Hierophantic Experiences in Kashmiri Sufi Poetry

Description

Hierophantic experience is an exalted visionary insight gained through the fusion and integration of six faculties-vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch and thought. It is a close and harmonious relationship with a higher power beyond the phenomenal world of space and time. The impact of various experiences expressed by the caravan of our mystics bears a close affinity with Sufi poetry and with other mystic thoughts like Trika Shaster, Buddhist Philosophy, Neo-Platonism or other mystic literatures of the world. Kashmiri Sufi poetry is largely an expression of hierophantic experiences. In this book Kashmiri Sufi poetry is analysed to see how poetry, as an artistic expression of the Communion with the One, plays a crucial role in the mystical experience and how this kind of experience may be an evidence of the activity of the fusion. The aim of the book has been to seek out & document the literary spirit of the metaphysical, the mystical, & a paroxysmal pulse of the transcendental concord between the man and the Absolute as shared by the Sufis of Kashmir.