THE IDEA OF TIME IN EARLY MODERN HINDI POETRY: LOVE, MORALITY AND DECAY IN KABIR’S KALIYUGA

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to examining the idea of time in early modern Hindi poetry through the figure of Kaliyuga in the poetry of Kabir. While classical traditions describe Kaliyuga as an age of degeneration, ritual corruption, and the weakening of Dharma, Kabir transforms it into a rhetorical and ethical device through which he critiques social hierarchies, empty ritualism, institutional religion, and the illusion of deferred salvation. The paper demonstrates that Kabir’s engagement with time operates on three interconnected levels. First, he inherits the traditional discourse of Kaliyuga yet radicalizes it into a critique of Brahmanical authority, ritual practices, and the structures of religious mediation. Second, he uses time to foreground the urgency of human existence, emphasizing remembrance (sumiran), inner devotion, and ethical awakening over ritual observance. Third, Kabir reimagines death not as a fearful culmination within the cycle of rebirth but as a transformative moment of union with the divine, often articulated through intimate and gendered metaphors. In doing so, Kabir shifts the discourse of time from abstract cosmology to embodied human experience. The paper also draws attention to the fact that rejecting the postponement of liberation to an afterlife or future birth, Kabir privileges lived experience over scriptural authority and democratizes spiritual realization by locating truth within individual consciousness. Through this intervention, Kabir not only redefines Bhakti but also offers a profound critique of religious and social structures in early modern India. Ultimately, it is suggested that Kabir transforms Kaliyuga from a symbol of despair into a site of ethical confrontation, poetic resistance, and spiritual immediacy.