The earliest of these mixed sects is that founded by Kabir.[652] He appears to have been a Mohammedan weaver by birth, though tradition is not unanimous on this point.[653] It is admitted, however, that he was brought up among Moslims at Benares but became a disciple of Ramanand.  This suggests that he lived early in the fifteenth century.[654] Another tradition says that he was summoned before Sikander Lodi (1489-1517), but the details of his life are evidently legendary.  We only know that he was married and had a son, that he taught in northern and perhaps central India and died at Maghar in the district of Gorakhpur.  There is significance, however, in the legend which relates that after his decease Hindus and Mohammedans disputed as to whether his body should be burned or buried.  But when they raised the cloth which covered the corpse, they found underneath it only a heap of flowers.  So the Hindus took part and burnt them at Benares and the Moslims buried the rest at Maghar.  His grave there is still in Moslim keeping.

In teaching Kabir stands midway between the two religions, but leaning to the side of Hinduism.  It is clear that this Hindu bias became stronger in his followers, but it is not easy to separate his own teaching from subsequent embellishments, for the numerous hymns and sayings attributed to him are collected in compilations made after his death, such as the Bijak and the Adi-granth of the Sikhs.  In hymns which sound authentic he puts Hindus and Moslims on the same footing.

“Kabir is a child of Ram and Allah,” he says, “and accepteth all Gurus and Pirs.”  “O God, whether Allah or Ram, I live by thy name.”

    “Make thy mind thy Kaaba, thy body its enclosing temple,
    Conscience its prime teacher. 
    Then, O priest, call men to pray to that mosque
    Which hath five gates. 
    The Hindus and Mussulmans have the same Lord.”

But the formalities of both creeds are impartially condemned.  “They are good riders who keep aloof from the Veda and Koran."[655] Caste, circumcision and idolatry are reprobated.  The Hindu deities and their incarnations are all dead:  God was not in any of them.[656] Ram, it would seem, should be understood not as Ramacandra but as a name of God.

Yet the general outlook is Hindu rather than Mohammedan.  God is the magician who brings about this illusory world in which the soul wanders.[657] “I was in immobile and mobile creatures, in worms and in moths; I passed through many various births.  But when I assumed a human body, I was a Yogi, a Yati, a penitent, a Brahmacari:  sometimes an Emperor and sometimes a beggar.”  Unlike the Sikhs, Kabir teaches the sanctity of life, even of plants.  “Thou cuttest leaves, O flower girl:  in every leaf there is life.”  Release, as for all Hindus, consists in escaping from the round of births and deaths.  Of this he speaks almost in the language of the Buddha.[658]

“Though I have assumed many shapes, this is my last. 
The strings and wires of the musical instrument are all worn out: 
I am now in the power of God’s name. 
I shall not again have to dance to the tune of birth and death. 
Nor shall my heart accompany on the drum.”