by Raza Rumi
Sarmad had little time for ritual. He would ridicule the mullah’s sermon outside the Jama Masjid, proclaiming that the mullah’s God—the giver—was under Sarmad’s feet. His rebellion was short lived. He was immensely popular in Delhi; his open defiance of the emperor and constant veneration of the late Dara Shikoh was a political threat. Sarmad’s charisma and iconoclasm was a direct challenge to the monarchy. Hence the court Ulema engineered a fatwa in which Sarmad’s nakedness, refusal to recite the full Kalima5 and denial of Prophet Mohammad’s physical journey to the heavens constituted the charge sheet and thus a tragic execution took place. Another martyr was born.
Centuries later, I feel overwhelmed as I stand outside Sarmad’s flaming red dargah that has two beautiful pipal trees arching over it. The adjacent mazar of Hare Bhare Shah is all green. Given the majestic backdrop of the Jama Masjid, the place turns into an otherworldly painting—reds, greens and the pink of the sandstone spill on a large canvas along with overcrowding, noise and beggars.
I stand there motionless, unwilling to speak or think. I hear the familiar lyrics of Bulleh Shah exploding through this blank moment:
Bulla! Shah Inayat dey beh boohy
Jis pehnaey sanoon savey tey soohey.
It was Shah Inayat’s love
Because of which I have worn clothes red and green.
Red and green symbolize celebration, fertility and revolution. Before crossing the little entrance to the shrine, I find a slim book on Sarmad at the kiosk that sells flowers, incense and other trinkets for visitors. With the book in my hand I enter the dargah and squat on the floor of the quiet little chamber painted red with many red chadars covering the grave and the fragrance of roses. There is colour all around, intense and lyrical; it is impossible to resist its spell.
When Sarmad was taken to the gallows near the Jama Masjid, the huge crowds gathered there could not believe how a harmless, nearly insane, naked fakir could be murdered in broad daylight. As Sarmad walked through the crowds and waited for the final moment, he composed and recited twenty-four quatrains. The poor low-caste executioner wanted to cover Sarmad’s head, but Sarmad stopped him and smiled, uttering these impromptu verses:
The friend with naked sword has now arrived
In whatever disguise thou mayst come, I recognise thee.
There was an uproar and we opened our eyes from eternal
sleep,
Saw that the night of wickedness endured, so we slept again.
This extempore gush of poetry would have been lost to us had the court chronicler, Aqil Khan Razi not been present among the onlookers. A well-meaning companion of Sarmad, Shah Asadullah urged him—if only you would cover your nakedness and utter the Kalima in full you might live—but Sarmad just laughed it off remembering Hallaj6. He was so filled with divine love that to him, the king, the judge, the executioner, the whole universe, including himself, were the same. His very soul itself merged with the Universe. He had no consciousness of himself.
Foreign travellers like Bernier could not understand the Sarmad phenomenon. Disgusted, he wrote about Sarmad’s execution:
I was for a long time disgusted with a celebrated fakir, named Sarmet, who walked in the streets of Delhi as naked as he came to the world. He despised equally the threats and persuations of Aurungzebe and underwent at length the punishment of decapitation for his obstinate refusal to put on his wearing apparel.
The other European, Niccolao Manucci wrote:7
Dara (Shikoh) held to no religion; when with Mohammedans, he praised the tenets of Mohammed, when with Jews, the Jewish religion; in the same way when with Hindus, he praised Hinduism. This is why Aurungzebe styled him a kafir (infidel). At the same time, he had great delight in talking to the Jesuit fathers on religion, and making them dispute with his learned Mohammedans, or with Cermad (Sarmad) an atheist much liked by the prince. This man went always naked, except when he appeared in the presence of the prince when he contented himself with a piece of cloth at his waist.
Abhay Chand died soon after Sarmad was beheaded. His grief was intense and irreparable.
I wished to see the copies of Sarmad’s verse in the British Museum, London, and to visit the Oriental Library of Rampur to explore the ‘Diwan’ of Sarmad that is supposed to contain a portrait of the poet with his loving disciple, Abhay Chand. But life is complicated for Pakistani visitors to India; we cannot get a visa for more than three cities and even that can be a cumbersome process.
On subsequent visits, I would recite these lines by Sarmad for my friend at the dargahs of Sarmad and Hare Bhare Shah:
Oh King of Kings, I am not a hermit like thee, I am not nude.
I am frenzied, I am distracted, but I am not depressed,
I am an idolater, I am an infidel, I am not of the people of
the faith,
I go towards the mosque, but I am not a Muslim.
This mystical tradition did not die with Sarmad and his preceptor, Hare Bhare Shah. Mystics and strange kalandars, or roaming Sufi teachers, have been spotted at Sarmad’s dargah on special occasions. One such person was Fateh Mohammed Yasin, who, during the 1960s, was a constant presence at the shrine of Hare Bhare Shah. He would hold conversations with visitors and unearth the mysteries of Sufism, occasionally tapping the ground with his walking stick. Yasin was a junior government clerk in the British era of the early 1940s. His notes were discovered by the charming chronicler, R.V. Smith, who himself is as endangered as Delhi’s heritage. Smith has devoted a life to explore and write about Delhi but lives a life of poverty in today’s Delhi for he exists on the margins of commercialism.
From the sixteenth century onwards, the Malamatiya Malanti (the Blameworthy Lineage), a school of thought that existed around the eighth century in Iran, and was subsequently absorbed into sub-continental Sufism, emphasizing the negation of all symbols of the ego and deliberately relating to the lowly, flourished due to adherents such as Bulleh Shah in the Punjab, Shah Hussain in Lahore and Lalon Shah in Bengal. A rediscovery of the original manifesto of the Bhakti Movement, this was also a reaction to the co-option of traditional Sufi orders by the Mughal state and regional kingdoms. In many ways, traditional Sufis had become another elite group within the power structure. One could say that, at some level, Sarmad was also an inspiration for the Malamati movement.
I became acquainted with Inder Salim through my blog. He is another Sarmad devotee who lives in Delhi. Inder Salim, who bears a composite, self-constructed name, is a Kashmiri, well ensconced in the Delhi intellectual scene with his frequent and original forays into environmentalism and subaltern takes on culture. He is a performance artist and subverts convention by holding an exhibition of photographs of a Delhi cobbler. As he explains, ‘The definition of art-in-public-space is vast… I try to conceptualize my performance with ongoing conflicts, both political and otherwise in my mind, but the form employed changes the dynamics of the performance as well.’ Inder’s view is in sync with the contemporary artistic movement known as ‘Stuckism’.8
Inder tells me that his fondness for Sarmad began in his native Kashmir. Dara Shikoh had built a garden called Bijebehara in Kashmir and through a strange quirk of fate, Inder’s school was located within that garden. ‘I have a strange attachment to Sarmad because of this… not only because most of my dreams are about my school, but my practice of being a performance artist gets constant inspiration from the very idea of Sarmad. Delhi is full of that echo of Sarmad,’ adds Inder. He, like Maulana Azad, shares the same regret that Nehru, the first Prime Minister of a free India, had thought of naming a major road after Aurangzeb instead of Sarmad. ‘So I subverted that historical decision through my picture.9 I think Sarmad is still unrecognized by most of us,’ he rued. Inder gave two major performances on Sarmad, one in The Attic in Connaught Place and the other at the Little Theatre Group auditorium as part of the notable Sarai Fellowship Series.
This latter performance by Inder was a subtle introduction of Sarmad and his life in which Inder was
nude throughout. In that unselfconscious state, he distributed yellow saffron rice to the audience. And he designed spectacles with green and red for the occasion.10
Sarmad, in a way, is a medieval forbearer of Stuckism and performative art—global trends which have become increasingly popular since the latter part of the twentieth century. But Inder’s naked performance in remembrance of Sarmad is placed within a typical Delhi culture fest which is ironically restrictive as it forecloses Sarmad’s limitless search for freedom.
Six centuries of Muslim rule reached its peak during Shah Jahan’s reign. By which time the line between orthodox and inclusive elements within the state had been drawn. Mughal rulers wanted public acceptance and legitimacy through their tolerant policies towards their non-Muslim subjects but they also wanted the official sanction of their rule through the court Ulema. This duality was to result in a fractured future for the Empire and its legacy as well as for the fate of Muslims in India.
The two streams had become well developed over the centuries. The eclecticism of the pluralistic Bhakti Movement, the Chishti, Qadri and other Sufi schools, Akbar’s overt secularism and an ethos of co-existence—all existed side by side with the puritanism and exclusivity of Muslim scholars such as Mujaddid Alif Sani. In such a contested milieu, Shah Jahan’s heir-apparent, Dara Shikoh, defined and intellectualized the ethos shared by communities across religious, social and geographic divides.
Dara Shikoh was the eldest son of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. His early education was entrusted to Islamic scholars connected to the royal court, who taught him the Quran, Persian poetry and history. His chief instructor, Mullah Abdul Latif Saharanpuri, inducted Dara into the speculative sciences and Sufism. The intellectual and mystical environment of Mughal India nurtured a unique prince who was interested in the pursuit of knowledge, arts and literature. His vision and contributions to India were momentous. Alas, they remain as derelict and ruinous as the state of Delhi’s monuments which everyone likes to talk about but no one wants to adopt.
A young Dara interacted with a host of Muslim and Hindu mystics and yogis, making them a part of his intellectual universe. The notable ones included Shah Muhibulla, Shah Dilruba, Shah Muhammad Lisanulla Rostaki, Baba Lal Das Bairagi and Jagannath Mishra. However, in Mian Mir, the Qadri Sufi of Lahore, who also laid the foundation stone of the fabulous Golden Temple at Amritsar, Dara discovered his Sufi master.
Dara ventured to study and understand Hinduism and learnt Sanskrit. With the help of the pundits of Benaras, Dara rendered the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Vashishta into Persian. This was a grand project, a fine attempt at understanding the commonalities between India’s two major religions. Thus wrote Dara in the Sirr-ul-Akbar (The Great Secret), his translation of the Upanishads, published in 1657:
And whereas I was impressed with a longing to behold the gnostic doctrines of every sect and to hear their lofty expressions of monotheism and had cast my eyes upon many theological books and had been a follower thereof for many years, my passion for beholding the Unity (of God), which is a boundless ocean, increased every moment. … Thereafter, I began to ponder as to why the discussion of monotheism is so conspicuous in India and why the Indian (Hindu) mystics and theologians of ancient India do not disavow the Unity of God, nor do they find any fault with the Unitarians.
Dara’s translation of the Upanishads appeared in Latin around 1801 and found its way into Europe’s intellectual milieu. Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, termed the book ‘the solace of my life and solace of my death’.11
The soulful prince was prolific. His works, broadly speaking, comprise two streams—first Sufism and Muslim saints and, second, inter-faith exchange, focusing on the translations of Hindu sacred texts and the well-known Majma-ul-Bahrain (Mingling of the Two Oceans).
The celebrated biography of Sufi saints, Safinat-ul-Auliya, Dara’s first creative endeavour, was completed when he was barely twenty-five years old. Two years later, he rendered another biographical account of the Sufis entitled, Sakinat-ul-Auliya, where he focused on the Qadri12 school of Sufism in India. By this time Dara and his sister Jahanara were also influenced by Mulla Shah Badakshani, a leading Qadri Sufi.
Another leading treatise of his called Wahdatul Wajud was in harmony with the advaitic (or non-dualistic) message of the Upanishads. Hasanat-ul-Arifin or The Sayings of the Gnostics comprised the maxims of 107 Sufis. This was an earnest pursuit of knowledge but was also in part, a response to charges of heresy by bigoted theologians who opposed Dara’s views on the ‘unity of all beings’. This book, where Dara was speaking before his time, was to cost him his life at the hands of bigotry. He attacked the emptiness of rituals and surface understanding of spirituality. One of his verses is revealing:
May the world be free from the noise of the mullah
And none should pay any heed to their fatwas.
He constantly chided the ignorance of these self-appointed guardians of faith who were not unlike the fundamentalists of today. Dara wrote that in every age, every prophet and saint had undergone afflictions and torments because of the rigid bigotry of clerics, the mullahs.
The list of Dara’s known works is long. Tariqat-ul-Haqiqat (Following the Truth) and the Risala-i-Haq Numa (The Compass of Truth) are two important works. The first delved into the nature of divine consciousness and the stages that one underwent in order to attain the spiritual mantle of a Sufi. Essentially he maintained that God was all pervasive in an ultimate expression of non-duality:
You dwell in the Ka’aba and in Somnath
And in the hearts of enamoured lovers.
Thou art in the monastery
as well as the tavern.
Thou art at the same time, the light and the moth
The wine and the cup
The sage and the fool…13
Dara demonstrated that the Sufi methods of inner cleansing were akin to those of Hindu yogis and tantriks. Meditation and stages of spiritual attainment were also similar in spirit.14 His poetic collection, the ‘Diwan’ (called Iksir-i-Azam in Persian), was a curious mix of poetry, theology and philosophy, an entire worldview that he had imbibed over the years. Another fascinating account was his book, Makalama Baba Lal wa Dara Shikoh, documenting seven conversations between Baba Lal,15 a well-known Hindu sadhu, and himself in Lahore in 1653. These remarkable conversations highlighted the commonalities of Hindu and Sufi teachings and tenets; the text conveys an intimacy and intellectual familiarity between the protagonists, emphasizing the fundamental oneness of their respective spiritual quests. Two quatrains illuminate the essence of Dara’s vision:
Though I do not consider myself separate from Him
Yet I do not consider myself God.
Whatever relation the drop bears with the ocean
That I hold true in my belief, and nothing beyond.
And then again:
We have not seen an atom separate from the Sun
Every drop of water is the sea in itself.
With what name should one call the Truth?
Every name that exists is one of God’s names.16
What was once a majestic library and a centre for dialogue between faiths is now the Archaeology Department of the Delhi Administration. Located close to the Kashmiri Gate in Old Delhi, the original façade and distinguishing marks have vanished. It is now an insipid building, having undergone destruction and reconstruction a few times. The Jamuna once ran close to this library that was built by Dara when the capital moved from Agra to Delhi.
The heir-apparent’s political need to stay close to the throne must have led to this move. I often wonder how all his books, hundreds and thousands perhaps, were transported to this location. Dara’s books were from all over the globe—Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Greece. What happened to his collection of books when Dara was defeated and killed by his brother? Many of the ‘heretical’ books were allegedly destroyed, but many survived. After his death in 1659, the library was entrusted t
o the Subedar of Lahore, Ali Mardan Khan. The building further changed hands before the end of the Mughal Empire and later, this library became the living quarters of the British Resident. This is how some of these books found their way to England.
The present building is an early specimen of a Mughal and British architectural synthesis—the basement arches and ornamental pillars are quite ‘Mughal’ while the exterior is whitewashed by the Raj and its relic, the notorious Public Works Department of India. Sir David Ochterlony, the first Resident, may have relaxed in these half-Georgian verandahs, reading his files, drafting reports on Delhi and sometimes waiting for a chhota hazree on spring mornings. Noted for his adoption of Mughal ways, Ochterlony is reported to have saved the books and the internal structure that still bears the sandstone signature of the Mughals. Later, the British converted this building into a school that existed up to 1904, but I am unable to gain additional information from the staff. I was not allowed to take photographs by the otherwise courteous attendant. However, I love the jamun trees that have just recovered from fruit bearing. Once again, I remember Lahore the way Dara may have while working on his books here.
Dara Shikoh was equally popular in Lahore and lived in the hearts of the Mughal Lahoris. His Lahori subjects knew him as ‘Shah Dara’, the rightful heir to the Mughal throne. Lahore’s Shahdara, the settlement near the banks of the river Ravi, is named after Dara. His learning and scholarship were widely recognized and Dara’s rejection of narrow fundamentalism endears him to the people of the walled city even today. His spirit lives in the detached tolerance of Lahoris towards multifarious points of view. It was after his Lahore sojourns that he settled in Delhi—and spent those intriguing days where I stand today. Rather pretentiously, I fancy tracing his footsteps—after all, like him, I am a Lahori in Delhi. I laugh at myself for such delusional musings and head towards the small museum within the building.