("inverted
language") "The cow is sucking the calf's teat," "Mouse
stalks cat," and "Rain pours from ground to sky" are examples of
paradoxical language in which the speaker's words are reversals of
"normal" occurrences.
The devout (bhakti) poet saint Kabir, who inherited a legacy
of coded language (sandhabhasha) from the Nathpanthi and Sahajiya religious
sects, was the most renowned creator of such utterances.
Ulatbamsi utterances aren't meant to be meaningless, nor are
they meant to be a coded language in which one phrase stands for another;
rather, they're meant to encourage attentive listening, interpretation, and
looking for a reality that lies beyond right side up and upside down.
See Appendix A in Linda Hess and Shukdev Singh (trans. ),
The Bijak of Kabir, 1983, for a detailed explanation of ulatbamsi.
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