Person · Rishi order Sufi saint · India
Nund Rishi
Also known as Nund Rishi — Charar-e-Sharief
The 14-century Kashmiri Sufi Sheikh Nooruddin Noorani (Nund Rishi, c.1377-1440), the formative saint of Kashmir's indigenous Rishi order (an syncretic Sufi tradition combining Islamic mysticism with Kashmiri Shaiva traditions). Nund Rishi was born to a Kashmiri Muslim family and became a disciple of Lal Ded's teachings; his 20,000 shruks (Kashmiri verses) establish the foundational Rishi devotional literature. He preached vegetarianism, non-violence, the equality of all religions, and the primacy of inner spiritual experience over external ritualism. The Rishi order he founded became distinctive to Kashmir — combining Islamic Sufi teachings with Hindu Shaiva asceticism and vegetarianism. His tomb at Charar-e-Sharif (30 km from Srinagar) was burned down during the 1995 Kashmir conflict (Mast Gul's Harkat-ul-Mujahideen fighters burned the dargah during a siege); the 2007 restoration preserved the Rishi tradition. The annual Urs draws 500,000 pilgrims.
- Date
- 1377–1440
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Condition
- living shrine tradition
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 33.870, 74.770
About the place
Placed at Charar-e-Sharief, the shrine town built around his tomb, which burned in 1995 and has been rebuilt.
Connections (1)
- Teaching lineageLal Ded
Nund Rishi claimed Lal Ded as his spiritual predecessor, and the claim is the single most important fact about religion in the valley: a fourteenth-century Shaiva woman's vakhs and a fifteenth-century Muslim ascetic's shruks are in the same Kashmiri idiom, use much of the same vocabulary, and are quoted by both communities. The Rishi order is continuity with a change of name.
On these journeys
Sources
Kashmiri shruk tradition; histories of the Rishi order.
Open Nund Rishi in the repository →