Ulatbamsi

(“upside-down language”) Word denoting paradoxical language in which the
speaker’s utterances are reversals of
“normal” events, such as “The cow is
sucking the calf’s teat,” “Mouse stalks
cat,” “Rain falls from earth to sky.” The
most famous composer of such utterances was the devotional (bhakti) poetsaint Kabir, who inherited a tradition of
coded language (sandhabhasha) from
the Nathpanthi and Sahajiya religious
communities. Ulatbamsi utterances are
not intended to be simply nonsensical,
nor is it simply a coded language in
which one term stands for another; they
are rather intended to stimulate the
hearer to active listening, interpretation,
and searching for a truth that lies
beyond right side up and upside
down. For a long discussion of
719
Ulatbamsi
ulatbamsi, see Appendix A in Linda Hess
and Shukdev Singh (trans.), The Bijak
of Kabir, 1983.