c. 1478-1583
Surdas
Blind singer of Braj whose songs of Krishna were collected as the Sursagar. His Bhramargit sets the plain love of the cowherd women against a scholar's abstractions.
Every line we carry
Each one links to its source, what it means, and the shirt in any of our looks.
- A mountain in plain sight, and you hide it behind a straw.
The cowherd women tell a learned visitor that he is hiding a mountain behind a blade of grass. What they have lived is obvious, and his theory is thin. Don't let a clever idea cover what is plainly in front of you.
Sursagar, Bhramargit (quoted in Ramchandra Shukla, Hindi Sahitya ka Itihas, 1929), our translation from the Greek