Kashmir remains one of the world’s most contentious geopolitical flash points. In April 2025, India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed countries that share a tense border, came dangerously close to a major confrontation after militants attacked Indian tourists near the popular resort town of Pahalgam in Indian Kashmir. Against this backdrop, media coverage of Kashmir often focuses on violence and division.
What is overlooked in this coverage is Kashmir’s immense artistic, intellectual and spiritual heritage, one shaped by centuries of interreligious and intercultural exchange.
As a scholar of Sufism – traditions within Islam that emphasize inner transformation, love of God and a personal connection to the divine – I have spent several years studying the Kashmiri mystic and poet Nund Rishi.
Also known as Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani, Nund Rishi lived from about 1378 to 1440. He founded the Rishi Sufi order, whose teachings emphasized simplicity, compassion, devotion to God and care for others.
The Rishi Sufis understood their tradition as both Islamic and deeply rooted in Kashmir’s religious past. Their adoption of the Sanskrit word “rishi,” meaning sage, reflected that connection with the region’s Hindu spiritual past. Nund Rishi’s poetry likewise draws on both Hindu and Islamic symbols and ideas. That legacy endures today.
Since the third century B.C.E., Kashmir has been a center of learning and the arts for Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims alike.
Under the reign of Ashoka, an emperor who ruled from 304 to 232 B.C.E. and played a pivotal rule in spreading Buddhism across Asia, Kashmir became a major center of Buddhist learning.
As royal patronage shifted in the seventh century, support for Buddhism declined and Kashmir emerged as a center of Hindu literature and philosophy. Beginning in the eighth century, it also became an important hub for Shaivism, a major branch of Hinduism that worships Shiva as the supreme deity.
Kashmir’s Shaiva Hindu thinkers produced some of South Asia’s most influential texts on consciousness. For example, the ninth-century text the Spanda Kārikās describes consciousness as “spanda,” or vibration, an active and dynamic force.
In the 10th and early 11th centuries, the Hindu Shaiva scholar Abhinavagupta produced influential works on art, drama and literature. He argued that poetry and theater transform emotions such as love, sorrow and fear into “rasa” – a shared experience that audiences can appreciate without being overwhelmed by their own personal concerns. For Abhinavagupta, this temporary freedom from the individual self helped explain why beauty, awe and wonder could become spiritually transformative.
Nund Rishi was inspired by this rich legacy. While the Rishi Sufi tradition was not the only example of interreligious exchange, it became one of the region’s most influential expressions of a shared spiritual culture.
Kashmir gradually became a predominantly Muslim society after the Shah Mir dynasty came to power in the 14th century. Sufism was one of the main ways Islam spread in Kashmir, as Sufi teachers expressed Islamic teachings in terms that resonated with Hindu spiritual traditions and local culture.
Nund Rishi was influenced in part by the 14th-century Shaiva Hindu mystic and poet Lal Ded, one of Kashmir’s most revered spiritual figures. Lal Ded became famous for her short spiritual poems called “vakhs,” meaning “speech” or “saying.” These verses expressed complex religious ideas in simple, everyday Kashmiri.
Lal Ded’s poetry encouraged people to seek God within themselves, practice self-discipline and recognize that spiritual truth could not be found through outward rituals alone. For example, one of her vakhs goes:
In this vakh, Lal Ded writes that what she sought far away was already present within her, expressing the idea that the divine can be found within oneself.
Lal Ded’s poetry also emphasized that the search for the divine transcends religious boundaries. For example, one of her vakhs goes:
Lal Ded writes that the divine can be found within oneself by Hindus and Muslims alike.
Passed down orally for centuries, these vakhs became some of the earliest and most influential works of Kashmiri literature and were cherished by both Hindu and Muslim communities.
Continuing Lal Ded’s poetic legacy, Nund Rishi wrote short poems called “shruks.” These poems used images from ordinary life to warn against greed, religious hypocrisy and an excessive attachment to worldly possessions. He strongly rejected caste divisions – a social hierarchy based on birth prevalent across South Asia. In one popular shruk he wrote:
His poems also reflected on death, equality and humanity’s dependence on nature.
At the time, Persian was the language of the royal court and literary culture. Nund Rishi, however, composed his teachings in Kashmiri, the language spoken by ordinary people. This made his spiritual lessons easier to understand, remember and pass down.
Nund Rishi also paid tribute to Lal Ded, also known as “Lalla,” in one of his shruks. Here, he praises her spiritual wisdom and calls her an avatār, or an exceptionally holy and divinely inspired person:
Even though Nund Rishi was a Muslim, he saw in the Hindu saint Lal Ded a model of spiritual attainment.
Nund Rishi’s place of burial, Charar-e-Sharif, remains a revered pilgrimage site for both Hindus and Muslims even today, and the poetry of both Lal Ded and Nund Rishi transcends religious boundaries and resonates with both communities.
Small booklets of their poetry are sold on street corners across Srinagar, the capital of India’s Jammu and Kashmir territory, and their verses are often recited at “mushairas,” or public poetry gatherings.
During one visit to Khanqah-e-Moula, a shrine in the heart of Srinagar dedicated to the revered 14th-century Persian Sufi saint Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, I encountered a Muslim devotee moved to tears as he recited Lal Ded’s verses. When I asked why he was reciting the poetry of a Hindu mystic at a Muslim shrine, he replied, “Lal Ded is our spiritual grandmother. How could I not honor her when I make this visit?”
This spirit continues to shape Kashmir’s literary culture, which is shaped by the Rishi legacy of seeking wisdom across religious boundaries. This influence can be found in the works of contemporary Kashmiri poets and writers who continue to draw on Lal Ded, Nund Rishi and other Rishi Sufi poets and saints.
Mushaira gatherings and literary festivals also remain popular venues for sharing new poetry. In these gatherings, this shared literary tradition is celebrated across religious boundaries, revealing another side of life in the valley.
Highlighting these lesser-known parts of Kashmir’s history does not mean denying the region’s geopolitical and sociopolitical challenges or romanticizing the past. Rather, the story of the Rishi Sufi order offers a counterpoint to the narratives of divisions that dominate discussions on Kashmir today.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Peter Dziedzic, Harvard University
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Peter Dziedzic receives funding from the American Council of Learned Societies.
