———————————————————————————V—_ °° — 5/16/2018 1:53:39 PM ——- Regular University of Kansas KKU In Process Date: Odyssey ILL Number: -13290608 MMO Odyssey: ill.library.yale.edu Email: EMAIL: Maxcost: KKU Biling: Exempt Paging notes: _Call #NOS ___Call ## Title Book/Volume/Issue/Series NOS (Circle) Year__# Volume _ __Arficle not found as cited — Why?, Initials, qG Staff notes: ‘OCLC#: 42857036 ISSN#: 9781851681884 Lending String: Lending Articles fe Borrower: RAPID: YUS Call #: BP189 .H47 1999 Location: Watson Library Stacks - 1 East Stacks Stacks Map Joumal Title: The heritage of Sufism Volume: 3 Issue: Month/Year: 1999 Pages: 417-34 Article Author: Schimmel, Annemarie Article Title: Vernacular Tradition in Persianate Sufi Poetry ILLiad TN: 1796946 YN 0000008 ‘Shipping Address: NEW: Sterling Memorial LibraryThe Vernacular Tradition in Persianate Sufi Poetry in Mughal India* ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL To the common people leave Grammar and syntax Lam contemplating the Beloved. adi Qadan UEm, of the learned contributors to this volume who have discussed. the political implications of Sufism and Sufi literature in the Safavid and ‘Mughal period, in this chapter I shall focus on Sufi poetry and the poetical tradition, both within and without the Sufi Orders, in India during the Mughal period. Elsewhere in this volume David Morgan presented an interesting and ‘original thesis concerning the theological persuasion of Shih Isma‘Tl I, but an equally important literary dimension of Isma‘Tl's character should not be overlooked: the fact that he wrote all his poetry in Turkish rather than classical Persian, such that his Divan represents one of the best examples of a regional language being used for the purpose of propagation of faith (despite the fact that Turkish poetry existed in Anatolia long before him). The topic of Sufi poetry composed in the vernacular languages in India during the Mughal period is thus a somewhat neglected field of inquiry which I shall endeavour to clucidate below. ‘As is well known, Persian was first introduced into India by Mahmad of Ghazna who, in 1026, made the city of Lahore his Indian capital. AS a consequence of his invasion, a kind of Persianate culture began to flouris the Subcontinent. In the context of Persian Sufism, ‘AIT ibn *Uthman al- “Hujwir, the author of the frst theoretical treatise in Persian on Sufism, Kashf ‘al-mahjab, who settled in Lahore in the eleventh Christian century, was pethaps the most famous contributor to the early formation of this culture. “This chapter is based on a recording of Professor Schimmel’ lecture given extempore atthe Schoo of Oriental and ican Stdies, University of London, on 2 May 1997, which under her direction was later edited revised and annotated by the editors.418 Sufi Poetry in Iran and India Even after the Ghaznavids’ empire collapsed and succumbed to conquering “dynasties, Persian remained the language of polite culture jn Indi, generating f literature which has flourished over the centuries down to the present day, ‘when, with Muhammad Iqbal, we have seen perhaps the last great writer in Persian, ‘But it was not only by the medium of the Persian tongue that Sufi teachings spread throughout India, One of the most effeve means by which Suf teachings were disseminated was through the local and indigenous languages. Beginning with Hujwirt and the onset of the penetration of the Persion tanguage into India, records remain of numerous Sufi stints and poets such as Farnd Ganji Shakar (d. 1265) and Nizim al-Din Avliya” (1242-1325), a8 well fas many others who composed small songs and ballads in local dialects ~ father than in the high Persian of the literati or the Arabic of the theologians = order to convey the beauty of their mystical doctrines to some of their ess Hiterate. followers. One witnesses, in fact, a steady and progressive development of indigenous languages - to which the essay by Simon Weightman on Shaykh Manjban’s Madhumali in the present volume bears eloquent witness. Lor Chanda by Mawlind Da’ (c, 1370) and other mystical poems ~ or poems that could be mystical interpreted ~ belong to such @ Category. Finally, with the great Sindi mystical poct Qadt Qian (0. 1551 in ‘Schwan Sharif; he was, incidentally, the maternal great-grandfather of Prince Dita Shikdh’s pir Miyin Mir, d. 1635), whose verse was cited at the beginning of this essay, a new trend towards use of the vemacular in the Sufi poetry and mystical teachings of the Indus Valley, and to a certain extent, the Punjab, was inaugurated. ‘Yet it was only at a certain point in history, when the political situation in the Punjab, Sind and the Deccan changed, that we find the regional languages ‘coming into use among the Sufis. n this respect, I would highly recommend the famous study by Baba-yi Urdu Maulvi ‘Abd al-Hagq entitled Urdu kF ashy w nama mén sifyya-yi kirim ka kdm' on the role of Sufis in the development of Urdu literature. The point made in that study is equally valid for other languages of the Subcontinent — and in a strange way is also true in ‘regard to the development of mystical poetry in medieval Europe. For instance, ‘hat would German literature have amounted to without the daring examples set by Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) in addressing his muns and monks in German rather than Latin, or of Mechthild von Magdeburg (d. 1283) who composed her glowing mystical poctry in German at exactly the same time as amr? Both authors were mystics and both contributed significantly to the development of modem spoken and written German. Coincidentally, owing to the activities of the Sufis, exactly the same phenomenon occurred in the Subcontinent. "Published Karachi: Anjuman taragg-yi Unda 1953 2nd edn, 'A. Schimmel The Vernacular Tradition in Mughal India 419 ‘Although many of the Sufis of the Mughal period in India composed important works and expounded the theoretical teachings of fasannf in Inesical Arabic or Persian in order to convey the secrets of the love of God, the Prophet and humankind, they often reverted to their own vernacular languages which everyone, including even simple wornen, could understand, Everywhere in the Subcontinent, Sufis can be found whose written teachings fhe addressed 10 the ordinary masses. Since they had to give spiritual instruction through examples drawn from daily life — spinning, grinding grain and other simple daily chores — new genres of literature were spawned as an indirect consequence of their popular spirituality. ‘One lovely example of this occurs in the Dakhni folk poetry ofthe Deccan, specifically in the charkha-ndma or ‘spinning poem’ gene, In this gente, the trundane activity of spinning is integrated into the spiritual practice of the ‘Constant repetition of the name of God, the dir, illustrating how the Sufis teed everyday language in their poetry so that even the simplest housewife ‘Could understand it, As with cotton, the more it is spun, the thinner, and more fefined the thread becomes, so with the spiritual heart: the more engaged it is inthe discipline of remembrance, the more conscious it becomes of the divine, fand the more refined. Such poems tell us how at the end of the mystic housewife’ life, God will buy her finely spun yarn at a very high price. One rovalls, in the same context, the Koranie verse ““God has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of paradise” (X11, which testifies that the righteous soul, having performed many meritorous deeds, “will be decorated and adorned with the beautiful garment vhich she has herself spun and woven.”? However, when the marriage day (i.e “eath the divine Spouse’s embrace) of the lazy soul who did not devote herself to spinning (that is, did not remember God by ahikr in the heart) approaches, the will find herself naked and with no dowry. Such simple poetic genres, faking use of common imagery drawn from the activities of rural life, fourished all over India wherever cotton was grown, not just in the Deccan, but in Sind and the Punjab as well? ‘A similar concentration on focal colour and imagery is quite evident in adit Qadan, the poet cited atthe beginning of this essay. AI! that was known to be extant of his work until recently were a mere seven doha, until a few decades ago & scholar discovered a hitherto unknown manuseript in Hariyans Containing 110 more examples of his poetry. Although his style is extremely Gense and his meaning often difficult to decipher, constant references to nature 2 The same ide of course occurs in Hinduism, where the every sou is said to weave his of term dei cons i ‘or her ow karina by actions performed during the course of Gb esp. Richard Maxwell Eaton, Sy of Bijapur (New Jersey: rineton University ress 1978).420. Sufi Poetry in Iran and India ‘hand, Sufis such as Qagi Qadan were far from being ‘natural poets as defined according tothe criteria of Western It in accordance with a well-known Koranic doctrine; ‘verything in nature as constituting ‘signs’ pointing to God. Thus, the banyan {to with its branches that send out shoots which grow down to the soil and oot to form secondary branches, giving it the appearance of a vast forest, esomes in the poetry of Qagi Qadan a symbol of the Divine disguised in ‘multiplicity by its manifold forms, but in Essence a single tree. "The influence of Ibn ‘Arabi’ thought, that isto say, the impact of his ideas ‘of wahdat al-wujad or the “Oneness of Being” on Indian Sufism in genera, and on this metaphysical vision of nature in particular, was very profound, M-Z.A- Shakeb, William Chittick and several others in this volume have underined the central role played by Sufis such as Gisdaraz (4, 825/142) in Indian ‘Sufism and observed how the teachings of Ibn ‘Arabt became more and more popular in India during the fourteenth and, especially, the fifteenth center. The correspondence cartied on by Gisbdariz, who was not a supporter of Tbn ‘arabt, for instance, with some. of his colleagues, like Ashraf Jahangir Ge, 1415), shows that there were wide divergences of opinion about Ibn ‘Arabr's thought among the different Sufi orders. "These orders had penetrated into the subcontinent in the earliest days, The first of them was the Chishtiyya, famous for their practice of musical audition (Gama’) and love of poetry, whose founder Mu‘In al-Din Chishtt (4. 634/1236) having gone first to Delhi then immediately settled in Ajmer, where the order presently has its centre. In Delhi resided his famous follower Qutb al-Din Bakhtiyir Kaki (d. 634/1236). Almost atthe same time (the late twelfth, early thirteenth century), members of the Suhrawardiyya settled in the southern Punjab, In Multan one of their centres can still be found. Another important Order was the Qidiriyya, whose members settled first in the Deccan in the late fifteenth century, and then in Ucch, north-east of Multan in the southern Punjab, where they came to play an important role inthe history of Sufism in the Punjab and Sind. One of the most important QiditT personalities in India ‘was Dit Shikiih, the heir-apparent of the Mughal Empire, and disciple of ‘Qidirt master named Miyin Mir of Lahore and his successor Mull Shah Badakhshi, Although by the end of the sixteenth century the Qadiriyya had ‘begun to play an important role in Indian society, with the advent of the seventeenth century and the age of Akbar, and especially following the txecution of Dara Shiki in 1659, their influence vis-i-vis the more ‘official’ orders had considerably waned. 4 Sora XLLS3: “We sall show them Our signs in the horizon in ther souls.” Also ef. my Deciphering the Signs of God: A ie tame Decl Se of Gt 4 Pane dpc a (Abani ‘A. Schimmel The Vernacular Tradition in Mughal India 421 Plate 14; Prince Dara Shikah as a Young Man. By Chitarman, c. 1640. No, (053.001. © Collection & Courtesy of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain,422. Sufi Poetry in Iran and India Contemporancous with the rise of the order, one finds the spread of estate love-myatiism One ofthe che representatives ofthis trend vas L&l Shikbaz, (Royal Red Faleon) Qalandar of Sevan in Sind. AS the word “Schwan” (or Sivstn) indcates, the town where belived was the site of a Shiva sanctuary onthe lower Indus, the main centre of the ult of the Hindu fod Shiva found inthe western pat of Sind and Baluchistan. Thus itis hardy Strpising to lear that Shibiz's mysticism took on strange forms, and that Iie Tollowers became known asthe Doha or Ines, Sis. When on eas in later Saft pootry how Sufi seekers from this area climbed its stered tountan Hing an visited the stered eave in Makran, one may deduce that the Su had sos relations with the Shiates and Yous who trekked there on their annual pilgamages, I myself have visited Hinglaj ~ defintely not the tow trative place on God’ eath and in i rugged landscape one can Mindy sens how Sufs ike Shh ‘Abd aL of Bit had travelled thro the mountains andthe hls until they reached th pilgrimage st, the sared cave and the well onthe highs of one of those mountains in souern Baluchistan, Thus, one cannot exclude the possibilty of Shivait infuenees on Sindhi Sut poewy These influences seem to be espevaly visible in he nies, practised atthe sanctuary of Lal Shih Qalandar, where even today the Femsin of ngam ean be found However its the age of Qadt Qidan = the sixteenth century ~ that is especialy significant inthe context of the sujet of Persianate vemaclar pocty, Wing in the year 1893 atthe court of Akbar the Great (1542-1609), the historian Badayon ecorded in his Muntathab al-tawdrih hata group of Mandering Sih musicians had asved in Lahore where they sang lve tunes bout divine Tove, moving some people in the royal audience. Ths fncedote demonstrates that as early asthe sixteenth century Sindhi mystical Imusic had developed ino an important and powerful at form This Saf musical tradition remains to the present day the most attractive aspect of Safi in Sind and in the Pana Interestingly enogh, twas in the same Yea, 1593 that Midh Lal Husayn (1539-98), the fst major Punjabi Sufi mystic to wit in is matber tongue, Panjabi, passed avay, The commemoration ofthe anniversary of his death eld at hie modest tomb in Lahore close to the Stalimar Garden onthe ast Satursy in Marchi sil elebrated today asthe “i fap Ch (Qa idan’ Sindhi yes obviously typify a Suf interpretation of lve Sonne resemblances cn te found between is veraculnr vere andthe classical Persian waitin, Such vernacular vein general and Rate po im particular had been known in India since the beginning of | cant century tis elated that in the eal fourteenth entry BO ‘AI Qalandar of Panipat had visited Konya, where Sulfin Vala Rem oon al ee Bees wettest en maar ih him, Before retring to his naive India, bingiig Rants Nonteat lng A. Schimmel The Vernacular Tradition in Mughal India 423 back with him in the process. His own mathnawfs, though rather unimportant in their own right as works of poetry, do show the influence of Réim's ‘Mathnawi very clearly. From his day onwards, the Mathnawf was tead and reread and commented on in India ~ so much so that by the end of the fifteenth century, a Bengali historian observed that “The holy Brahmin recites Ramis ‘Mathnawt> Thus even the Hindu intellectual elite, many of whom studied Persian, were able to read the Mathnaw? and find similarities between Muslim mystical concepts and their own Hindu spiritual doctrines. Specifically, Krishna's flute was compared to Rumt’s ney, and Vedantic monism became assimilated into Islami¢ unitarianism. From the middle of the fourteenth century, it becomes difficult to find a single poet writing in Persian in the Subcontinent who did not make at least a few allusions in his work to Rss Mathnaw. It was natural that the Sufis writing in the province of Sind knew at least pars of the Mashnawf, if only the opening eighteen verses of the great epic describing the ‘Lament of the Reed Pipe’. ‘Although one cannot detect the direct influence of the MathnawT on Qadt Qidan's poetry, he probably knew as much of the book as any of his literate contemporaries and Sufi compatriots. One verse of his poetry, however, does directly indicate the extent of his understanding and awareness of the classical definitions of Sufi terminology. In this verse, he refers to the concept of the inspired ecstatic utterance: shath — or “paradox” as Henry Corbin called it — which, according to the definition given to the idea by Abd Nast Sarraj’s Kita ‘al-luma’,sigaifies an overflowing of water from a vessel too shallow to contain ji. As a type of spiritual experience, these ecstatic utterances (shaff) are the ‘outcome of divine grace which so suffuses the narrow vessel of the mystic’s hheart that he or she, so Sarraj declares, gives utterance to matters normally beyond ordinary human ken and comprehension. Halli’ famous utterance: “1 ‘am the Truth” (and’7-Hagq) isa case in kind of this experience. Qadi Qadan's ‘verse provides a beautiful poetical interpretation of Sarrj’s classical definition of shath: ‘When the Indus is in spate Canals are too tight to contain it ‘Thus the influx of Grace Forces me to speak. It was with this same sense of being overwhelmed in heart with the divine presence that Qadi Qiidan had beheld the Beloved beneath the Banyan tree as One in Essence but myriad in his multiple manifestations. Over the centuries following QadT Qadan there came into being a whole series of poets writing in 3 Eoamul Hq, Muslim Bengal Literature (Karachi 1957), p.42. For farther discussion of this subject, see my The Triumphal Sun: A Study ofthe Works of llaladdin Rumi (London: Fine Books 1979), chap. 4424 Sufi Poetry in Iran and India Sindhi who used such Sufi ideas, images and technical terminology in their work. "Alongside the classical Persian Sufi poetic imagery, these poets also developed a type of mystical imagery based on Hindu mytology and imagery cinch is extremely important for our understanding of Islamic mystic! Thowsht and expression in the subcontinent, Thus, one finds in Sindhi poetry of the seventeenth century a constant reference 10 themes drawn from popular Indian folktales, such as, for example, the topos of the virahiny “he longing vMoman-soul’, which deals with the theme of the ‘love in separation’ of the Tate rom the bridegroom. There are also allusions tothe classical stories of Sobnt Mehanwal, Sassi Punhun and of Omar Marui in the early Sindhi poetry Sf the seventeenth century, of which the verse of Shah “Abd al-Karim Bulrriwars (d. 1623) provides many good examples. “The supreme master of such popular Sufi poetry was Shah ‘Abd al-Latt (1689-1752), whose tomb is still an object of pilgrimage in Bhit where the Ghniversary of his death, or ‘urs, is celebrated with great devotion. Shah ‘Abd al Laff leRt behind a book of poems in Sindhi entitled Shaha j6risalo (The Book of Shih), containing thirty chapters named and arranged according te ftuditional Indian musical modes (ragas), many of which he composed Himself, sometimes using classical Indian ragas, sometimes his own original compositions and sometimes improvised mixtures of various musical traditions: Persian, Sindhi and Tndian.* ‘The Risalo soon became a poetic work equally sacred to Muslims and Hindus. In fact, the first comimentaries on the work were published in the late nineteenth century by Hindu scholars who claimed that Shah ‘Abd al-Lafi's thought was nothing but an Islamicized form of Vedanta! While the na Hindu standpoint on the matter can obviously be appreciated, it is more regrettable that many European orientalists were unable to view Sufism a8 anything more than an Islamicized version of Vedanta. Neither the orientalis ‘nor the Hindus had the least knowledge of the great veneration accorded to the Prophet Muhammad in the Sufi mystical tradition in general and in the Indian folk tradition in particular ~ in which the ‘Light of Mubammad” and great love for the Prophet of Islam feature as one of the main distinguishing characteristics.” ‘The Risals reftects the poet's varied moods. While some of his lyrics are undoubtably purely mystical in tenor, the majority of his poems are inspired [ising wnt inte cnet ofthe ines ofl erat on Europe aad ‘Esti tao nth vlume th io Mado ups in 86 a polis by seers tary Ems Trumpy wo wel for ith BIE Sore, and 9 tio my nee st eye aL ee ey hsm es Mesenger: Th enero th Proprio Pie (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1985), ed ° ‘A. Schimmel The Vernacular Tradition in Mughal India 425 by the folktales and legends ofthe Indus Valley and Punjab. However, in the context of comparative mysticism, what is of fundamental importance in his ‘work is that all these stories have as their main hero ~ or rather, heroine ~ a Woman. All his Sindhi and Punjabi stories revolve around the fate and fortunes of a woman, who serves as symbol of the soul longing for, and completely dedicated to regaining, union with her lost Beloved, in the course Of searching for whom she undergoes many trials and tribulations. Shah ‘Abd fl-Latif’s symbol ofthe ‘woman-soul” exemplifies the virahini tradition in the Hinduism, and is probably related to the poetical genre of barahmasa as well! ‘The story of the heroine Sassui illustrates this genre very well. Sassui, a Brahmin's daughter, was born with an unlucky horoscope foretelling she ‘would marry a Muslim. This inauspicious fortune prompts her parents to place her in a basket in the river to rid themselves of this child. Retrieved from the river by a washerman, she soon grows to be such a beauty that suitors come from afl over the land seeking her hand. Finally even Punhun, the prince of Keceh in Baluchistan, falls in love with her, and they live together for a short time, Punhun's relatives, who are, of course, distressed at the apparent impropriety of their liason ~ she is apparently a low-caste washerwoman whereas he is a nobleman — do what they can to ruin their marriage. ‘Accordingly, they make the couple drunk and kidnap the prince. Waking up in the morning, Sassui finds her bed empty. She sets out to search for him, and finally achieves union with him ~ in death. “This typical folk tale can also easily be understood as an expression of classical Sufi teachings: Sassui’s drunken slumber symbolizing the Sufi's Wnwab-i ghaflat, “sleep of heedlessness’, which is a common theme in ‘classical Persian Sufi texts; and her setting out in search of Punhun as symbolic of ‘entering the Sufi Path", ¢ariya, always beset with trials and difficulties, Although, unlike ‘Attir, Shah ‘Abd al-Lafif does not specify the precise number of valleys of seeking falab) through which his heroine must pass, he does convey something of the terrors she endures while scaling Frountains and traversing the dangerous hills and valleys on the way. Her sore Jind weary feet are described, and how she attends to and entreats the crows t0 bring her news of her beloved Punhun, offering to feed them with het own flesh, even the very eyes that once beheld the beloved. Perhaps the essence of this beautiful, passionate and tragic story is captured in one chapter in which ‘Shah Abd al-Lattf describes how the lover (Sassui) is completely transformed into Love! "for further information on te symbol ofthe “woman-soul” see my two works: ds Throw iF eit: Mystical Poetry in Islam (New Yerk: Columbia University Press 1982), chap. 4 fp. 197-8 152-5 and My Soul ls @ Homan: The Feminine in Islam, tans, Susan Ray (New York: Continuum 1997).426 Sufi Poetry in Iran and India 'A. Schimmel The Fernacular Tradition in Mughal India 427 (© voice in the desert, as though it were a wild goose: ‘A cell from the water's depth — Ttis the Ah of Love! (0 voice in the desert, like a fiddle’s melody’ It is the song of Love — only common people thought to be a woman's Uiilizing classical Persian Sufi themes derived from the works of Almad Ghazatt and Rzbihin Baal, the poet explains here that Love i a foree which unites lover and beloved, both of whom are ‘devoured’ by love, leaving no separation between them. In this sense, Sassui’ passion and transformation ino ‘Love’ itself expresses the deepest sceret of Sufism. "another folk tale employed by Shah ‘Abd al-Latif, also based on the theme ofthe ‘woman-soul’, features a kind of inversion of the classical Greek Hero and Leander legend, with a female swimmer instead of a man. tn this tale the poct tells us how Sohn, a potter's daughter, swam through the Indus fiver every night to meet her beloved, Mehanwal, a formerly wealthy man ‘who had spent all his fortune on pottery to be close to her, and who then eked but a living as a buffalo-herder on a little istand. One night, however, Sohni's fisterin-law switches the baked pot that the heroine had been using as @ lifebuoy for a simple unbaked earthenware jar, so that midway through the river the pot dissolves and the reckless lover loses her life to the waves. Here again, itis only in death thatthe heroine is united with her beloved. Of course, ‘since this tale is essentially a romance glorifying love as adultery (Sohn was rmarried), it sometimes aroused the wrath of orthodox theologians, although the Sufs evidently saw the spiritual and allegorical dimension of the story.” In any case, such ballads and stories, whether they be of Sassui and Punhun, of Sohnt and Mehanwal, of Lilé and Chanesér or "Umar and Maruf and their Tike, are all part and parcel of Sindhi folklore and the indigenous Indian Sufi tradition. ‘One story, which incidentally ilustrates the strong influence of Rimi on Shah Abd al-Latf, is that of Maruf, a lovely village gir! from the Thar desert, ‘ho is kidnapped by King ‘Umar of Omarkot, who intends to marry, or atleast seduce, her. However she disdain his advances and docs all she can to make ‘herself unattractive, until finally she is sent back home. For the poet, Maru is a ‘obo fs longing sou eed in a ain lsat ftom the beloved ener Sa al-Lanit cliberntcly inserts tnsations of certsn Persian verses from the Mathnaw? ° Shah 0 risa, ed. 3 jo ra Kay B. Advan (omy: indtn Kiar 195), Sar Ma hut personally saw the conegucoces of mating the 2 so yeas ago Tdi a ens as Main Baga a Metal wie Plate 15: Awrangzib holding a Koran, c. 1850. No. 054.001. © Collection & accused me of favouring immoral literature! ete vias Courtesy of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain.428 Sufi Poetry in Iran and India into his Sindhi mystical poetry, comparing Maru ~ using Rumi's image ~ to the reed pipe (nay) shorn from the reedbed (nayistan). Her complaint, described in ever new poetical images, is that of the soul, that is, ofthe nay that longs for its pre-eternal home. ‘This influence of Rimi is even more visible in the second chapter of his Risalo, where a whole series of verses (although their authenticity is disputed by scholars) end with the refrain: “Thus spoke Ram.” Although many of his statements about the via mystica or Sufi fariga in such passeges are not at all remarkable or even particularly profound, itis telling that he always refers to Rim as their source. In one of the most touching episodes of the Sassui and Punhun tale, the poet depicts Sassui wandering, thirsty and lonely, through the desert, in 2 hopeless mood, concluding with @ translation of this verse from the MathnawT in order to draw his moral from her plight [Not only the thirsty seek the water ‘ut the water seeks the thirsty as wel! te iss he Sh Ins an aa Stata ny oceans et no longer simple martyrs for the Faith, but " Mathnan,| ichoeo ‘od. RA, Nicholson, 8 vols (London: Luzac & Co. 1925-40), I: 1741, ‘A. Schimmel The Vernacular Tradition in Mughal India 429 rather lovers of God upon whom God bestowed martyrdom as a kind of special Tobe of honout, so that the angels shed roses and other flowers upon them. Here, Hasan and Husayn feature as bridegrooms, a theme characteristic not only of Shih ‘Abd al-Lafi’s verse but of all Sindhi and Punjabi poetry in the vernacular "This theme is also reflected in the Barahmasa (Iwelve-months-poem) poetical genre, which belongs to the Indian literary tradition. It deveribes the seasons of the year through the eyes of a loving woman, and was adopted by many Muslim poets writing in the vernacular in Sind and the Punjab, Quite often, these poets replaced the Indian months by Muslim Iunar months. Beginning with Muharram, the soul-bride suffers, pondering the fate of the martyrs Hasan and Husayn, and lives through the festive seasons of the year until in the end she reaches, in the final month of Dho'l- Hija, the abode of the Beloved, which is either the Ka‘ba, the House of God, or else Medina, the ‘Garden of the Prophet’. In this context, it should bbe pointed out that among the Sufis of the Subcontinent ~ especially fom the Mughal period onwards ~ the Prophet in his role as the archetypal hagiga mukammadiyya becomes mote and more the abject of mystical love ‘and devotion, and in this fashion the ancient Indian genre of the Barahmasa also became used to express the longing of the Muslim mystics soul for God or His Prophet. “Another important theme which pervades the vocabulary of the vernacular poets in a very subtle and often covert manner was the idea of the “Unity of Being’ (wahdat al-wujid). As the main theoretician and author ofthis concept, bn ‘Arabi was probably completely unknown among the writers in Sind and the Punjab, and hence his influence as a Sufi thinker can only be indirectly acknowledged. Nonetheless, certain theoretical works based on his doctrines, ascribed to mystics otherwise considered to be simple eestaties, can be found. ‘One such mystic was Sultan Baha (4. 1691), a poet who came from the district of Jhang in the southern Punjab and whose Stharft (Thirty-Letter Poem) is known to everyone who reads Panjabi, as it contains one of the finest treatments of the relationship between man and God. For the first line of this poem, Sultan Bahd, using a wonderful simile, compares God to a jasmine flower planted in his heart by his spiritual master. His master has nurtured the flower with the water of negation of other than God (fa) and affirmation of God (ill) — here referring to the profession of faith ‘and ineuleation of the dhikr by his pir ~ until it grew into a mature plant, so that now its fragrance has permeated his whole being. By constant repetition of “There is no god but God” (an obvious reference to the dhikr of La ilaha illa Allah favoured by the Qadiri order to which Sultan BahG belonged) the presence of God is nurtured into a fully-grown ‘plant’, imbuing the mystic’ heart with the fragrance of the divin430 Sufi Poetry in Iran and India ‘Allah is a jasmine planted ‘By my master in my heart, ‘Ya Ha! BBy the water of negation and affirmation it aided Beside the jugular vein," and everywhere, ‘Ya Ho! 1k spread a fragrance inside ‘When it approached the time of blossoming, yao! “May the efficient preceptor live long Says Bah, who planted this plant! ‘a Hu! ‘While these unforgetable verses of Sulfin Baht are still recited and sung todsy inthe Punjab by men and women from every walk of life, very few realize that their author also wrote many theoretical treatises in Persian which teat the classical and traditional forms of Sufi mystical instruction.” This combination of ecstatic and theoretical mysticism was by no means typical of Sutin Baht alone; many poets whom we know only through their ecstatic verses have at the same time written theoretical treatises in Persian in order to satisfy the scholarly inclinations of a Sufi intellectual audience. ere, it will not be amiss to retur to the theme of the woman-soul which, in my opinion, played most important role in vemacular poetry in Mughal India. Why did Shah ‘Abd al-Latif and his successors in the Punjab such as Bullhe Shah (4. 1754) and Warith Shah (late eighteenth century) always choose to relate stories in which a woman stars as the main character? Personally, believe that their choice represented a different approach to some very basic ideas of Sufism. It is well known thatthe clasical Sui ascetics of Persia, Baghdad or Egypt loved to draw an analogy between ‘woman’ and man's base instinets or the ‘lower soul” (the nafs, or the ‘flesh’ in Christian terms) —and the fact thatthe word nafs isa feminine noun in Arabi made this comparison both easy and apt. The term ‘soal-which-incites-to-evil (al-nas al-amméra bist’) mentioned in the Koran (Stra XILS3) furnished these nyses with an appropiate expression anda doctinalbasis fr their thei the same scripture also gave them the possibility of attaining two higher degrees of soul-development: “the blaming soul” (al-nafs al-lawwima; Sra LXXV2) and ‘the soul at peace” (al-nafsal-mugma’inna; Stra LXXXIX:27) Although all these references tothe naft in the Koran are unrelated to cach ‘ther, for the Sufi seers they provided the perfect image of the development through various stages: f * ont ies: from self-indulgence in passions and CF. Korn, Lt6 " Recenly, two ofhis theoretical a woes devoted tothe seret of the Spr (rt) andthe Soul (ofs) after the fasion of casial Persian (fare ito of sal Pern Su works ve ben td into Engh by ‘A. Schimmel The Vernacular Tradition in Mughal India 431 lusts, to the awakening to a sense of penitence and conscience, and finally, to becoming ‘recollected-in-peace’. Tn the same way that the nafs was equated with the female, who in early Sufism was considered to be very dangerous to the poor ascetic who was always prone to fall into her snares, it was also natural that the image of ‘woman became used in a different cultural context, namely that of the woman oul personified in heroines such as Sassui, Sohni, Maruf and so on. Such personifications were, in fact, not without precedent in Persian literature, as Christopher Shackle elsewhere in this volume points out in regard to the development of the classical YUsuf and Zulaykhd story in Jémf's poetry, in Which the female, Zulaykkha (Potiphar’s wife, mentioned in Sara XID, is portrayed as the supreme symbol of the soul in her longing for the divine beloved. The basic contours of the tale of Zulaykhi were elaborated by ‘numerous Sufi poets who wrote in Persian, Sindhi and Urdu. In their verse the woman is initially depicted as the ‘lower soul’ or al-nafs al-ammdra utempting to seduce Yosuf; then, after becoming purified by suffering, traversing the valleys of love and poverty, the woman-soul, desiring nothing Dut to contemplate the Eternal Beauty which manifests itself in Yasuf, finally becomes united with him. With such a classical precedent for the ‘manifestation of the soul through the figure of a woman, it was very easy for the Sindhi and Panjabi poets, whose recourse was also to the poetry of their Hindu neighbours with a similar indigenous virahini tradition in the bhaktt ‘movement, 10 apply such images to the women in their native stories. In fact, that is one reason why the stories strike so close tothe bone and sound so close to life, and why, despite their usage of an age-old imagery and mythology, they remain contemporary and relevant to everyday life “As mentioned above, there was very little theoretical treatment of the topos of wahdat al-wujad on the part of Persianate Sufi poets writing in the Vernacular languages in Mughal India. These folk poets very much endorsed the idea that hama dst, “everything is Him’, ic, that everything is God, who ‘manifests Himself both through the famous Sufi martyr Mansir Hiallaj (4. 309/ '92) and also through the judge who gave the infamous farwd for his execution. One finds lengthy poems both in Sindhi and Panjabi in which the simple, undifferentiated unity of everything, the divine immanence which embraces all beings, is expressed. However, in studying such poetry it should ‘always be kept in mind that itis meant to be sung and audited by the ear of the hheart, rather than theologically dissected for the purposes of uncovering doctrinal truths couched in the orthodox language of dogmatic theology. If Shih ‘Abd al-Lafif exhibited a certain reticence about disclosing the deepest mysteries of love and always spoke in allusions, hiding behind the ‘oblique language of symbolism and strange words, no such inhibitions were shown by his younger contemporary Sachal Sarmast (1739-1826). In his Sindhi poetry, Sarmast (the intoxicated one) openly declared the all-embracing432. Sufi Poetry in Iran and India unity-ofbeing, announcing everthing that exists to be @ revelation of One Existence: "Now, hes the judges Now, he's Halla ‘Now, he is Pharaoh; ‘Now, Moses. ‘Now, he's Hanuman; Now, Aba anita! Even iff Sarmast's identification of AbG Hanifa (d. 767) with the sacred ‘Monkey, Hanuman, would probably not have been appreciated by the grect Grthodox legalist and founder of a major school of Islamic law, the eesti creer at his Iyries is typical of most of the vernacular poets of the Indo- ‘Muslim Sufi tradition, Much of the Panjabi and Sindhi Sufi poetry written in the Mughal period dvells with infinite and inexhaustible detail and varitip an this theme ofthe all-embracing of presence and unity of God within the world. “The combination of the theme of the unity-of-being with the spiritualized interpretation of medieval Hindu folk tales is especially evident in the postty fof Bulthé Shah (1680-1752), considered to be the greatest Sufi poet writing in Panjabi, Relating the story ofthe love of Ranji, son of a wealthy landlord, For Tite daughter of the king of Thang, with whom he is finally spiritually united (Gry in death of course), in the following verse Hir appears asa symbol of he ‘woman-soul longing for the divine beloved, Ranjha: ‘Ranjha, Ranjha kar dt nh met ‘ape Ranjha hut — Repeating Ranjha, Ranjh in my mind, myself have become Ranh ‘A good example of the extremely rich symbolism utilized by the Indo-Muslim ‘Sufi poets to express theit feelings for the unity-of-being can be found in the lovely short poem by Bullhé Shah with the reftain: “All flakes of cotton are ‘equally white.” Using what is one of the finest images of the unity-of-being, ever employed by an Indo-Muslim Sufi poet, he explains that the Gifferentiation of the oneness of cotton (= being) into a multiplicity of garments (= phenomena) oceurs only when cotton is spun and woven into various types of fabrics. In another image (in the last verse of this poem), he notes that although silver (= Realty-of Being) is but a single metal, the slvermih mais of varous pes of amanens (= mulls) sch as nose ings cigs eels nets and bracelets, yet leaving he ety of chal Saas, Rls Sindh “Wn ‘A Anh (Ks "SBulhé Shih, Qdndn-i ‘ishg, Kafi no. 109, p. 240. eee |A. Schimmel The Vernacular Tradition in Mughal India 433 However, one should not imagine that all the late medieval Sindhi and Panjabi poets were eestatcs. While Qadi Qidan, Shah ‘Abd al-Latif, Sachal Sarmast and others were, of course, the supreme masters of such Sufi poetry in the vemaculars, their literary endeavours also paved the way for a more sober land orthodox type of poetry. At the same time that Shah ‘Abd al-Lafif was ‘writing his eestatic Iyries under the influence of Ram (the Sindhi poet was tren given a fine copy of the Mathnawi by Nar Muhammad Kalhora ruler of Sind"), some of the more formalist Naqshbandi Sufi shaykhs under the influence of the highly orthodox mystical theologian Abmad Sithind? (1564 1624) were inthe process of migrating from major urban centres such as Delhi ‘and Agra to the provinces. On settling in Sind, some of these shaykhs translated portions of the Koran into Sindhi, and also composed @ number of ‘important theoretical treatises in Sindhi, thus effecting the prose development of this vernacular language. 'As in the case of Sindhi, Panjabi and Urdu, mysties also contributed to the development of other neo-Indian languages. The first to use Pashto as & language of religious instruction was Bayazid Ansiri, known as the Piri Rawshan (Radiant Master), who was killed in battle in north-western India in 1575 at the time when his religious movement in the Pathan areas between what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan seemed to threaten the stability of the Mughal Empire: The theories about Pi-i Rawshan’s religious attitude are widely divergent, but there is no doubt that he was a mystic who emphasized meditation and asceticism and who may also have been influenced by some Ismi'MT currents in the area of his activities (Badakhshin, Hunza), Yet, ‘whatever his actual affiliation, he was the first mystic to use his native Pashto to create a major religious work, the Khayr al-baydin. Among his descendants i to be found Mirai Ansiti, a Sufi known for his ecstatic verse in Pashto in which the feeling of wahdat al-wnid, unity-of-being, looms large ~ a mystical tendency that had grown strong from the late fifteenth century onwards, Pashio religious poetry reached its zenith with the Chishti Sufi Rahman Baba (dc 1709), whose great hymns in praise of the Creator figure are among the most impressive expressions of deep piety in world literature but seem to be closer to the classical Persian poetry of Sana'y and his followers than to the overflowing lytical ecstasy prevalent in the plains of the Indus and the Punjab. Even the ‘great warrior Khishhil Khin (1022/1613-1100/1689) at times wrote religious poetry in Pashto, a language which by his time had become most pliable. His ‘writings betray the author's interest in the Persian Sufi tradition and wisdom literature. Religious writers also served the development of poetry in other indigenous Indian languages. Awadi owes its first and most important work, ‘Sor further discusion, see my The Tumphal Sur, p. 380 "See the esay by Sergei Andreyev on the Rawshaniyys movemeat in this volume (EDS)434 Sufi Poetry in Iran and India Padmavati, to Malik Muhammad Jaist (4. after 1570); he was a disciple of the Mahdawi leader Burhan al-Din of Kalpi. In Kashmiri as in Bengali, the time-honoured topic of YOsuf and Zulaykhit inspired poets to compose epical versions of the well-known Koranic tale ~ apparently even before Jam's famous epie poem was written on this theme, — for a Bengali version of FuswJalikha by one Muhammad Saghir dates back to the early fifteenth century. On the whole, Bengali mystical poetry shows itself in small lyrical songs, marifat, in which the bards took their imagery from their environment (as they did in other parts of India as well). Whether they sang of the little water-hyacinths or the mirror-like water, they often blended the Hindu stories of Lord Krishna and his flute with the Song of the Reed at the beginning of Rumi's Mathnawt. For, as mentioned above, Mawlni Ram's ‘work was known to and appreciated by the Bengalis ~ even the Brahmins ~ from the late fifteenth century onwards ‘The poets who sang of divine love or their love of the Prophet in the ‘vernaculars often claimed to be illiterate, thus following the example of the abt ummi, the unlettered Prophet’ (Koran Vil:157-8), yet the influence of the great mystics who wrote in the Persian language and their sophisticated poetry always remains palpable in their writings. While Ramt’s role in Indo- Muslim poetry is firmly established, it would be worthwhile to study “Attr's influence. ‘Attar, who is praised in Sindhi poetry as one of the martyrs of love, seems to have been rnuch more influential than was hitherto realized and hi role would deserve a special study. ‘Yet, the mystics probably did not ponder too intensely this or that influence from Persian, Arabic, or Indian sources; they would have probably agreed with Pir-i Rawshan, who sai God speaks in every language, be it Arabic, Persian, Hindi or Afghanis He speaks in the language which the human heart can understand.