Searching for the Source or Mapping the Stream?

Abstract

Jaroslav Strnad recognizes that the existing body of Kabir’s poetry was produced by the interplay of both oral and written traditions. He analyses the internal structure of individual poems as well as the organizational structure of manuscripts to show how we might trace the growth of this poetry along thematic and stylistic lines, and through the efforts of multiple performers and composers. He consequently argues that the study of poets in the early modern period—many of whose ‘original’ oeuvres are as elusive as that of Kabir—might be more fruitfully pursued as the mapping of such ‘streams’ of poetic development, rather than as a hunt for ur-texts.