Madhumalati

  Sleep can be both good and bud … the difference: this verse and the following one play on the Sufi idea of the world as a state of sleep for its inhabitants. In the Favā’id āl-Fu’ād of Shaikh Niām-al-din Auliyā’, one of the discourses of the master explains the point, ‘Saints on the verge of death are like a person having a dream, and it is as if the beloved is lying in bed beside him. At the moment that that sleeper departs this life, it is as if he is suddenly startled awake from his dream, and that Beloved for whom he had searched throughout his life, he sees lying beside him in his own bed. Imagine the joy and delight that he experiences!’ (Translated by Bruce Lawrence as Morals for the Heart (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), p. 134.) Only when the seeker ascends to the stages which are outwardly seen as sleep can he awake to true selfhood. The ‘true sleep’ is here distinguished from the sleep of negligence (huflut) of the last line of the verse, ‘which kills a man as he lives’. The Rampur manuscript (Rā) reads ‘pema surā’ (the wine of love) rather than the printed parama nidrā (the great sleep) and the Ekadala MS (E) reads parama sukha (the great happiness). We have preferred the Rampur MS reading in preparing our translation.

  Sleep to the world is a lesser death: the ‘lesser death’ (fanā) thus involves falling asleep to worldly things in order to awaken to the spiritual cosmos within.

  sweet sleep: a coded reference to the seeker’s falling asleep to the world and into a state of readiness for spiritual awakening. The nymphs, as we shall see, take him to have a transformative vision of a beautiful divine heroine.

  Saurāra and Gujarāt … Isle of Singhala: Saurāra and Gujarāt are western provinces of India, and the Isle of Singhala refers to a half-mythical island in the eastern sea, somewhere beyond Lakā.

  the city of Muhāus: the city of Mahāras (‘the great rasa’), the home of Madhumālatī, signifies simultaneously the abode of divinity and the mystical state which is the ultimate goal of the seeker. The use of the term rasa indicates the conjunction of aesthetic pleasure and religious meaning which informs the poetics of the premāikhyān.

  both were perfect in beauty: the word used for beauty, rūpa, lit. ‘form’, indicates the distinction in their discussions of the body between form/appearance (ūrat) and its underlying reality (ḥaqīqat). As we shall see in the description of Madhumālatī’s form, the manifestation (tujullī) of her divine beauty before Manohar is described in terms which refer simultaneously to her body and to a theology of divine self-disclosure.

  To look upon them … in the state of mystical union: the equivalence which is here drawn between the union of Manohar and Madhumālatī and the ultimate goal of mystical practice, between the path of asceticism and the vision of divine beauty, is fundamental to the narrative grammar of the premākhyāns. These two paths both converge in the taste of love’s savour (prema-rasa, lat-i ‘ishq), the central aesthetic/religious value of the text.

  He is the sun and she the moon. She is the sun and he the moon: the paradoxical unity of being between the two lovers is the mystical secret to which the romance refers through its poetics of suggestion.

  the lust trump would sound through the triple world: i.e. the world as we know it would come to an end, creation’s ultimate purpose (divine love) having been fulfilled.

  God Himself incarnated these two: the poetics of incarnation, of embodying the invisible divine within a visible form is the focus of the next section of the poem.

  Pleiades: this constellation of six stars is known as the Kttikā Nukutra in Sanskrit and is frequently depicted as surrounding the moon. In mythology, the Kttikās are nymphs who became the nurses of the god of war, Kārttikeya. The poet here uses the Hindavī kacpaciyā, a word that suggests both the glittering beauty of the stars and t heir warm allure.

  gem-bearing snakes: it is traditionally believed that a cobra carries a priceless jewel in its hood, and that snakes in general are the protectors of the jewels hidden in the body of their mother, the earth.

  scent of sandal: this verse and the one previous imply a comparison between Madhumālatī’s perfumed tresses and Mount Malaya or the southern mountain, which is renowned for its sandal trees and its snakes. Snakes are supposed to prefer to live entwined around sandal trees, and the breeze from the south, like Madhumālatī’s fragrant yet deadly tresses, carries the scent of sandal with it.

  the moon had fallen into the demon Rāhu’s power: in the traditional Indian explanation of the eclipse, when the gods first produced amṛta, the nectar of immortality, Rāhu assumed a disguise and beg an to drink it. The sun and moon detected his deception and informed Viu, who threw his cakra (discus) and severed Rāhu’s head. As the amta had only got to his throat, the head remained immortal and was placed in the sky, where it periodically swallows the sun and the moon.

  Love happily took in his hands his bow: Kāmadeva is armed with a bow and arrows: the bow is of sugar cane, the bowstring is a line of bees, and each arrow is tipped with a distinct flower. He is usually represented as a handsome youth riding on a parrot and attended by Nymphs, one of whom bears his banner displaying the Makara, or a fish on a red ground (John Dowson, A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd., 1928), 146.

  wagtail’s wings: the wagtail or khuñjunu (Motucillu indicu or ulbu) is a small, dainty bird which darts about wagging its tail up and down and its head back and forth. It is often described as moving like a pony or dancer and is a favourite subject of comparison with a woman’s eyes.

  like fish playing face to face: fish-shaped eyes are considered a mark of beauty.

  Udayācala: the eastern mountain or hill from behind which the sun is supposed to rise.

  Her nose is the channel for the sun and moon: reference is here made to the two channels of the sun and the moon in the yogic body (pingalā and iā), which feed the body with airs. The practitioner strives to control his breath (ḥubs-i dam, praāyāma) in order to gain spiritual power. The image here connects Madhumālatī’s body with the yogic body, establishing a correspondence between the divine self-disclosure and the notion of the human body.

  Lord Śiva: one of the principal deities of India, Śiva destroys the universe at the end of the cycle of yuga s (see note to p. 3 above). He is represented as the ideal ascetic, spending thousands of years meditating and practising austerities.

  bimba: a tree (Monmordica monadelpha) bearing bright red gourds, very frequently used as an illustration of the scarlet colour of a woman’s lips.

  Viu: see note to p. 12 above.

  Rāhu … would surely have devoured this moon: see verse 81 and note p. 35 above.

  to sacrifice his life on the saw at Prayāg: Prayāg, at the meeting of the Gagā, Jamunā, and Sarasvatī rivers, is considered one of the holiest places in India. At this confluence, a saw was supposed to be laid down for devotees on which they could sacrifice themselves as a demonstration of their devotion. This was considered a meritorious act and attracted large crowds of spectators. Women anointed the partings of their hair with the blood of the victims, in the hope of having a long and happy marriage. Apparently the saw was destroyed by order of the Mughal emperor Shāh Jahān.

  the triple crease of her neck: a common attribute of a beautiful woman, possibly also a veiled reference to the triveī, or the three rivers Gagā, Jamunā, and Sarasvatī, which come together at Prayāg.

  Viśvukurmun, the All-Maker: the architect of the gods and the maker of all their ornaments, weapons, and aerial chariots.

  her flawless palms … filled with deep red vermilion: having palms stained red is considered a traditional mark of beauty.

  wood-apples: a woman’s breasts are frequently compared to the fruits of the bel or bilva tree (Aegle marmelos), which are very hard and round. Lakmī used to make a daily offering to Śiva of a thousand lotus buds. One day she found her supply of lotus buds was short by two. She then remembered that Viu used to compare her breasts to lotus buds. She then cut of
f one breast, and Śiva, satisfied with her sacrifice, appeared before her and said that her severed breast would become the wood-apple.

  Seven circular paths lead to this chamber: a coded and suggestive reference to seven levels of spiritual practice, or seven planetary stations or stages of ascent. The poet here suggests that Manohar has gone through the brahma-randhra or heavenly door that is located between the eyes in the symbolic yogic body to reach the amtakua or pool of nectar that lies within. The maiden’s bedroom is located, it will be recalled, in the city of Mahāras, the ‘great rasa’.

  Seeing her beauty … his eyelids refused to open: this is a reference to the blinding of Moses when he looked upon the glory of God in Sūra 7: 143, ‘When Moses came to the place appointed by Us, and his Lord addressed him, he said: “O my Lord! Show (Thyself) to me that I may look upon Thee.” Allah said, “By no means canst thou see Me (direct); but look upon the mount; if it abide in its place, then shalt thou see Me.” When his Lord manifested his glory on the mount, He made it as dust and Moses fell down in a swoon. When he recovered his senses he said: “Glory be to thee! To Thee I turn in repentance, and I am the first to believe.”’

  Rāghava line: the solar dynasty descended from Raghu, to which Prince Rāma of the Rāmāyaa also belonged.

  Prayāg: lit. ‘place of sacrifice’, Prayāg is the celebrated place of pilgrimage at the confluence of the Gagā, Yamunā and Sarasvatī rivers, each of which is also considered holy. The modern city of Allāhābād is situated at Prayāg. For the saw, see note to p. 39 above.

  his body’s eight limbs: the eight limbs (aāga) of the body are the hands, chest, forehead, knees, and feet, and the term denotes the totality of Manohar’s response.

  God mixed the pure water of your love: the author suggests through this imagery the primordial scene of creation, in which Creator and created being, lover and beloved, are one. In this and the following verses, many of the suggestive terms which suggest the Sufi theology of the unity of existence (wuḥdut ul-wujūd) are employed, adding a transcendent level of meaning to this encounter in the flesh. The terminology used in the Prologue to delineate the poetic universe of the romance is thus translated here into a narrative poetics of Sufi love.

  From my former lives … the Creator formed this body: this passage is a reference to the description of the creation of Adam in Sūra 23: 12–14, ‘Man We did create from a quintessence of clay; then We placed him as a (drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed. Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then We made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then We developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create!’

  Before life even … to me: a reference to the Sufi notion of separation (hijr) from God from the first moment of creation; the separation is blessed because it keeps the creature mindful of the Creator and yearning to return to God from the embodied world.

  the lotus of Brahma: before the universe existed, Viu, in the form of a baby, was lying on a banian leaf and floating in the endless ocean of milk (kīra sāgar). A lotus began to grow from his navel, and in the lotus Brahma was sitting. Brahma then began to create the universe.

  the bird of love was released to fly: This motif is found commonly in Islamic mystical literature, in which the divine in the form of the Universal Spirit moves through the world in the form of a dove after creation. See, for instance, Muhyi’ddín Ibn al-‘Arabí, The Turjumán ul-Ashwáq: A Collection of Mystical Odes, tr. R. A. Nicholson (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1911), pp. 20, 72–3. The bird moving out on the primordial waters could also be a reference to the divine ‘breath of the merciful’ or nafas al-raḥmān. Here the motif foreshadows Madhumālatī’s later transformation into a bird in search of Manohar, and fits in with the general Sufi viewpoint of God creating the world because of His own desire to see His beauty mirrored in it. For the theological definitions of these notions, see the Prologue, especially verses 27–30.

  You are the sun … lights the world: in this and certain other images, a theological hierarchy is set up in which Madhumālatī is the divine source and Manohar is the individual soul which has left God to come into the world. His yearning for her refers allegorically to the longing of the creature to return to God. It can also be interpreted as the overwhelming erotic longing of two lovers for one another, and this ambiguity of reference is characteristic of the poetics of the Hindavī Sufi romances.

  This is the beauty … concealed: the images that follow link Madhumālatī’s beauty to the theology and self-disclosure of the Sufi godhead. Each image adds another echo to the resonant terms for divine beauty: God is a ‘hidden treasure’, the soul of the three worlds, revealed in countless forms, the beginning of all things and the end beyond all things. In this entire passage, the aesthetics of poetic beauty are made into theology through the ambiguity inherent in the word rūpa, which means both beauty and form. Here it marks the play between bodily form and divine essence in the Sufi’s moment of recognition in which the soul in the lower world recognizes its reality, its true source from which it has come and to which it has to return. cosmology was based on the point of divine essence which is manifested in successive dā’iruhs or circles of divine manifestation. In terms of Manjhan’s narrative poetics, this moment marks the acolyte’s first taste of the divine essence; when he is separated from it, he has to make his way back around the circle to the point of absorption in divinity.

  Śiva and Śaktī: in this ancient concept, Śakti (lit. ‘energy’) is the female personification of power, while the male Śiva represents inert matter. Manjhan is not suggesting a doctrinal similarity to Sufi ideology, but that the divine and the human, in their indissoluble union, create and control the whole of the universe.

  Contemplation of this beauty is true meditation: again, an ambiguously theological half-line which links love and the ascetic path, as does the second line of the dohā, which makes clear that man has to annihilate himself (fanā) in order to see God.

  your body is its mirror: a reference to the famous Sufi tradition that God created the world as a mirror for divine beauty. Thus, for Sufi audiences, Madhumālatī embodies divinity in this encounter, and Manohar the worldly seeker who has been granted a glimpse of God.

  even if he is on the path of sin … heavenly fruit of immortality: here the poet refers to the shaiah, the right path, translated as dharampanth in Avadhi, which he suggests is the foundation of Sufi self-transformation. The erotic poetics of mysticism presented in the Madhumālutī do not constitute an open invitation to sin. Instead, the seeker has to be true to sat (a gloss for the Arabic ḥaqq), to be mindful of God rather than a worldly beloved, and to remain within the bounds of the Islamic code of conduct.

  essence of truth: the word used for ‘the essence of truth’ is sat-bhāva, which the poet has used before for the ‘true meaning’ of the poetic text (cf. verse 57). Employing it here suggests that the ‘true’ referent of the Princess’s reticence is the need for the mystic to keep to the bounds of the shaiah in order to advance on the Sufi path.

  our glances should meet: the meeting of glances is significant in Sufi practice because the Sufi pīr’s glance or naur often causes the spiritual awakening of the disciple. In the narrative poetics of the romance, Manohar is the novice whose inner being has been stirred up by this meeting with the divine Madhumālatī.

  They swore the oath … with Rudra, Brahma and Hari bearing witness: Rudra and Hari are used here as epithets for Śiva and Viu, respectively. The significance of the oath, which is brought up when the Prince and Princess meet again, is the avoidance of public disgrace through right action, following the strictures of the shaiah, and adherence to true love. Madhumālatī, as a well-born Princess, cannot afford to link her name publicly with a lover’s, so presumably part of Manohar’s duty is not to reveal her name for fear of disgrace—only then will God protect their love in all their births. This implies that there is a narra
tive silence being imposed on the Sufi novice—he cannot speak openly of the secret of mystical love, the identity of being between lover and beloved (waḤdat al-wujūd). Similarly, concrete forms and events in the narrative contain allusions to Sufi mysteries which cannot be discussed openly, necessitating a poetics of suggestion and resonance.

  Lovers’ Play: in the following section there is a heady ambiguity of reference as erotics and theology inform one another in the encounter between the lovers. The text works both as a courtly poem in which the erotic body of the heroine is presented for the male reader, as well as a Sufi mystical poem of the soul’s awakening to the love of God, and the suggestive allegory between these levels of meaning lends the next few verses their appeal. On a slightly less heady note, readers will recall that the Prince is supposed to be only fourteen on this night of vision. He must subsequently prove himself a spiritually aware man through an arduous quest and many ascetic ordeals before he can see Madhumālatī again.