme music]

Thank you tree lovers, for joining me on this journey. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. A special, heartfelt thanks is extended to Srinivas Reddy. Without his ideas, hospitality, and love of trees this exploration of Kabirvad wouldn’t have been possible. I’d also like to thank Abhia Lakia, Jayraj Bhatt, Anuja Bhatt, Sudhanshu Sharma, and Kabeer Jesusa for sharing their Kabir poems. Ronak Kevadiya and Vikrant Jain spoke thoughtfully about the tree Kabirvad. The atmospheric Raga Ahiri that we listened to throughout the episode was performed by Srinivas Reddy, Rajiv Bhatt, and Sameer Sahasrabuddhe. 

All of the Kabir poems were read beautifully by Gairik Sachdeva, and the poems and translations were provided by Linda Hess. Lastly, many many thanks to Professor Hess for sharing her work and perspectives on Kabir’s songs and legacy. I enjoyed the interview tremendously. I’ll be posting photos of Kabirvad and other subjects included here on Facebook and Instagram. The show website is thisoldtree.show. 

Once again thanks for listening. I’m Doug Still, and this is This Old Tree. See you next time!