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As referred to above that up to mid-fourteenth century A.D Trika Saivism remained confined to the intellectual class and could not reach the wider audience. However, it was Lal Ded (1320-1391 A.D)^[1] who preached the same tradition to common Kashmiri in a vernacular language (Kashmiri) with poetic quatrains (Vaakhs) as medium. Before going to her Vaakhs and to analyse how she preached Trika Saivism, it is pertinent to delve first into her life and spiritual journey.

With regard to Lal Ded鈥檚 birth place Tarikhi-Hassan and Tarikhi-Kabir refer to it as Sempore (near Pampore), while as Pandit Anand Kaul and P.N.K Bamzai refer the same as Pandrethan in Srinagar.^[2] She was married into a Brahman family of Padmanpora (present Pampore in Pulwama district), where she lived torture and pain.^[3] Since the beginning she was inclined towards Sadhana (spiritual practice) and was very different in her activities from the rest of the women folk, hence at the age of twenty-six she gave up householder鈥檚 life in search of ultimate truth.^[4] The research of scholars like L.D Barnett, G.A Grierson, Jayalal Kaul, S.S Toshkhani, M.H. Zaffar, Shonaleeka Kaul, Neerja Mattoo and Abir Bazaz have argued that Lal Ded recognized ultimate truth by following the path of Saivism preached since midninth century A.D by thinkers like Vasugupta, Bhatta Kallata, Somananda, Utpaladeva, Abhinavagupta, Ksemaraja and Lal Ded鈥檚 own teacher Srikantha or Siddhamol. After recognising the ultimate truth she didn鈥漷 kept it confined to herself only, rather, preached the same to common Kashmiri through her Vaakhs, thus became its saint-poetess from the laity.³⁷ T

his entire journey of Lal Ded after analysing her Vaakhs has been categorised by Shonaleeka Kaul into four phasesworldly illusion, search for ultimate truth, recognition of truth and preaching the same Anubhav (experience) to others.^[5] The analysis of the content of Lal Ded鈥檚 Vaakhs makes one to safely suggest that these Vaakhs preached same theology, philosophy and methodology that were preached in the Sanskrit language by the Sastras of Trika Saivism. Similarly, the dominant discourse of Lal Ded鈥檚 vocabulary reflects various symbols/signs/idioms of Trika Saivism like Siva, Goar (Guru), Cheyth (Citi) Sakti, Omkar, Mantra, Tantra, Pranayama etc. But unlike her predecessors especially Abhinavagupta, the version of Saivism that Lal Ded preached had severe contempt for the obsession of the outer aspect of religion (Yajnas or rituals).