01Lahartara and Panchganga Ghat
The Kabir Panth tells that the infant was found on a lotus in the Lahartara pond at Kashi by a Muslim weaver couple, Niru and Nima, who raised him at the loom. He wanted Swami Ramananda for his guru. Knowing the acharya bathed before dawn at Panchganga Ghat, Kabir lay on the steps in the dark; Ramananda’s foot struck him and the acharya cried out “Rama, Rama”, and Kabir took that as his diksha. He worked the loom all his life and kept a household.
02Dying at Maghar
His sakhis mock the outward show of every creed and point to the Rama within. At the end of his life he left Kashi, where death is said to bring liberation, for Maghar, which was said to bring the opposite, to show that liberation lies with Rama and not with the place. Tradition says Hindus and Muslims both came to claim his body and found only flowers under the sheet; they divided them. At Maghar a samadhi and a tomb stand side by side.
“I went looking for the wicked and found no one wicked; when I searched my own heart, I found none more wicked than me.”
Kabir, sakhi (doha)