The Waters as Wayfarers: The Rishi Sufis, Human-Elemental Silsilas, and a Kashmiri Ecopoetics

This paper considers the portrayed sentience of more-than-human beings, particularly elemental water beings, in early modern Kashmiri Rishi Sufi literature and cosmology. In this literature, the more-than-human cosmos is portrayed as animate and engaging with human interlocutors, especially Rishi Sufi masters. Much attention is paid to the springs, rivers, and lakes of Kashmir. These living waters are home to elemental water beings who have the capacity to serve as spiritual interlocutors. In this paper, I explore the contours and implications of this fascinating cosmology in which the more-than-human world is not only sentient but also permeated with beings and consciousnesses which enter into meaningful relationships with humans, implying the possibility of trans-dimensional spiritual lineages. This paper explores the unique Sufi cosmology of the landscape of Kashmir while also bringing Islamic and indigenous ecocritical perspectives to bear on a broader interdisciplinary conversation in the environmental humanities and studies of more-than-human sentience.