The Lal Vakh, or ‘Sentences of Lalla', is the earliest known manifestation of Kashmiri literature. Known variously as Lalla, Lallesvari or Lalla Yogini, the author of these scintillating, provocative and compelling verses has always eluded sectarian definition. Her most celebrated appellation, ‘Lal Ded', means ‘Granny Lalla', or literally, ‘Lalla the Womb', which connects this 14 th -century Kashmiri mystic-poet to the mother-goddess cults that form the deep substratum of Indic religious life. Her verses-composed in a Kashmiri still patterned after Sanskrit and Apabhramsa, and only lightly touched by Persian and Arabic – constitute a bridge between the Shaivite and Sufi lineages.