Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Out of the simplest beginnings — a little water, a little earth — a whole living body is shaped.
From plain clay, this wonderful puppet is formed. Isn't it amazing that something so ordinary becomes something so alive?
Kabir begins with the concrete language of conception — the literal layer above names the fluids directly — and then marvels that from this "clay" a puppet is fashioned. The child-facing wording here is an adaptation, keeping the wonder: from plain clay a living being is shaped. The "puppet" (putree) image runs through the whole shabad — a figure made and moved by a power beyond itself. It sets up the great humbling to come: if I'm shaped from clay and breath, how much is really "mine"?
Isn't it amazing that you are alive at all? Where do you think the "you" in you comes from?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI