Madhumalati

by Behl, Aditya; Weightman, Simon; Manjhan, Simon

  kosas: a measure of distance roughly equivalent to two miles.

  explaining its true meanings: the ‘true meanings’ (bhāva) are the suggestive cues which are part of the love-play of Manohar and Madhumālatī.

  like u pair of wagtails on the wing: see note to p. 36 above.

  a thief’s drugged sweets: the hugs or deceivers, robbers who would roam about central and northern India and befriend travellers, often deceived them by feeding them drugged luūs which made them fall asleep temporarily or permanently. The term hag-luū is idiomatic for losing one’s wits under deception. The hugs could then loot the travellers’ worldly goods, leaving them without anything. In the same way, Manohar is complaining about the vision of Madhumālatī leaving him bereft of all his senses and his soul.

  elephant-gems in every elephant: this is a reference to the belief that pearls and other precious jewels can be found in the temples of rutting elephants, if one dares to come close.

  The man who chooses this path … death: here ‘death’ is a reference to the Sufi value of fanā or annihilation of self. Pemā, instead of becoming the seeker’s wife in the manner of the other premākhyāns, becomes Manohar’s spiritual guide and gives him instruction on how to attain the great rasa of love.

  Whoever takes separation … clear: the spiritual eye or ‘eye of the heart’ (chashm-i dil) is a reference to the inner illumination granted by an accomplished Sufi master to a seeker.

  The man who can dive in … diver: the Hindavī word for diver, murjiyā, contains a pun, for if split into mar and jiyā it can also mean ‘the one who has died while alive’, i.e. one who has attained annihilation by diving into the ocean and is therefore blessed with the pearl of everlasting subsistence in love of God (baqā). The image occurs also in Kabīr’s poetry, as well as in other Hindavī Sufi poets such as Malik Muḥammad Jāyasī, Padmāvut, ed. M. P. Gupta, verse 33.

  does not turn head over heels, cannot traverse this path correctly: a suggestive reference to the namāz-e ma‘akūsa or ulī sādhunā of the Sufis, in which the practitioner hangs upside down (frequently in a well) for specified periods in order to mortify himself while reciting inwardly the Divine Names.

  The five elements: the five elements (pañcu-bhūta) are earth, fire, water, air, and ether (ākāśa).

  Phāgun: the Indian month of spring corresponding to February–March, see note to p. 171 below.

  dhamār: a kind of lively dance accompanied by singing, done during the spring festival of Holī, or the Sufi practice of jumping into or running through fire in order to mortify the body.

  As Lukmaa was struck … the life-restoring herb!: this is a reference to an incident also recounted in the Rāmacaritamānasa of Tulsīdās, the great Avadhi version of the epic Rāmāyaa of Vālmīki. Lak-maa was wounded by Meghanāda, the son of Rāvaa, with the javelin Saktibān and had to be treated before daybreak or he would die. Hanumān then flew to the Himālayas and searched for the magical herb Sañjīvanī. As he could not be certain which of the many plants it was, Hanumān simply uprooted the entire mountain and flew with it back to Lakā. The herb was identified and Lakmaa’s life was saved.

  catursama paste: see note to p. 23 above.

  gandharva: the gandharvas are the celestial musicians of the gods, and are frequently depicted in art as flying through the air and making music.

  Sāvan: Sāvun (śrāvunu, Skt.) is the month of the rainy season in the Indian calendar, corresponding to July–August. See note to p. 168 below.

  white gourd-melons: the long white fruits of the plant Benincasa cerifera, here meant to suggest the demon’s lines of teeth.

  in it lives the demon’s soul: Manjhan’s suggestive use of this common folkloric motif suggests that the root of egotism is pleasure, here signified by a dense and shady forest laden with ambrosial fruit. Manohar’s struggle with the demon is thus an allegory of the seeker’s struggle with the egotism and lust that pervade his carnal soul.

  karikāra tree: the karikāra (Pterospermum acerfolium; kanak-champa, Hind.) is a large tree with fragrant, small white flowers in March to June. Its fruit ripen in the cold season.

  cakī bird: cakī birds (Anas Casarca; cakravāka, Skt.) mate in couples. They are supposed to be separated at night and to mourn until they meet their mates in the morning.

  the lotus had blossomed … rays: a possible reference to the blossoming of the sahasra-dala-kamala or thousand-petalled lotus, a site in the esoteric yogic body.

  pupīhā who caught the raindrops … Svātī: the pupīhā, the hawk cuckoo or brain-fever bird (Cucculus varius, also cātaka in Skt.) is a grey-brown, pigeon-sized bird which is supposed to live on raindrops dripping from the sky when the constellation Svātī is overhead. It is silent in the winter, but with the approach of the hot season becomes increasingly noisy. Its distinctive call is a loud shriek repeated five to six times rising in crescendo, rendered in Hindi as pī-kahān or ‘where is my love?’

  second incarnation of Rāma … set Sītā free: see notes to pp. 6, 71, 72, and 216 for information about Rāma.

  the picture-pavilion in the garden: an allegorical reference to the world of imaginal forms (imāl), to which the seeker has to ascend in order to have another vision of the divine. This is the same pavilion or citrasārī from which Pemā was carried off by the demon, and to which the virginal souls (Pemā’s girlfriends) in paradise descend on their way to the world of corporeal forms (ajsām).

  how could there be love between the two?: this is a coy way of suggesting a meaning (vyagyārthu) opposite to the expressed sense of the couplet, the abhidhā or denotative meaning. The beauty of the line is that while on the surface the poet emphasizes the unlikeness and distance between the moon and the lotus, covertly the moon is understood to be the lover and lord of the lotuses (kumudīśa) and able to make them open and close through showing and hiding himself. In other words, of course there is a relation between the white lotus and the moon: she longs for him and will only blossom when he is shining in the sky.

  Rāhu: in astrological terms, Rāhu represents the ascending mode which causes both the solar and lunar eclipse. For the mythological connotations of Rāhu, see note to p. 35 above.

  ratti: a jewellers’ weight, equal to eight barley-corns.

  courageous perfection: the Hindavī sāhasa-siddhi, evidently a reference to a spiritual station of successful awakening.

  … the sun’s brilliance … your radiant face: a suggestive reference to the blinded Moses in front of the burning bush, unable to bear the shock of God’s radiance.

  that special vision: a reference to the chashm-i dil or ‘eye of the heart’, Pers., that is opened in the seeker’s spiritual awakening under the guidance of a Sufi Shaikh. The passage suggests a process by which the seeker is immersed in a vision of the spiritual guide’s beauty and annihilates his selfhood in him fanā fi’l-shaikh). In this process, the seeker needs to borrow special sight from his guide and use it to have a vision of the Shaikh’s beauty, thereby gaining the power of mystical insight or gnosis (marifa) himself.

  Ratī and fish-bannered Kāmadeva: Ratī (lit. ‘pleasure’, Skt.) is the wife of Kāmadeva, the God of Love. Kāmadeva is known as ‘makara-ketu’ or ‘the one who has a fish on his banner’ because of his incarnation on earth as the son of the god, Ka. A sage named Śambara was cursed to die soon after the birth of the son of Ka. When the baby was born to his queen, Rukmiī, Śambara stole the baby and threw him into the ocean, where a fish swallowed him up. A fisherman caught the fish and presented it to Śambara, who cut open the fish and gave the baby to Māyāvatī, his kitchen maid. Māyāvatī raised Kāmadeva as her son, until a visiting sage informed her that she was actually Ratī reborn on earth. As Kāmadeva grew into a youth Māyāvatī began to make advances toward him, which horrified him as he thought of her as his mother. Māyāvatī then told Kāmadeva their true identities and advised him to kill Śambara and take her to Ka’s court in Dvārkā. Kāmadeva did so and then presented her as his wife to his paren
ts, Ka and Rukmiī.

  pool of nectar: besides the sexual reference to Madhumālatī’s virginity, the term signifies also the amta-kua or pool of nectar, in terms the ḥau al-ḥuyāt or water of life between the eyes. The seeker could only immerse himself in this pool of nectar after performing hard austerities and crossing all the chakras or stations below the eyes in the geography of the subtle body.

  The ruins of Svāti … oyster shell: it is a common belief that pearls are produced from drops of rain which have fallen from the constellation Svāti.

  Sometimes she seemed amazed … the pain of separation: many of these traditional signs of love-sickness are familiar from Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic erotologies, the classical sources from which the Sufis drew many ideas and conventions for their Hindavī romances. The signs of love-sickness include loss of concentration and appetite, weeping blood, wasting away, having delusional fantasies, and an obsession with the object of desire.

  dharma: a Sanskrit word signifying the righteous law or social duty, the principle of cosmic and natural order that underwrites the structure of social relations in traditional Brahminic ideology.

  royal happiness: the term used is rāja-sukha, a reference to Mano-har’s tasting the savour of love, the rāja-rasa of the Prologue. It is also allegorically significant that he had to ascend to his inner heaven (Kabilāsa) to taste the ‘royal savour’ of love. See verse 43 in the Prologue above.

  Bharai: a constellation containing three stars, which is visible during the rainy months of July and August.

  Bhādon: Bhādo (bhādrapada, Skt.) is the sixth month of the Indian calendar, corresponding to the middle of August to the middle of September. It is marked by heavy rains, storms, and dark clouds.

  siddha yogi: a perfected and spiritually advanced adept, which Manohar has become through his defeat of his carnal soul and rescue of Love. The manuscripts differ on the second ardhālī in this couplet, but each reading is problematic. We have preferred the Ekadala manuscript (E), which reads siddha jogī tau āpura jāpā.

  Madhumālatī Transformed: the entire section that follows is an allegory of the divine descent into the world of forms in search of a lover. God seeks a mirror to reflect divine beauty back to itself, as would happen in a loving relationship.

  Kadalī forest: the kadalī vaa or plantain forest (Musa sapientum) in Indian siddha traditions, from where this image is borrowed, signifies a place of self-mortification and ultimately, self-transformation. See David G. White, The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) for a detailed account.

  Godāvarī river: a very deep river in south India, Godāvarī is glorified in Indian texts for its power to bring prosperity to anyone who bathes in it.

  Mathurā: the birthplace of Ka, Mathurā is located south of Delhi in north-central India, on the banks of the Jamunā river.

  Gayā: a holy site located in the modern state of Bihar, Gayā or Bodh Gayā is renowned as the place where Gautama Buddha attained nirvāa.

  Pruyāg: see notes to pp. 39 and 45 above.

  Jagannāth: the source of the English ‘juggernaut’, a famous temple located at the site of the modern city of Puri in the eastern state of Orissa. Jagannāth is famous for its yearly ratha-yātra or ‘chariot-trek’. At this festival, enormous figures of Ka, his brother Bālarāma, and their sister, Subhadra, are wheeled through the city on carts and then immersed in the ocean.

  Dvārkā: the legendary city ruled by Ka, Dvārkā is believed to have been on the far western edge of northern India, off the coast of what is now Gujarat.

  Tārācand: Tārācand as an allegorical or emblematic character signifies selfless and devoted service, the khidmat-i khalq of the Sufi discourses on practice.

  the Citadel of Winds, Pavaneri: a reference to the place of the mystic winds or airs of the subtle body.

  fair Fortress of Respect, Māngaṛh: another allegorical reference to a mystical station. Unfortunately, there is no single generalized cosmology within which these allegorical places can be located. Rather, the allegory of the Madhumālutī works piecemeal, with certain details containing symbolic references and certain passages working as allegories in little. It is necessary to place the Hindavī imagery within the Persianate literary culture that surrounded the local Sufi shrines, if one is to imagine the response to these works among desī (indigenous) Muslim and non-Muslim audiences.

  So very like was he to Manohar: here and in the next few verses the poet makes a sly reference to the notion of the exemplum, allegory, or likeness, mil. The suggestive implication is that for God, the devoted servant is the likeness of the lover for whom the divine beloved longs so passionately, a longing that is the root cause for creation.

  compassion and affection awoke in his heart: a reference to the idealized virtues of the Sufi path that the seeker sought to inculcate within his own self. Hence Tārācand’s response signifies the spiritual awakening that leads to his undertaking selfless and devoted service to the world (khidmat-i khalq). Tārācand, in his newly compassionate state, will resolve to restore Madhumālatā to her former shape.

  Can one who wants mangoes be sated with sour berries?: the verse plays on the likeness of sound between āba, mango, and āvlā, sour gooseberries.

  pearls: here a reference to the pearls of gnosis, marifa. The bird, which signifies the divine spirit roaming the world in quest of a lover, feeds only on the pearls of gnosis fostered in the consciousness of spiritually aware men.

  I simply do not know my future … on my forehead?: this line is a reference to the belief that the Creator Brahma inscribes each person’s fate in invisible letters on his or her forehead.

  Jambu, island of the rose-apple tree: see notes to pp. 6 and 92 above.

  poor fire-cracker: the Hindavī word is tūbī or tūmaī, the small gourd Lagenaria vulgaris, often used in a hollowed-out state to carry water by mendicants. The word can also refer to a kind of firework, a small earthen pot filled with gunpowder and other explosives and topped by a wick that leads into the pot. When lit, it produces a fiery rain of sparks.

  for the sake of another’s happiness: here Tārācand grows into his function as an allegorical character, as his awakened compassion leads him to sacrifice himself and to suffer hardships in order to serve Madhumālatī with devotion.

  great path of dharma: here a reference to the path of mystic practice, and the component of selfless service that Tārācand embodies.

  Everything I shall reveal to you … dear friend: the following twelve stanzas, which describe in detail each month of Madhumālatī’s journey, are an example of a standard Indian poetic convention, the bārahmāsā (lit. ‘twelve months’). This is a set of verses in which a reference to each month illustrates a single theme. Bārahmāsās are classified into various types such as religious, agricultural, and the viraha-bārahmāsā, which describes the sufferings of a woman separated from her lover during the twelve months of the year. They are often employed by poets as set-pieces in larger literary works such as the Madhumālutī, but briefer lyrics are also popular among village women, who compose and sing them even today. For a brief scholarly treatment and examples of the form, see Charlotte Vaudeville, Bārahmāsā in Indian Literatures: Songs of the Twelve Months in Indo-Aryan Literatures (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986).

  Sāvan: Sāvan (śrāvaa, Skt.) corresponds to July and August and is the height of the rainy season (varā). Its stormy atmosphere of dark clouds and lightning is thought to produce an erotic and passionate mood. Since travel comes to a standstill because of the rains, Sāvan is an opportunity for lovers to stay inside with each other. However, it is also a time of potential separation, as the returning lover can be stranded somewhere else until the flooded roads are clear.

  Bhādo: this month (bhādrupudu, Skt.) corresponds to August-September, and it is the darkest month of the year, being the end of the rainy season.

  Maghā: this constellation is the tenth lunar mansion (nakatra), co
nsisting of five stars, and is prominent during the month of Bhādo.

  Navarātra: literally ‘nine nights’, Navarātra is the nine days of worship done in the month of Kuvār, dedicated to the goddess Durgā. Each day requires the offering of water in a consecrated pitcher and of nine kinds of plants: rambhā, kaccvī, haridrā, jayantī, bilva, daima, aśoka, mānaka, and dhānya. One of the nights of Navarātra is the kumārī-pūjā, when young girls are worshipped as pure manifestations of the goddess.

  Kuvār: this month, also known as Kvār (aśvina, Skt.), corresponds to September–October and is the first month of śarada, or autumn. It marks the end of the rainy season and the beginning of cool weather.