Madhumalati Read online

  Austin, R. W. J., The Bezels of Wisdom (New York: Paulist Press, 1980).

  ‘Alavī, Shaikh Wajīhuddin, Sharḥ-i Jām-i Jahān Numā Persian MS 1302 (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal).

  Chittick, William, The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989).

  Corbin, H., Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabī, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).

  Digby, Simon, ‘The Literary Evidence for Painting in the Delhi Sultanate’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Benares, 1 (1967).

  — — ‘Abd al-Quddūs Gangohī (1456–1537 A.D.): The Personality and Attitudes of a Medieval Indian Sufi’, Medieval India: A Miscellany, 3 (1975), 1–66.

  — — ‘The Sufi Shaikh as a Source of Authority in Mediaeval India’, in Marc Gaboriean (ed.), Islam et Société en Asie du Sud: Collection Purusārtha 9 (Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1986).

  — — ‘Tabarrukāt and Succession among the great Chishtī Shaikhs’, in R. E. Frykenbuerg (ed.), Delhi Through the Ages (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1986), 77–89.

  Eaton, Richard M., Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).

  Ernst, Carl W, ‘Sufism and Yoga according to Muḥammad Ghawth’, paper presented at the American Academy of Religion Conference, Anaheim, 1989.

  — — Sufism (Boston: Shambhala Books, 1997).

  Farī, Isma’īl, ‘Mazan-i Da‘vat’, Curzon MS 437 (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal).

  Ghauī Shaārī, Muammad, ‘Gulzār-i Abrār’, Persian MS 259 (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal).

  Gvāliyārī, Shaikh Muammad Ghau, ‘Kalīd-i Maāzin’, Persian MS 912 (Rampur: Raza Library).

  — — ‘Jawāhār-i amsah’, Ethé MS 1875 (London: The British Library).

  Haq, M. M., ‘The Shuttari Order of Sufism in India and Its Exponents in Bengal and Bihar’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Pakistan, 16 2 (1971), 167–75.

  Hughes, Thomas, Dictionary of Islam (1885; repr. Calcutta: Rupa, 1988).

  Husain, Yusuf, ‘Haud al-Hayat: La Version arabe de l’Amratkund’, Journal Asiatique, 113 (1928), 291 -344.

  Izutsu, Toshihiko. Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of the Key Philosophical Concepts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).

  Maghribī, Muhammad Shīrīn, ‘Jām-i Jahān Numā’, Persian MS 1326 (Ahmedabad: Pirmohammedshah Library).

  Nizami, K. A., ‘Early Indo-Muslim Mystics and Their Attitude towards the State’, Islamic Culture, 22 (1948), 387–98.

  — — ‘The Shattari Saints and Their Attitude Towards the State’, Medieval India Quarterly, 12 (1950), 56–70.

  — — Some Aspects of Religion and Politics in India During the Thirteenth Century (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1961).

  Rashīd, Shaikh, ‘Davī’ir-i Rashīdī’ (cat. no. 3269, Hyderabad: Salar Jung Museum and Library).

  Rizvi, S. A. A., ‘Sufis and Natha Yogis in Mediaeval Northern India (XII to XVI Centuries)’, Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, 71–2 (1970), 119–33.

  — — A History of Sufism in India, 2 vols. (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal 1978–83).

  Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975).

  — — As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).

  — — A Two-Colored Brocade (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

  Sells, Michael, ‘Bewildered Tongue: The Semantics of Mystical Union in Islam’, in Moshe Idel and Bernard McGinn (eds.), Mystical Union and Monotheistic Faith: An Ecumenical Dialogue (New York: Macmillan, 1989).

  Sharīf, Ja’far, Herklots, G. A., and Crooke, William, Islam in India or The Qānūn-i Islām: The Customs of the Musalmans of India (1921; repr. New Delhi: Oriental Books, 1972).

  Takeshita, M., Ibn ‘Arabī’s Theory of the Perfect Man and Its Place in the History of Islamic Thought (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1987).

  White, David G., The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

  Concerning the history of the period

  Alam, Muzaffar, ‘Competition and Co-existence: Indo-Islamic Interaction In Medieval North India’, Itinerario, 13 1 (1989), 37–59.

  Bābur, Zāhiru’d-dīn Muammad Pādshāh Ghāzī, Bābar-Nāma, trans. Annette S. Beveridge (1921; repr. Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1989).

  Eaton, Richard M., The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 12041760 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

  Ghorī, Gulab Khan, Gvāliyār kā Rājnaitik aur Sanskritik Itihās (Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 1986).

  Habib, Muhammad, Politics and Society During the Early Medieval Period: Collected Works of Professor Muhammad Habib, ed. K. A. Nizami. 2 vols. (Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1981).

  Pandey, A. B., The First Afghan Empire in India (Calcutta: Bookland Limited, 1956).

  Roy, Asim, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).

  Saeed, M. M., The Sharqi Sultanate of Jaunpur (Karachi: University of Karachi Press, 1972).

  Siddiqui, I. H., ‘Shaikh Muhammad Kabir and his History of the Afghan Kings’, Indo-Iranica, 19 4 (1966), 57–78.

  — — History of Sher Shāh Sūr (Aligarh: Dwadesh Shreni and Company Private Limited, 1974).

  — — ‘Social Mobility in the Delhi Sultanate’, In Irfan Habib (ed.), Medieval India I: Researches in the History of India, 1200–1750 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992).

  Dictionaries and reference works

  Apte, V. S., The Practical Sanskrit–English Dictionary (Kyoto: Rinsen Book Company, 1986).

  Crooke, William, A Rural and Agricultural Glossary for the North West Provinces and Oudh (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, and Co., 1888).

  Dowson, John, A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd., 1928).

  Fallon, S. W., A New Hindustani-English Dictionary, With Illustrations from Hindustani Literature and Folklore (Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1879).

  McGregor, R. S., The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995).

  Platts, John T., A Dictionary of Urdū, Classical Hindī, and English (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884).

  Shyamsundardas et al., Hindī Shabdsāgar, vols. 1 -11 (Benares: Nagari Pracharini Sabha, 1965–75).

  Steingass, F., A Comprehensive Persian–English Dictionary (New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1981).

  Further reading in Oxford World’s Classics

  Niami of Ganja, Haft Paykar, ed. and trs. Julie Scott Meisami. The Pañcatantra, ed. and trs. Patrick Olivelle.

  CHRONOLOGY

  1379 Composition of Cāndāyan by Maulānā Dā’ūd.

  1485 Death of Shaikh ‘Abdullāh Shaār, the founder of the Order.

  1495 Death of Manjhan’s maternal grandfather, Shaikh Qāin ‘Alā.

  1503 Composition of Mirigāvatī by Quban in the Sharqī court of Jaunpur.

  1523 Shaikh Muḥammad Ġhau goes to Gwalior.

  1526 Bābur proclaimed Emperor.

  1530 Death of Bābur; accession of Humāyūn.

  1540 Defeat of Humāyūn by Sher Shāh Sūrī, and his flight to Iran.

  1540 The date at which Malik Muḥammad Jāyasī began to write Padmāvat, which is said to have taken eighteen years to complete.

  1545 Death of Sher Shāh Sūrī. Manjhan begins to write Madhumālatī.

  1553 Death of Islām Shāh Sūrī.

  1554 Restoration of Humāyūn; enthronement of Akbar as Emperor.

  1555 Death of Humāyūn.

  1556 The end of the pretensions of the Sūr dynasty.

  1563 Death of Shaikh Muḥammad Ġhau Gvāliyārī.
/>
  MADHUMĀLATĪ

  THE PROLOGUE

  In Praise of God

  1. God, giver of love, the treasure-house of joy

  Creator of the two worlds in the one sound O,*

  my mind has no light worthy of you,

  with which to sing your praise, O Lord!

  King of the three worlds* and the four ages,*

  the world glorifies you from beginning to end.

  Sages, the learned, thinkers on the Absolute,*

  all have failed to laud you on earth.

  How can I accomplish with a single tongue

  what a thousand tongues could not in four ages?

  Manifest in so many forms, in all three worlds, in every heart,

  how can my senses glorify you with one tongue alone?

  2. In every state the Supreme Lord is One,

  a single form in many guises.

  In heaven, earth, and hell, wherever space extends,

  the Lord rejoices in multiplicity of form.

  The Maker makes the universe as He wills.

  He came as Death, comes still, will always come.*

  Placeless, He is present everywhere.

  Unqualified, He is Oṃ, the singular sound.

  Hidden, He is manifest everywhere.

  Formless, He is the many-formed Lord.

  One Light there is which shines alone, radiant in all the worlds.*

  Countless are the forms that Light assumes, countless are its names.*

  3. If gods, men, and serpents, as many as there are,

  were to praise the Lord for a million years,

  still all would give up, saying in shame,

  ‘We did not know You as You are.’

  If the mind were to wander for a million years,

  how could its poor intelligence reach God?

  Giver of bread, He feeds the world,

  Creator, Destroyer, and sole Sustainer,

  alone in the three worlds and the four ages,

  He plays, Himself, in multiple forms.

  Invisible, untainted,* the one Creator is a single shape in many disguises.

  Here, He is in beggar’s rags; there, in the robes of the primordial king.

  4. How can I describe the One

  who pervades the universe in so many forms?

  In the three worlds, all know His Being,

  whatever exists, exists in Him.*

  Though manifest, not hidden, in all four ages,

  yet rarely can anyone know His mystery.

  Manifest, He is luminous in ten directions,*

  immanent in all things, yet always transcendent.

  To the one who applies his mind to Him,

  the Creator shows His hidden nature.*

  He hides, He plays openly, He permeates all things,

  No other exists, nor ever did, nor ever will!

  5. The one born on earth never to know You,

  lives uselessly and dies repentant.

  He has lived his earthly life in vain

  who seeks from life anything but You.

  Lord, I have a wish in my heart,

  that I may love You for Yourself.

  My tongue cannot express the certainty

  with which my soul knows You.

  When every epithet that comes to mind fails,

  how can I sing Your praises?

  As far as the bird of knowledge can fly, as deep as the mind can fathom,

  thus far one can go: beyond that point, where are the means?

  6. Beginning of the beginning, end of the end,

  many forms but only One Essence,

  He is One, there is no other.

  He has neither beginning nor end.*

  Through Him my heart has realized this truth:

  in all three worlds, there is One alone.

  No match for You exists anywhere.

  Creation itself is the mirror of Your face.*

  Only the man who forgets his self

  can find You by searching, losing his all.

  Knower of all mysteries, Enjoyer of all joys,

  behind all of creation, You are the One Lord!

  In Praise of Muḥammad

  7. Listen now while I tell of the man:

  separated from him, the Maker became manifest.

  When the Lord took on flesh, He entered creation.

  The entire universe is of His Essence.

  His radiance shone through all things.

  This lamp of creation* was named Muḥammad!

  For him, the Deity fashioned the universe,*

  and love’s trumpet sounded in the triple world.

  His name is Muḥammad, king of three worlds.

  He was the inspiration for creation.

  The moon split in two at the pointing of his finger;*

  from the dust of his feet the cosmos became stable.

  8. Muḥammad is the root, the whole world a branch,

  the Lord has crowned him with a priceless crown.

  He is the foremost, no other is his equal.

  He is the substance and the world his shadow.

  Everyone knows the Maker, the hidden mover,

  but no one recognizes the manifest Muḥammad!

  The Invisible One, whom no one can see,

  has assumed the form of Muḥammad.

  He has named this form Muḥammad,

  but it has no meaning other than the One.

  I shout it out loud, let the whole world hear:

  ‘Manifest, the name is Muḥammad; secretly, you know it is He!’*

  In Praise of the Four Caliphs

  9. Now listen while I tell of his four companions,*

  the givers of doctrine, truth, and justice.

  The first was Abū Bakr,* the Proof,

  who accepted as truth the words of Muḥammad.

  The second was ‘Umar,* the king of justice:

  he left father and son for the work of God.

  The third, ‘Umān,* knew the secrets of scripture.

  The fourth was the Lion ‘Alī,* the virtuous,

  who conquered the world by the grace of his sword.

  They held the original scripture as truth, accepting nothing else.

  Visibly, they focused on actions, inwardly walking the path of God.

  In Praise of Salīm Shāh*

  10. Salīm Shāh has become a great king in the world,

  he takes pleasure in the earth through his power.

  When he is angry and presses down his stirrup

  Indra’s throne* in heaven trembles.

  Through the nine regions and the seven continents*

  there is fear and confusion at the sound of his name.

  When he took the universe as his kingdom

  no warrior remained on earth to oppose him.

  All ten directions fear his might,

  and even in Laṅkā* there is consternation

  from the brilliance of his sword.

  Lord of the earth, he appreciates virtue: he is a treasury of the fourteen sciences.*

  A true man who can break his enemy’s arm, he is a strong, wise king.

  11. Through Salīm’s ascetic power, his momentous birth,

  the doors of Kabul and India are one.

  In the north, snowy mountains attest his authority.

  Southwards, Hanumān’s bridge* limits his power.

  Syria and Rome are his western frontier;

  eastwards, he is famous till the ocean shore.

  All nine regions are happy, for Salīm is

  a Yudhihira* in virtue, a Harīścandra* in truth.

  In creation’s three worlds, I cannot recall anyone

  equal to him in the grace of his sword.

  The nine regions all bless him, ‘May you rule in the world

  as long as moon and sun endure, as long as the pole-star shades the earth!’

  12. The fame of his justice resounds high and clear,

  lamb and wolf graze together at peace.

  I cannot describe hi
s just rule, where the lion

  plays with a cow’s tail in its paw.

  Through his austerities his kingdom is strong,

  a garden come to flower without any thorns.

  His policy in the world ensures

  the strong cannot oppress the weak.

  Right is known from wrong as milk from water.

  The man who knocks on his door, finds it open.

  Joy and happiness, enthusiasm and delight: everyone accepts these virtues here.

  Poverty, grief, oppression, and fear have left the land and fled away.

  13. How can I describe the wonders of his kindness?

  He grants robes and crowns to monarchs.

  When the doors of his generosity are opened

  Kara* comes calling with outstretched hands.

  When the trumpet-call of his gifts reaches heaven,

  Ḥātim,* Kara, Bhoja* and Bali* are all ashamed.

  In truth he is Harīścandra, in almsgiving Bali,

  Yudhihira in virtue, incarnate in the age of Kali.

  King Bhoja cannot equal his merits or knowledge;

  in valour, Vikrama* cannot compare.

  Joy rules the seven continents, the nine regions are happy.

  Save for the pain of separation, there is no grief in all the land.

  In Praise of Shaikh Muḥammad Ġhaus*

  14. There is a holy man great in the world,

  a Shaikh beloved of God,

  profound in knowledge, matchless in beauty.

  Whoever comes to touch him, calling on his name,

  is cleansed from sin and gains enlightenment.

  Whomever the Shaikh loves in his heart,

  he calls to him gently and crowns him king.

  The one whom his gaze touches is protected,*

  and the stain of his body is washed away.

  The disciple who seeks out this Guru’s glances

  and fosters them, washes out the stain of death!*

  A sight of the Guru washes away sorrow—bless those who cherish that vision!

  The disciple whom the Guru nurtures is the king of all four aeons.

  15. Shaikh Muḥammad is a matchless guide,