SOURCE: Hess, Linda. Introduction to The Bijak of Kabir, pp. 9-24. San Francisco, Calif.: North Point Press, 1983.

In the following excerpt, Hess offers a critical overview of the works of Kabir as a bhakti poet who, more than any other religious poet, challenges, unsettles, and shocks his audience.

Address and Assault

In his mastery of the vocative, Kabir is unique among the bhakti poets. Not in the saguna devotees, not in nirguna Dadu or reformer Nanak, not in the radical Bengali Buddhist poets, the iconoclast Gorakh or the surreal Bauls, whatever else they may have in common with him, do we find the intense bearing down upon the listener that is so prominent in Kabir. It shows itself first in the array of addresses he uses to seize our attention: Hey Saint, Brother, Brahmin, Yogi, Hermit, Babu, Mother, Muslim, Creature, Friend, Fool! Many poems are simply directed at...