The body is a borrowed clay cup and the soul a swan that flies on alone, so loosen your grip on what you cannot keep.
The Arc
Kabir turns from the many callings of the last shabad to the single human fact of impermanence, and treats it tenderly. Pauri 0 makes the body an unbaked clay pitcher that dissolves in water. The Rahao (Pauri 1) asks why we strut with pride when we all began small and helpless. Pauri 2 pictures anxious hoarding as a bee filling a hive it will fly from. Pauri 3 gives the luminous image of the soul-swan escorted to the edge of goodbye and then traveling on alone. Pauri 4 names the parrot gripping a perch it could release, our self-made bondage, and points the way out: loosen the grip.
Key Vocabulary
kaachee gaagar: unbaked clay pitcher, the body that softens and returns to earth
fooli-aa: puffed up with pride, the posture the Rahao asks us to set down
maDh maakhee: the honeybee, image of gathering wealth one cannot carry
hans: the soul-swan that journeys on alone, carrying only what it became
nalnee: the parrot-perch trap, self-made bondage loosened only by letting go
Themes and Cross-Connections
This shabad joins the swan imagery of Raag Wadahans (the Alaahnian) to Kabir's teaching on attachment. It is a companion to the previous shabad (B00C1358): there, nothing outward reaches the One; here, nothing outward can be carried onward. Both point to the inner reality (Naam) as the only lasting thing. The parrot-trap is a fine illustration of philosophy.md's Haumai, the grip we could release.
For Raag Sorath
Sorath's grounded, consoling tone suits a meditation on mortality that means to steady rather than frighten. The raag lets the swan image carry the weight, so the shabad lands as gentle wisdom rather than dread.
Translation Notes
WELLBEING (substantial): funeral ashes, worms, the graphic ten-months womb posture, and the deathbed shouts (layho layho, bhoot) are all dropped. The impermanence teaching is carried instead by Kabir's own gentler images, the clay cup, the bee, the swan.
WELLBEING: saThor / 'fool' softened to a universal, kind 'we'; kaal garas koo-aa (seized by Death, dark pit) rendered as tangled in what only looks valuable, keeping the lesson, dropping the terror.
The soul-swan is presented as gentle truth and hope (carrying what one became), consistent with the Wadahans handling of death and grief.
The body is a borrowed clay cup and the soul a swan that flies on alone, so loosen your grip on what you cannot keep.
The Arc
Kabir turns from the many callings of the last shabad to the single human fact of impermanence, and treats it tenderly. Pauri 0 makes the body an unbaked clay pitcher that dissolves in water. The Rahao (Pauri 1) asks why we strut with pride when we all began small and helpless. Pauri 2 pictures anxious hoarding as a bee filling a hive it will fly from. Pauri 3 gives the luminous image of the soul-swan escorted to the edge of goodbye and then traveling on alone. Pauri 4 names the parrot gripping a perch it could release, our self-made bondage, and points the way out: loosen the grip.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
This shabad joins the swan imagery of Raag Wadahans (the Alaahnian) to Kabir's teaching on attachment. It is a companion to the previous shabad (B00C1358): there, nothing outward reaches the One; here, nothing outward can be carried onward. Both point to the inner reality (Naam) as the only lasting thing. The parrot-trap is a fine illustration of philosophy.md's Haumai, the grip we could release.
For Raag Sorath
Sorath's grounded, consoling tone suits a meditation on mortality that means to steady rather than frighten. The raag lets the swan image carry the weight, so the shabad lands as gentle wisdom rather than dread.
Translation Notes
Last updated: 2026