Masnavi: A Study of Urdu Romance 0195791487, 9780195791488

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Masnavi A Study of Urdu Romance

Anna A. Suvorova ~

/

Translated from the Russian by

M. Osama Faruqi

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

OXFORD

,/tt'I

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP

~O-.J Oxford University Press Is a department of the University of Oxford. ;;JO ff It furthers the University's objective of excellence In research, scholarship,

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and education by publishing worldwide In Oxford New York

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C Oxford University Press 2000 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Arst published 2000 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored In a retrieval systet,,, or transmitted, In any form or by any means, without the prior permission In writing of Oxford University Press. Enquiries concerning reproduction should be sent to Oxford University Press at the address below. This book Is sold subject to the condition that It_shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent In any form of binding or cover other than that In which It Is published and without a similar condition lndudlng this condition being Imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN O 19 579148 7 First published In Russian by Vostochnaya Llteratura Publishers, Moscow, 1992

Printed In Pakistan at New Sketch Graphics, Karachi. Published by Ameena Salyld, Oxford University Press 5-Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal PO Box 13033, Karachi-75350, Pakistan.

To my parents

CONTENTS

page

Dedication

V

Introduction

ix

1. EARIHLY LOVE AND CELESTIAL LOVE Poems about the quest for love Poems about the mystery of love

2. AS POWERRJL AS DEATH Through fire, water, and brass trumpets Variations on the theme

3.

1 11 29 44 SS

85

OF EARIHLY LOVE The city and the world Man and the world

100 110

4. VERBOSE LANGUAGE OF LOVE

165 176 194

Whims of style Name of the rose

5. LOVE'S LABOUR LOSI Diary of the pangs of the heart

133

.213 223

Conduslon

248

Glossary

262

Bibliography

280

Index

285

,.

INTRODUCTION

How sweet are the shadowy channs Of the nights of the gorgeous East/ How delightfully flow their hours For those who adore the Prophet/ What a sweet bliss In their abodes, In their enchanting gardens, In the quiet of secure harems, Where under the Influence of the moon Everything is full of myste,y and tranquility And voluptuous inspiration! A. S. Pushkln

In the year· AD 711, Arab troops under the leadership of Muhammad lbn al-Qaslm crossed the border of Slndh, marking the beginning of the Muslim conquest of India extending over several centuries. Since those times 'Slndh and Hind', as at times the subcontinent was called by Muslim authors, have served as a source of Irresistible attraction for the most Illustrious Inhabitants of the Muslim World. Who has not sought his fortune here-whether with sword or qalam (pen) In hand or with serrnon or verses on his llpsl Indeed the number Is legion: erudite travellers, Buzurg lbn Shahriyar, al-Birunl, lbn Battuta; religious leaders and mystics, Mansur Hallaj, al-Hujwlri, Mulnuddln Chlshtl; poets, Unsurl, Manuchehrl, Abul Faraj Ruml; artists, Mir Sayld

X

INTRODUcnON

All and Abdus Salam; and generals, like Mahmud Ghamavl, Timur, and Babur. Some came here as guests, often uninvited; others settled In India for good, finding a second homeland. Some left a scorched and bleeding trace In the people's memory; legends were made about others while they were still alive and their tombs were venerated by Muslims and Hindus alike. Of course, on the scales of historic justice, the burden of Muslim military Invasions outweighed, for a long time, the huge repositories of learning which the Arab, Persian, and Turkish Intelligentsia brought with them. In a contemporary's perception, the soldier's heavy footsteps drown the poet's light steps. Let us say, for Indians of the eleventh century, Mahmud Ghaznavl's seventeen aggressive campaigns were In no way compensated by the depth and objectivity of al-Blrunl's book, India, or by the asceticism of the Muslim saint al-Hujwlrl, popularly known by the name of Data Ganjbakhsh. But centuries rolled by, marshalling facts In historical perspective; and when In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the unique Muslim culture of India took Its final shape, It turned out that Its most Impressive and original features are bound, not with the polltlcal and legal Institutions Implanted 'from above', but with the activities of those 'others' who marched over the length and breadth of the conquered country, without heralds and war drums, but with 'gentle, light steps'. The ritual of conversion from Hinduism to Islam took just the few minutes required for pronouncing the Shahadah (the Indication of faith). However, for genuine lslamlzatlon of the neophytes who continued to adhere to the earlier mode of life and everyday rituals, centuries were required, In the course of which Muslims and Hindus exercised an active Influence on each other. As this takes place It Is obvious that no forced conversion Into Islam (of which there were not a few examples In the history of India) has given as many proselytes to the Prophet's PBUH religion as the

INTRODUCTION

•

XI

inspired preaching of the sheikhs of the Chishtiyya order: Muinuddln, Bakhtlyar Kakl, Baba Farid, Nizamuddin Auliya, Nasiruddin Chiragh of Delhi, Muhammad Gesudaraz, etc. The 'martyr in- the name of divine love' Hallaj's one and only visit to Multan, In the year 905, gave birth to a whole tradition of mystic folk poetry in Punjabi, Sindhi, and Balochi literatures. The civilization brought to India by immigrants from the countries of the near and the Middle East was mainly urban. Of course, even before the advent of Muslims, India had developed an urban culture. Nevertheless, if the Ideal of a religious Hindu was retirement in the evening of life from the town Into a forest sanctuary or ashram, for Muslims of all age groups the symbol of spiritual and social life was the mosque and the congregatlonal prayers, possible only In urban conditions. The consequences of this urbanization, different In nature to the Indian version, were quite far-reaching. Thus, It brought about the development of a new type of urban architecture which, In the Indian context, signified transition from the 'sculptural concept of space to the architectural, replacement of vertical construction by horizontal' . 1 The activation of urban life and the consolidation of the multilingual population were conducive to the consolidation of the status of vernaculars and local dialects, which In the course of time, if not legally, then at least In practice, acquired a certain parity with Arabic, Persian, and Sanskritthe official languages of religion and clerical work. Finally, the growth of towns signified the formation of new centres of Islamic science and art, which ensured uninterrupted succession in the transfer of knowledge, skill, and the professionalization of artistic and scientific work. The culture of these centres In the true sense of the word belonged to urbi et orb/ (the city and the world), on the one hand gradually acquiring its 'local colour' and, on the other hand, never losing contact with the vast Muslim World. Lahore,

xii

INTRODUCTION

Thatta, Delhi, Jaunpur, Bijapur, Golconda, Agra, Hyderabad, and Lucknow were such crossroads of culture during various historical periods. Some of them are flourishing even today, others have turned Into out-of-the-way provincial places and, of yet others, only ruins have survived. The Islamic culture which came to India was not monolithic; It had Incorporated In Itself not a few pre-Islamic elements, borrowed from the people conquered by the Arabs. None the less, Its manifest unity was ensured by strict monotheism, the indisputable authority of the Koran and Prophet Muhammad PBUH, and also by the laws of Shariat regulating various aspects of human activity and recognized by all the sects of Islam. As far as the age-old Indian culture is concerned, its diversity was astonishing and beyond calculation, yielding no semblance of unity to an alien eye. The ritual-mythological roots of this culture were alive and continued to nourish Its phasic heterogeneous types: archaic, folkloric, and dassical, etc., as If existing on one temporal plane. Numerous religlophilosophical doctrines, esoteric and popular rituals, developed science, polished-through-ages aesthetics, and the extremely rich practice of applied and fine arts, which the Muslims encountered In India, required them to support the local cultural substratum in the course of their proselyting and missionary activity. Thus it was that gradually the phenomenon of syncretization started taking shape, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, leading subsequently to the distinctive Hindu-Muslim cultural synthesis. All these processes affected only the urban population, as Shariat did not interfere with the life of the masses living in rural areas. In particular, it did not in:· any way encroach on the varna and the caste system. The keenest interest In the indigenous culture of India was at first displayed by the Sufi fraternity of the Chlshtlyya. It Is known that the founder of the order Mulnuddln (d. 1236) used to accept Hindus as his disciples, without insisting upon

INTRODUCl'ION

xiii

their fo1111al conversion to Islam until the 'c.atl of the Divine Beloved' was felt by them. The sheikhs of the brotherhood used to preach In local languages, In every possible way, promoting the consolidation of their status, and some of them, like Baba Farid (d. 1265) and Muhammad Gesudaraz (d. 1422), stood at the very fountalnheads of Punjabi and Dakhnl regional literatures. As Is generally known, syncretlzlng tendencies in culture attained maximum development in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries with the spread of the religio-mystic trends in North India, collectively signified by the te1111 bhak.tl. It was then that spiritual unions of Sufts and bhaktas, like the one between the Sheikh of the Kubrawlyya order, All Hamadhanl (d. 1385), and the Kashmlri Brahmin poetess Lalla, became possible, as also phenomena such as the appearance of books like the Bengali tract of Sheikh Falzullah, The True Preceptor, 2 In which the teaching of the Valshnava mystic, Chaltanya, was examined In te1111s of the Sufi doctrine of the 'Unity of Belng'; 3 the Identification of the Imams by the lsmallls of Gujarat with the Incarnations of lndra and Vlshnu; 4 the religious refo,111s of Guru Nanak, and many other amazing developments In medieval Indian culture. Sufls as well as bhaktas, In their preaching of the ascension of the soul following the path of mystic love, constantly took recourse to the popular fo11ns of folk poetry, well-known parables, and approved romantic plots, In which the hero and the heroine's earthly love served as the substitute for 'celestial love'. As far as Sufis are concerned, this was their practice In the field of preaching and literature even outside 'Slndh and Hind': the biblical myth about Joseph and Potlphar's wlfe, 5 pre-Islamic legends about Lalla and Majnun, Shlrin and Farhad, and other celebrated lovers fo,111 the basis for numerous Sufi poems about the ordeals of the soul seeking to merge Itself with the Divine Beloved. Side by side with these classical subjects, Indian Sufis and the poets under their Influence had been, In the course

xiv

INTRODUCTION

of centuries, using the _ local legends about _ l ove. Amongst these was the ancient Indian story of Nal and Damayanti6 as well as medieval legends about Madhumalati and Manohar, Padmavati and Ratansen, Kalakam and Kamroop; the Punjabi romances about Mirza and Sahiban, Hir and Ranjha, Sohni and Mahlwal; Sindhi ballads about Sassi and Punhu, Lila and Chanesar, Marvi and Umar; Rajasthani ballads about Dhol and Maru, etc. Works on such subjects were written after the classical models of poetry In Persian as well as in the poetic genres worked out by the regional folklore and literature. Although the system of Sufl love poems in modem Indian languages was to a great extent modelled on the prototypes In Persian, their striking originality, partly deter111ined by the celebrated religious and cultural syncretization, is incontestable. From amongst many features of this originality, one in particular has attracted the attention of scholars, notably of that eminent researcher of the subcontinent's Islamic culture, ·Annemarie Schimmel. We are referring to the personification of the soul, yearning for transcendental love, In the forrn of the heroine and not of the hero as was the practice with rare exceptions (for example the images of Zuleikha and Mariam) in the preceding Sufl tradition. 7 The aspiration of the Sufi's soul, personified as a woman, for union with the Divine Beloved, undoubtedly found its way into the regional Sufi literature under the influence of the mysticism of bhakti, primarily of the Krishna cult. Early examples of such an Interpretation are to be found •with the Bljapur poet, Mlranji (d. 1499), in his Book of Joy, 8 written In Dakhni,(and In the works of the lsmallis of Gujarat, ginans, which bear a strong resemblance to the Hindu hymns, bhajans. The concept of the soul-bride, pining in separation from the divine bridegroom, Is also characteristic of the poetry of Muhammad Jlv Jan of Ahmadabad (d. 1515), who stands at the very fountainhead of Urdu literature in Gujarat. But this 'feminine' representation of the Sufi's soul, traversing

•

INTRODUCnON

xv

the path of mystic cognition, found Its most striking Incarnation In north-west India, In the works of the Punjabi and Sindhi poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Abdul Karim Bulrl (d. 1623), Bulleh Shah (d. 1758), Shah Abdul Latif (d. 1752), Warls Shah (d. 1784), Hashim Shah (d. 1821), Sachal ~1111ast (d. 1828), etc. In their lyric.al and narrative works the Images of the heroines of folk legends acquired a stable connotation ('Hlr Is our soul', says Bulleh Shah;9 'Sassl Is the soul, awakened from the sleep of heedlessness', echoes Shah Abdul Latif; 'Sohnl Is the :soul, merged with the ocean of names and attributes', explains Sachal Sannast) which, at the level of the plot, resulted In slgnlflc.ant activation of female characters and In concentrated attention to women's psychology In ~ove poems. Common to the creative work of all these authors was the cc;,mblnatlon, In one literary work, of bor1owed poetic.al forrns (q/ssa and dastan) with Indigenous folk poetry genres-ka/1, val, baramah-together with their characteristic Imagery, prosody, and Ideological context. Although the Islamic 'orientation' of the work was, on the whole, predominant, the combination of dastan and of Krlshnalte In the vocabulary of val In Shah Abdul Latlfs Eplstle10 or the lnduslon of baramah (baramasa) In Warls Shah's qlssa, Hlr, strengthened the synaetlc spirit of these works. Significantly earlier than in Punjab and Sindh, the genre of the Sufi poem, based on local legends, made its appearance in the areas in which the Hindi dialects prevailed. Mulla Daud's poem, Chandayan (1377), which was translated Into Persian more than once, Is considered to be the first of such p0ems. The eminent historian Abdul Qadir Badayunl (d. 1595) wrote In his Extracts From The Chronldes 11 about the popularity of the poem: Everything In It Is divine truth, everything Is pleasant by Its purport; It merits the attention of devout lovers and conforms to the ayats of the Koran and the mel!lfluous songs of

xvi

INTRODUCTION

Hindustan. And what Is more, Its public recitation captivates people's hearts. 12 ·

The greatest popularity was gained by the translation of Chandayan, ascribed to the preacher Abdul Quddus Gangohl (d. 1538), also belonging to the Chishtiyya fraternity. 'As reported by the medieval authors,' wrote G. Aliev, 'the poem Chandabadan 13 was so skilfully translated that its couplets about divine love were quoted in Islamic mosques and there was an apprehension that "the priests may come under their Influence".' 14 The composition of Chandayan had a 'frame-like' (i.e., story within a story) structure. The Important components of its contents were the description of the character and appearance of the heroine nakhshlkh (from top to toe), which was borrowed by later authors of love poems in the eastern dialect of Hlndi-Awadhi. The better known of these poems Mrlgavatl of Qutban ( 1503), Madhumalatl of Manjhan (dates from 1510 to 1545), Padmavat of Malik Muhammad Jayasi (154Q), Chltrava/1 of Usman-were based on the narratives of folk tale narrators (kathaks) and on heroic poems of the type raso (In the case of Padmavat). Madhumalatl and Padmavat had a decisive Influence on the for1r1atlon of narrative tradition in the dialects of UrduSouth Indian Dakhni and North Indian Rekhta, whose origin goes back to the seventeenth century. The genre-related affinity of love poems in Awadhi and Dakhni is so obvious that certain scholars considered, although without sufficient reasons, the works of Jayasi and Manjhan (the original text of the· latter has not survived) to be a part of the early Urdu literature or rather 'pre-literature'. In the later period (the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) a particular influence was exerted on the narrative tradition of Urdu by the Sindhi and Punjabi qlssa, already referred to above, with which acquaintance was made through the lntern1edlacy of Persian literature.

xvll

INTRODUcnON •

The creation of romantic poems on Indian themes became a consistent attribute of the development of lndo-Perslan poetry. And this genre reached Its heyday In the seventeenth century, when poets writing In Persian ... now prefer to apply themselves to the working out of the problems of contemporary life. The relations between Muslims and Hindu~ continued to remain one of these questions. The plots of Indian oral legends are often used for. elucidation of this problem. 15

Some of these works: Beauty and Grace16 of Mir Masoom Naml (d. 1608) on the Sassl-Punhu legend, Poem of Chanesar 1 of ldrakl Beglarl, based on the legend of LIia and Chanesar, Heart-Wannlng Stoiy 8 of Baql Kulabl (d. 1579), narrating the· story of Hlr and Ranjha, und/e and Moth 19 of Aqll Khan Razl, a reverslflcatlon of Padmavat, were translated Into Urdu soon after they were written or, to be more exact, were retold In Urdu, which by the seventeenth century had gained the status of a literary language. Romantic poems In the Persian language, telling about events which took place In actual fact, or which were presented as such, had an equally great significance for the later narrative tradition In modem Indian languages. Often In the centre of such events there used to be the tragic love of a Muslim youth for a Hindu girl, which was given an allegorical Interpretation. The practice of composing such poems In India c.an apparently be traced back to the masnavi Duval Ran/ ·a nd Khlzr Khan of Amir K11usrau Dlhlawl and to the Poem of Lovew of his contemporary Amir Hasal) of Delhi (d. 1327). To the same category belong the considerably later works of Nau'I. Burning and Meltlng, 21 and Mohsin Fanl (d. 1670) Passionate Love, 22 narrating supposedly true events which took place during Akbar's reign. It Is pr~isely this type of poem about unfortunate

xviii

INTRODUcnON

lovers separated by faith, which can be considered the true prototype for a large group of romantic masnavls In Urdu. Here, at last, we come to the genre of the love poem or Urdu masnavl which Is the subject of this book. The genesis and evolution of this genre were the result of the same Hindu-Muslim synthesis, and Its poetics reflected the whole complex of the problems touched upon eariler. The for,11 of masnavl, called muzdavaj In Arabic, was borrowed from the late Sassanlan poetry in about AD 700, but was not developed In Arabic llterature. However, other nations of the Muslim world appreciated It In full measure. Writes G. E. von Grunebaum, The special achievement of the Persians-the epic poem, at first on historical, then on romantic and at last on mystic subjects-virtually did not have any effect on Arabic literature, although to compensate for this, it flourished In Turkish and Indian environment.23

In Y. Rypka's words, In the masnavl · almost the same metres are used as In lyrics, but they are shorter (ten to eleven syllables). For the heroic genre mutaqarib Is used, characterized by adaptation o_ f the a11dent metre of the folk epics to the Arabic metre. 24

Although the history of the masnavl has Its roots In the early period of Perslan-Tajlk literature (Rudakl's lost Kall/a and Dlmna Is considered to be one of the first specimens of this genre), not much attention has been paid to it by the theoreticians of poetry. Thus, Rashld-ud-Dln Vatvat In his well-known treatise on poetics, Gardens of Magic In Subtleties of Poetry (twelfth century) does not mention the masnavl at all. Vatvat mentions only the presence of couplets with l