EXPLANATORY NOTES

two worlds in the one sound O: the two worlds are this world and the next, and could refer here either to the Muslim ‘ālamain or the Hindu ihaloka (lit.‘this world’, Skt.) and paraloka (lit. ‘other world’, Skt.). The term ekokāra, the one sound, is a reference to the Qur-’ānic account of creation, in which God said ‘Be’ and ‘It was.’ Here the poet translates God’s word (kun fayakun) into the Hindavī word for the nāda or sound which sets the universe in motion.

three worlds: this is the Hindu tribhuvana, the three worlds of heaven (svarga), earth (manuya-loka), and hell (naraka).

four ages: the four ages (yuga, Skt.) are the four Hindu periods of time into which the aeon is divided, namely, the Kta, Dvāpara, Tretā, and Kali yugas (these Sanskrit terms refer to four throws of the die in gaming, with Kta considered the lucky or winning throw and Kali the losing). The first three have already passed and we are now in the Kali yuga, marked by particular degeneracy.

Absolute: the word used to denote the Absolute Reality (al-aqq) is the Hindavī Brahma.

He came as Death … come: this half-line is somewhat puzzling. It is possible that Death (Yama) translates the Arabic qaā, or fate, which is one of the attributes of Allah in His capacity as the apportioner of fates according to His divine will. For Yama, see note to p. 59 below.

One Light … worlds: this line refers to the famous Light verse of the Qur’ān, in the Sūrat al-Nūar, 24: 35: ‘Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His Light is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp: the Lamp enclosed in Glass; the glass as it were a brilliant star: lit from a blessed Tree, an Olive, neither of the East nor of the West, whose Oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it: Light upon Light! Allah doth guide whom He will to His light: Allah doth set forth Parables for men: and Allah doth know all things.’ (A. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’ān: Text, Translation and Commentary, Beirut: Dar al-Qur’ān al Karīm, 1934, 1993).

Countless are the forms … names: this refers to the yān al-ābita, the eternal hexeities or patterns, and the divine Names, which are so important in the account of creation given by Ibn ‘Arabī (AD 11651240), which had itself become more or less the accepted version of creation for Indian Sufis after the fourteenth century. The divine Names were the basis of letter mysticism and cosmology, and were used extensively by the Shaārīs to inculcate God’s qualities or attributes in the being of the practitioner.

Invisible: Alakh, an epithet frequently by Sufi poets to describe Allah.

whatever exists, exists in Him: this refers to the doctrine of waḥdat alwujūd, the unity of existence, which is the key term in the highly influential ontological monism of Ibn ‘Arabī. Within Ibn ‘Arabī’s paradoxical formulation, the world is an unfolding of God’s essence and therefore shares in that essence, yet is not identical with God’s being, which is beyond human comprehension.

ten directions: the ten directions are the four cardinal points, halfway between each cardinal point, and above and below.

the Creator shows His hidden nature: in a variant reading, the Rampur MS of the Madhumālatī reads āpa dikhāvā (‘discloses himself’), not guput dikhaāvaā (‘discloses the secret’).

He has neither beginning nor end: we have followed the Ekadala manuscript in reading the second half-line as ādi na bhau anta na āhi.

Creation itself is the mirror of Your face: the ḥadī qudsī to which this refers is the famous, ‘I was a hidden treasure, and longed to be known. So I created the world in order that I may be known’ (‘kuntu kanzan makhfīyan fa aḥababtu an urafu fakhalaqtu al-khalqa lika yrafu’). A ḥadī qudsī (‘divine saying’, Ar.) is a traditional saying or story which relates a revelation from God in the words of Muhammad and is not found in the Qur’ān.

This lamp of creation: this refers to the nūr-e muḥammadī, the light of Muhammad, an association of the Prophet with the light of the first manifestation of the divine essence which developed early and was much used by the Sufis.

For him, the Deity fashioned the universe: the ḥadī qudsī to which this alludes is laulāka mā khalaqtl-afāka, ‘If you had not been, I would not have created the heavens.’

The moon split in two at the pointing of his finger: Sūra 54: 1 reads, ‘The Hour of Judgement is nigh, and the moon is cleft asunder.’ It was a much later tradition that developed attributing this as a miracle performed by Muḥammad to convert unbelievers, but it was one lacking authority either in scripture or ḥadī. None the less, this ‘miracle’ became established as part of Sufi lore and is often alluded to in Sufi poetry.

Manifest, the name is Muḥammad … He: this concept of the ḥaqīqat muḥammadiyya, the reality of Muḥammad or the archetypal Muḥammad, was developed by Ibn ‘Arabī as homologous with the manifestation of the divine essence in the form of light, and was much used by the Shaārīs and other Indian Sufis.

of his four companions: these were not, of course, companions of the Prophet, but were in fact the four righteous Caliphs. See notes below.

Abū Bakr: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Quhāfa, father of ‘Ā’isha, youngest wife of Muḥammad; Abū Bakr reigned as Caliph for two years (AD 632–4) before dying.

‘Umar: ‘Umar ibn Al-Khaab was pre-eminent among the early Caliphs for contributing to the spread of Islam. He reigned for ten years (AD 634–44) before his assassination by Fīrūz, a Persian slave.

‘Umār: ‘Umān Ibn ‘Affān commissioned the second and final version of the Qur’ān. He ruled for thirteen years (AD 643–56) before being slain by the son of Abū Bakr.

‘Alī: ‘Alī ibn Abū ālib was Muḥammad’s cousin and married Fāimah, the Prophet’s daughter. He was the father of Ḥasan, who was poisoned, and Ḥusain, who was martyred in the battle that decisively split Islam into the sects of Sunnī and Shi‘āh. ‘Alī followed ‘Umān as Caliph from AD 656 to 661.

Salīm Shāh: Salīm or Islām Shāh Sūrī, the son of Sher Shāh Sūrī, ruled from Agra after his father’s death from an exploding cannon at the siege of Kalinjar in 1545. He was the patron of Shaikh Manjhan, who formed part of the coterie of poets and learned men at his court. Manjhan, a disciple of the great Shaarī Shaikh Muḥammad Ġhau Gvāliyārī, has often been confused with another Manjhan, also a disciple of Shaikh Muḥammad hau. This second Manjhan was the qāi of the town of Chunar and is mentioned in Ġhauī Shaārī’s Gulzār-i Abrār. That the two are different personages is clear from the account of Muḥammad Kabīr in the Afsānah-i Shāhān, British Library MS Add. 24409, fo. 105b.

Indra’s throne: god of rain and thunder, Indra was considered the king of the gods in the Vedic period, but later became secondary in importance to Śiva and Viu. His weapon is the thunderbolt (vajra) and he is famous for his excesses in drinking and womanizing. His court is supposed to be populated by celestial musicians (gandharva) and heavenly nymphs (apsaras), who are exquisitely beautiful and excel in music and dance.

Through the nine regions and the seven continents: the nine regions refer to the Indian cosmology of the nine divisions of the earth, i.e. Bhārata, Ilāvarta, Kipurua, Bhadra, Ketumāl, Hari, Hiranya, Ramya, and Kuśa. The seven continents are traditionally depicted as islands each surrounded by a sea of a particular fluid. Thus, Jambūldvīpa has the sea of Lavana (salt), Plakadvīpa, the sea of Iku (sugarcane juice), Śālmalīdvīpa, the sea of Surī or Madya (liquor), Kuśadvīpa, the sea of Ghta (clarified butter), Krauñcadvīpa, the sea of Dadhi (curds), Śakadvīpa, the sea of Dugdha (milk), and Pukaradvīpa, the sea of Jala (fresh water). Jambūdvīpa lies in the centre of all the continents and the golden mountain Meru stands in the middle of it. For a more extensive treatment of this cosmological scheme in Hindavī Sufi poetry, see Malik Muḥammad Jāyasī, Padmāvat, ed. M. P. Gupta, verses 150–8. Jāyasī uses the convention to suggest seven stages through which the seeker must pass in order to reach the Mānasa lake, the true home of the soul.

Lakā: the island ruled by Rāvaa and where he imprisons Sītā, the wife of Rāma, in the epic, Rāmāyaa. The mythic Lakā is believed to be a reference to the island now known as Sri Lanka, located off the southern tip of India.

the fourteen sciences: the fourteen vidyā s or sciences are usually listed as the four Vedas, the six Agas, Dharma, Mīmāsa, Tarka or Nyaya, and the Purāas.

Hanumān’s bridge: son of Vāyu the Wind-God, and general of the monkey army, Hanumān is a central character in the Rāmāya and is noted for his enormous strength and absolute devotion to Rāma. During Rāma’s rescue of Sītā, from the prison of Rāvaa, Hanumān, along with an army of monkeys, built a bridge of stone between India and Lanikā.

Yudhihira: eldest of the five Pāava brothers of the epic Mahābhairāta, and king of Indraprastha, Yudhihira is famed for his virtuous and righteous behaviour and his skil l at kingship.

Hurīścundru: a king famous for his liberality, honesty, and unflinching adherence to the truth. In a trial devised by two sages, Harīścandra stood by his word even though he had to lose his kingdom, to sell his wife and son, to become a slave of a low-caste man and to agree to put his own wife to death under the charge of being a witch.

Kara: the half-brother and enemy of the Pāava brothers in the Mahābhāirata. Kara was the son of Sūarya, the sun-god, and received divine arm our and earrings from his father at birth. In an act of legendary generosity he gave these away to the wily Indra who, disguised as a brahmin, asked him for a boon.

āitim: a Christian Arab nomad who lived before Muḥammad, ātim al-aiy is remembered chiefly for his hospitality, often slaughterin g as many as forty camels at one time for his guests and for the poor.

Bhoja: the eleventh-century king of Ujjain and Dhar. Bhoja was a legendary patron of the arts and reputed to be the author of numerous works including the famous Śngāra Prakāśa, a Sanskrit work on aesthetics.

Bali: the emperor of the asuras (demons). Bali granted a boon to Viu in his incarnation as a dwarf. Viṡṇu asked to be given all the ground he could cover in three steps, an d when Bali agreed, he grew to cosmic size, then stepped over heaven and earth. Out of respect for Bali’s kindness, Viu stopped short of stepping over Pātāla, the underworld, and gave it to Bali to rule.

Vikrama: also known as Vikrāmaditya, this emperor of ancient India (generally believed to have ruled in the first century BC, although his existence in not an established fact) is famed for being an extraordinarily just and righteous ruler, and for subduing the ‘barbarians’ who had invaded the kingdom.

Shaikh Muḥammad Ġhau: Shaikh Muḥammad Ġhau Gvaāliyārī (d. 1563) was the spiritual guide of Shaikh Manjhan, the poet, and famous for devising the method of dvat ul-asmā’ or the invocation of the Names of Allah. He and his brother Shaikh Phūl were especially close to the Mughal emperors Bābur and Humāyūn, and after the Sūrī victory over the Mughals in 1540 the Shaikh escaped the armies of Sher Shāh Sūrī and fled to Gujarat. After Sher Shāh’s death in 1545, his son Islām Shāh made amends with the Shaikh and accepted Manjhan as one of the group of poets he patronized at his court.

The one whom his gaze touches is protected: here the poet uses the Hindavī disi to suggest the Persian tavajjuh, the absorbed attention of the Shaik h which transforms the consciousness of the disciple.

washes out the stain of death!: a reference to the Sufi experience of fanā, self-annihilation on the path. The triumph over death refers to the stage of subsistence after annihilation, baqā.

over seven oceans: see note to p. 6 above.

the secret syllables of spiritual power: a reference to letter-mysticism, in which the Arabic letters of the ninety-nine Names of Allah encode a system of visualization and interior discipline.

Kali age: last and worst of the four yuga s or ages, the Kali yuga is characterized by widespread sin and degeneracy as well as social, political, and environmental chaos. At the present time the Kali yuga has been in effect for approximately 5,000 years and will continue for another 425,000 years, at which time Śiva will destroy the universe and then begin a new cycle of yugas. See note to p. 3 above.

it’s simplicity: this verse also makes extensive reference to the system of interior discipline, in which the letters of the alphabet signify particular divine Names. The disciple has to empty his self of all worldly emotions and fill it with the qualities embodied in the Names, gradually transforming his body into a mirror for the divine Essence.

leave aside all the mind’s arguments; know him!: among the Shaārīs, as among other orders of Sufis, annihilating one’s being in the teacher fanā fi-’l-shaikh) was an important step along the Sufi path.

but few recognize his secret nature: here, as elsewhere, the Sufi distinction between the interior (bāin) meaning and the exterior or literal (āhir) meaning of the Qur’ān is invoked to comment on the double reality of the spiritual guide. The Shaikh has a visible worldly form and an invisible significance in the spiritual cosmos of the Shaārīs, where he serves as the conduit of divine grace and mercy and enables the disciple to achieve closeness to God.

All the pandits … shaved their heads to learn from him: a pandit (<paita, ‘learned’, Skt.) is a scholar learned in scripture and law. It is customary for pandits to shave their heads.

and imbibed the nectar of pleasure, enlightenment: this line makes clear the link between austerities and the ultimate pleasure (mahāras) of divine union in the Madhumālutī. The term mahāras refers simultaneously to the fruit of Sufi austerity, the goal of erotic mysticism, and the aesthetic pleasure of reading the text. In the Sufi poetics of the text, divine grace can grant the same plenitude as the years of self-mortification along the path, and both these can be appreciated only by the connoisseur (rasika) who understands the multiple meanings of the erotics of union.

Khizr Khān: Khizr Khān was a prominent noble at the Sūrī court and muq (governor) of Bengal. He revolted against Sher Shāh Sūr in 1540 and was disciplined by him, but was subsequently reinstated in royal favour. On Khizr Khān Turk and his temporary rebellion against Sher Shāh, see I. H. Siddiqui, History of Sher Shāih Sūr, 107.

flees like mice: our translation is only an appromixation for the Hindavī phrase mūu udāsā, which remains a puzzle for us.

In Praise of the Word: the ‘word’ which is the subject of address in the following three verses is simultaneously the sacred word which set the world into motion in the Qurānic narrative of creation (‘kun!’) and the word which makes up human language and is the unit of speech and story. The doubleness or paradoxical nature of the word, its place in the human heart as well as its divine imperishability, represents a view of language which contains the identity-indifference of human and divine nature which is fundamental to Ibn ‘Arabī’s theory of wuḥdut ul-wujūd. The word is also the basis of the poetics of double meaning which is at work in the Madhumālutī, since events in the story are understood to have multiple significances through the allusive power of words.

Huri’s mouth: ‘Hari’ is one of the epithets of the god, Viu. Viu is one of the supreme deities of Hinduism, and is characterized as the sustainer of the universe. In his numerous incarnations on earth (including as Rāma and as Ka) he acts as the saviour and protector of humanity.

then the world came into existence: this refers to the famous tradition popular among Sufis, ‘I was a hidden treasure, and longed to be known.’ From God’s love for seeing His own beauty, the universe came into being as a mirror for God’s face (cf. v. 6). Love and beauty are also central to the aesthetics of the Madhumālutī, in which the heroine becomes an exemplification of the process of the self-disclosure of the divine. Her beauty incites love within the seeker, while viraha, the condition of being separated from his beloved, drives him onwards along the Sufi path. The narrative logic of the romance hinges on this polarity between love (prema) and separation (viraha), as the hero and heroine try to consummate their desire by overcoming their separation and uniting in love.

the simple mystery: sahaja bheda, here used to represent the easy internalization of the Sufi paradox of the identity, yet radical difference, of the being of God and man.

To the Soul: this verse plays ambiguously on the paradoxical identity between God and the soul to refer to the Sufi notion of the reality of man (ḥuqīqut-i insānī) as encompassing all of creation in microcosm. Man contains within himself all the stations and ranks of created things, the divine Names, the planets and stars and angels. Within Shaari cosmology, man acts as the second intermediate state or burzu between God and the world, analogous to the nūr-e muḥummudi (the light of Muḥammad), the first visible manifestation of God’s self-disclosure.

Why do you destroy yourself with pride?: a reference to the nufs-i ammārah or lower soul, the seat of pride and carnal desire, which it is part of the Sufi’s quest to destroy.

Some Spiritual Advice: the following two verses use the imagery of Nāth-yogic practice to refer to the appropriation of Indian yoga into their own Sufi practice. Thus, Shaikh Muḥammad Ġhau Gvāliyāri translated the Sanskrit Amtukua (‘The Pool of Nectar’) into Persian under the title Buḥr al-ayāt, and this manual was widely circulated among Shaārīs and other Sufis. See Carl Ernst, ‘The Pool of the Water of Life’ (forthcoming), for a translation of the text.

sound: the dhuni or nādu referred to here is part of the theory of the human body as a microcosmic universe. The practitioner has within him an analogue of the sacred sound which sets the world in motion (O, kun), and has to tune his inner ear to that sound in order to move along the Sufi stages of ascent and descent.

That is the light of your inner heaven: the inner heaven (kabilāsa) referred to here is an internal bodily analogue to the Islamic paradise (jannat), which is later represented as the mango grove in which Pemā (Love) plays with her companions.

He dwells … in the circle of emptiness: in the Baḥr al-ayāt and other texts on spiritual practice, the Śūvyu-mual (‘circle of emptiness’) is an inner stage on the yogi’s path close to the pool of nectar between the eyes, at the head of the spinal column.

In Praise of Carnāihi: Carnāhi or Chunār was the Bihari town outside which Shaikh Muḥammad hau meditated for twelve years, until he moved to Gwalior in 1523.

It must be seen to be appreciated: a reference to the mystic body, which contains within it a symbolic geography wherein the three rivers Gagā, Jamunā, and Sarasvatī flow. Conquering this fort signifies the Sufi conquest of the self, which the verse implies is above the power of any earthly king.

O lustful parrot … many birds!: this is a reference to the tradition that the semala or silk-cotton tree (Salmalia malabarica or Bombax heptuphyllum: śālmuli, Skt.) attracts birds with its beautiful red flowers, but its pods only produce a worthless cotton. The silk-cotton tree is thus used as a metaphor for anything that is sensually attractive but of no lasting spiritual value.

the man of truth abandoned this Kali age: a reference to the accidental death in 952/1545 of Sher Shāh Sūr, the patron’s father, by an exploding cannon on the battlements of the fort of Kalinjar. The date of the accident is supplied by the Persian chronogram, z’āitish murd (‘he died by fire’).

Only a fool hears exquisite verse in silence: since the Hindavī mystical romances were written to be read aloud to select audiences at courts and Sufi hospices, the listener’s pleasure was an important part of the poet’s aesthetic purpose. A particularly good verse would be appreciated by the audience verbally, and poets and performers would take such accolades as proof of their success. Manjhan implies here that only a fool would fail to appreciate exquisite verse by not praising the poet aloud.

Such juicy matters only connoisseurs know: rasa is the pleasure which listeners or readers take in stories as well as the lovers’ consummation of desire in the savour or juice of love (prema). The transcendent dimension of rasa allows the premākhyān narratives to refer allegorically to the relation of mirrored desire between God and creatures. This verse indicates the importance of rasa, a term adapted from Sanskrit aesthetics to support a triple aesthetic purpose: to allude to the circulation of desire between divinity and humans, to characterize the narrative/erotic consummation of desire between the lover and beloved of his story, and to construct the relation between his poetic text and its audience. Rasa thus signifies the allusive interplay of these three kinds of desire and their transformation into a divinely sanctioned love, prema or ‘ishq, which is the goal of Sufi practice as well as the central symbolic value of the Hindavī premākhyāns.

Dvāpar: third in the degenerative cycle of yugas or ages, the Dvāpar yuga is the time period when many mythological and literary events are believed to have taken place. See note to p. 3 above.

who gives rice-balls for the ancestors?: this is a reference to the sap-iikurau ritual which is a form of śrāddhu (ritual for the spiritual welfare of deceased family members) to be completed on the 12th day after death. The son of the deceased must make an offering of balls of rice (piu, Skt.) mixed with water and sesame in order to ensure the entry of the spirit of the deceased (preta, Skt.) into heaven. Only sons are allowed to perform this ritual and so having one is necessary for the soul’s eternal happiness.

God of Love: Kāamadeva, the Indian god of love, is portrayed as a beautiful youth riding on a parrot and armed with a bow of sugar cane, which is strung with a row of bees, and arrows tipped with flowers. Once he caused Śiva to have amorous thoughts of the goddess Pārvatī while he was meditating. Furious, Śiva incinerated Kāmadeva with fire from his third eye, and thereafter Kāmadeva was known as anagu, the ‘bodiless one’. It is significant that although Manjhan feels free to invoke the traditional Indian God of Love in telling his story in polished and conventional imagery, he nowhere mentions Kāmadeva when he is defining his notion of love in the Prologue (verses 27–30). There, he prefers to recast the Sufi notion of divine love into a Hindavī aesthetics and metaphysics of prema-rasa, the juice or savour of love.

On the sixth night … birth: this is a reference to ai, the ceremony on the sixth day after the birth of a child. The child is given a name and it is believed that Brahma, the god of creation, writes the child’s fate on his forehead on this day.

all thirty-six serving castes: traditionally, the low-caste servants (divided into thirty-six groups, such as barbers, dhobis, and shoemakers) connected to a household receive gifts upon festive occasions, such as marriages and births.

bodies anointed with sandal and aloes: the word used for the unguent in the original is catursama, a traditional perfume made of: (1) sandalwood (Santalum album, candana, Skt.), the oil extracted from the sweet-smelling wood of the sandal tree; (2) aloes (Aloe perfoliata, sthūlādalā, Skt.), a fragrant wood much used in incense-making and cosmetics; (3) musk, a fragrant substance extracted from the scent glands of the musk deer (Moschus moschiferous, kustūrī, Skt. and Hind.); and (4) saffron, from the Arabic za’furān, which comes from the stamens of the crocus flower (Crocus sativus, keśara, Skt., kesar, Hind.), which yields a brilliant yellow colour when used as a spice or a cosmetic. These four substances were mixed into a paste and then smeared on the body as a cosmetic.

lips stained with betel: betel is a preparation of leaves, areca nut, and spices which is chewed as a stimulant. Betel juice leaves a red colour on the lips, and beautiful women are frequently described as having lips tinted red from chewing betel.

vermilion on their heads: red lead or vermilion powder is known as sindūr. Husbands first put it in the parting of their wives’ hair during the marriage ceremony, and thereafter women apply it to their partings as a sign of their married status.

Dhrupada and Dhruva: a particularly rich and stylized courtly mode of singing songs in Hindi or Braj, popular during the sultanate and Mughal periods and distinct from the lighter style of Khyāl singing that was invented by Sultan usain Shāh Sharqī of Jaunpur in the late fifteenth century. The name is derived from the Sanskrit dhruva-pada, ‘fixed verse’. The introductory stanzas of the dhrupada, sung repeatedly as a fixed refrain or chorus, are called dhruva.

five well-born nurses, and seven maids to play with the baby: the numbers five and seven have a special significance in practice, there being five jewels of discipline on the mushrib-i Shuar, and seven stages/planets/faculties in the self, matching the six cukrus (‘wheel’, Skt., a nerve centre in the body) and the amtkua (‘pool of nectar’, Skt.) of the yogic self. See note to p. 15 above for amtakua.

that each word had several meanings: the position which Manjhan advances as a fundamental of knowledge, the multiple meanings (artha) of each word (bacana), is a view of language which is basic to the polysemy of the text. Later in the verse, the levels of mystery of scriptural texts are taught to the Prince as a basic interpretative strategy. This ‘ilm-i bāin, or knowledge of the inner secrets of Being, is fundamental to the Sufi poetics of the Madhumālutī, since the text may be seen as the translation of divine mystery into a concrete, culturally specific poetics. The process of signification which is the-matized here allows for polysemy as a condition of meaning.

the true meanings: this half-line introduces the term sat-bhāva (‘true meaning/essence’, Skt.), which works as a structuring principle for reading and referring to double or multiple meanings in the text of the Madhumālutī. The ‘true meanings’ of the literal events of the narrative are obliquely referred to by the poet, and the cosmological manuscripts provide the larger ideological framework from which elements are taken and adapted into the text’s poetics of oblique reference.

Yogūsitru: a philsophical text composed in the second century BC by Patanjali, the Yogasūtra is a manual explaining the disciplined mental and physical activity required for the practitioner to attain perfection and eventually liberation from existence.

Amarakośa: the most celebrated and authoritative lexicon in the Sanskrit language, it was compiled in the first century BC by Amarasiha, a scholar in the court of the legendary king Vikramāditya (see note to p. 7 above). Indisputably the most memorized dictionary in the world, a study of it was considered essential for a mastery of Sanskrit.

Kokaśāstra: another name for the Ratirahasya, composed in the twelfth century AD by Kokkoka, a royal pandit. Richard Burton describes in his edition how the pandit came to recite the śāstra before the king: ‘A woman who was burning with love and could find none to satisfy her inordinate desires, threw off her clothes and swore she would wander the world naked until she met with her match. In this condition she entered the levée-hall of the Raja upon whom Koka Pandit was attending, looked insolently at the crowd of courtiers around her and declared that there was not a man in the room. The king and his company were sore abashed, but the Sage [Kokkoka, joining his hands, applied with due humility for royal permission to tame the shrew. He then led her home and worked so persuasively that well-nigh fainting from fatigue and from repeated orgasms she cried for quarter. Thereupon the virile Pandit inserted gold pins into her arms and legs, and, leading her before his Raja, made her confess her defeat and solemnly veil herself in his presence. The Raja was, as might be expected, anxious to learn how the victory had been won, and commanded Koka Pandit to tell his tale, and to add much useful knowledge on the subject of coition. In popular pictures the Sage appears sitting before and lecturing the Raja, who duly throned and shaded by the Chhatri or royal canopy, with his harem fanning him and forming tail, lends an attentive ear to the words of wisdom.’ (Quoted by Alex Comfort, in The Koka Shastra: being the Ratirahasya of Kokkoka and other Medieval Indian Writings on Love, pp. 54–5.)

Gītā: the Bhagavad Gītī (‘Song of the Lord’, Skt.) is a section from the epic Mahābhārata relating a conversation on the battlefield between Arjuna, one of the Pāava brothers, and his charioteer, the God Ka. Arjuna has been paralysed by remorse at the thought of the impending battle when he will be required to fight and kill his teachers, friends, and kinsmen. Krsna explains to Arjuna in a series of arguments how he can fulfil his duty and still remain morally virtuous, namely by devoting himself to the ideal of selfless action. Ka then reveals himself to be God by appearing to Arjuna in his cosmic form. Arjuna, duly impressed, accepts his duty and enters the battle. The Gītā is one of the central sacred texts of India and is commonly read and quoted.

the month of Caitra: this is the lunar month corresponding to March–April. Kāmadeva is also called Caitrasakha (friend of Caitra) as he is associated with the season of spring.

the sixteen adornments: these are the traditional Indian soluh sigār, the sixteen ways that a woman could adorn herself to look beautiful. The sixteen kinds of make-up are: (1) dāntun, ‘tooth-brush’; (2) manjun, ‘tooth-powder’; (3) uban, ‘cosmetic paste’ made of gram flour or barley meal for softening and cleaning the skin; (4) sindūr, ‘vermilion’ for the forehead and parting of the hair; (5) kesur, ‘saffron’, also for the forehead; (6) anjan, ‘antimony’ or ‘collyrium’, kohl for the eyes; (7) bindī, ‘dot, mark, or spangle ornamenting the forehead’; (8) tel, ‘hair-oil’; (9) kaghī, ‘comb’; (10) argujā, ‘perfume’; (II) pān, ‘betel’ for reddening the lips; (12) missī, ‘dark paint for the teeth and lips’; (13) nīl, ‘indigo’ for tattooing; (14) mehdī, ‘henna’ for the hands and feet; (15) phūl, ‘flowers’ for the hair; (16) āltā, ‘red dye’ or ‘lac’, an insect-based extract used to paint the feet red.

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 off 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 narrative 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.

red betel: see note to p. 23 above.

Yuma: Yuma is the personification of death in the Indian tradition. When the lifespan allotted to each being by Brahma (see note to p. 49 above) is at an end, Yama sends his minions to bring the soul to Yamapuruī (lit. ‘city of Yama’). There, the souls are judged and sent to either naraka (hell) or svarga (heaven).

Who has ever found nectar without u snake?: a reference to fragrant sandalwood, whose sweetness is supposed to be guarded always by poisonous snakes coiled around the perfumed tree-trunks and branches.

Sahajā: the spontaneous, natural, simple mystical state, to which Manohar’s nurse awakens him. She impels him to embark on a difficult ascetic quest to gain the beautiful Madhumālatī. The placement of Sahajā as Manohar’s mystical guide in the narrative implies that without proper spiritual instruction and nurture, no one can realize the simple or ‘self-born’ mystery of the human identity-indifference with God (waḥdat al-wujūd).

Sahadeva: one of the five righteous Pāava brothers (see note to p. 7 above) in the epic Mahābhārata, who was famous for his knowledge, particularly of astronomy.

unite the cakora bird with the moon: the cakora bird, or Greek partridge (Perdix rufa), is said to long for the moon without hope of its love being requited. Since an immense distance separates the bird from the moon in the sky, the image is commonly used to express the hopeless longing of lovers for one another.

Śeu: the serpent companion of Viu, Śea is also called Ananta, ‘endless’, on account of his infinite length. In his form with one thousand heads, Śea is the couch and canopy of Viu when the God sleeps in the intervals between the cycles of yugas (see notes to pp. 3 and 12 above).

Sumeru: also known as Mahāumeru, this mountain is a dazzling golden peak in the Himalayas and is the seat of Śiva. All the gods dwell on the sides of this mountain, which is covered with precious gems and rare plants, birds, and animals. Sumeru keeps the heavens in place by supporting their weight.

silk-cotton tree: see note to p. 16 above.

nīm tree: the nīm or margosa tree (Azadirachta indica) is famed for its bitter but medicinal leaves and fruit.

If woman’s behaviour … ‘snake’ in the Turkish tongue: the word used in the Hindavī text is mār, which means ‘snake’ in Turkish. ‘Snake’ is a common derogatory term for a seductive and deceitful woman in Turkish culture.

thorn on the ketakī blossom: the ketakuī or fragrant screw pine (Pandanus odoratissimus) has particularly lovely and sweet-smelling blossoms, as well as spiky leaves.

Vāmā: vāma, the left side, refers to the belief that women control the left-hand side of creation. The left side holds negative connotations in the Indian tradition.

Borax transforms gold in separation’s fire: borax (suhāgā) transforms gold in the alchemist’s fire, making it shine with greater purity. The Prince implies that he has similarly been transformed in the fire of separation.

mantra: an inspired utterance with an esoteric meaning that frequently possesses special powers.

Śravana: this is a reference to an episode in the Rāmāyaa, where King Daśaratha, the father of Rāma, accidentally kills Śravaa, a hermit-boy who was so devoted to his blind and lame parents that he carried them everywhere on his shoulders in two baskets. The blind parents cursed Daśaratha to die longing for his own son, so that he would also know the pain that he had inflicted on them.

Daśaratha: in the epic Rāmāyaa, King Daśaratha suffered terribly when his son, Rāma was exiled to the forest for fourteen years. This was the result of the curse discussed in the preceding note.

begging bowl: this bowl (khappar) is traditionally made from a coconut shell and is where the yogi collects the food, drink, or money offered by followers.

yogi’s staff and crutch: the staff is made from bamboo or timur, a stick covered with knots, or is a trident of metal, and is used for walking or as a weapon. The crutch, or ãcul, is made of a horizontal stick about sixteen inches long fastened to a short vertical support. It is used as a rest for the chin or arms during meditation.

He marked his forehead with a circle: marking the forehead with pigment or ashes acts as a symbol of a devotee’s specific faith or spiritual path.

smeared his body with ashes: it is a very common custom among ascetics in India to rub ashes on their skins, either over the entire body or in specific marks. As ashes are associated with the cremation grounds, this signifies the yogi’s acceptance of death and his abandonment of the world. The god Śiva, the supreme ascetic, always covers his body with ashes from the cremation ground itself.

hung shining earrings in both his ears: while it was customary for men in pre-modern India to wear earrings, yogis wore particularly large and heavy ornaments as a sign of their asceticism. This led to their being called also the kān-phaā or ‘split-ear’ yogis.

ascetic’s viol: the kigurā or ektārā is a stringed instrument of medium size with a box-like frame carried by yogis, who use it to accompany their recitations of devotional poetry.

Letting down his matted locks: a characteristic mark of the yogi is not to wash or to comb his hair, but to let it become dirty and matted.

patched cloak and the girdle of rope: a special rope (āurband) made of black sheep’s wool to which the yogis fasten a loincloth (lagoī).

Gorakh yogi: a follower of the rigidly austere tantric cult also known as the Nāth yogis. Their founder, Gorakhnāth, is believed to have lived between the ninth and twelfth centuries in eastern India. He was born a Buddhist but converted to Śaivism (worship of Śiva). The Nāth yogis practised a complex mix of austerities and alchemy in order to attain a state of perfected immortality that they believed to be the sahaja or natural state of a human being. Manohar’s assumption of the yogic disguise implies, in the narrative code of the Hindavī Sufi romances, his going on an ascetic quest to seek Madhumālatī. In this way the Hindavī Sufi poets adapt the symbolic vocabulary of a local religious group towards their own goal of expressing Sufi terms and concepts in a local Indian language. In conjunction with the yogic disguise of the hero, the Sufi poets also use many yogic terms for practices and states of being that Manohar essays on his way to Madhumālāti. See also notes to p. 15 in the Prologue.

basil-bead necklace: the rosary made of basil-beads or rudrāka berries (of the tree Elaeocarpus ganitrus) is worn by all ascetics devoted to Śiva, and is used to count recitations of the names of God or prayers. The word rudrāka means ‘eye of Rudra (Śiva)’, and is believed to be a reference to the third eye of śiva, which will be opened during the destruction of the universe at the end of the Kali yuga.

horn whistle: the whistle (signād) of the Nāth yogis is made of deer or rhinoceros horn, is about two inches long, and is blown before meals and before morning and evening worship.

The one who remembers the Creator … bed of flowers: this is a reference either to the trial by fire of Abraham or the ordeal of Prahlāda. Abraham, revolted by the worship of idols which his people practised, went into a temple and desecrated the statues. King Nimrod then ordered him to be burnt alive. Allah intervened and miraculously Abraham was not harmed by the flames. Sūra 21: 66–9 reads, ‘[Abraham said, “Do ye then worship, besides Allah, things that can neither be of any good to you nor do you harm? Fie upon you, and upon the things that ye worship besides Allah! Have ye no sense?” They said, “Burn him and protect your gods, if ye do (anything at all)!” We [Allah said, “O fire! Be thou cool, and (a means of) safety for Abraham!”’ Prahlāda was the son of a rākasa (demon) king, Hirayakaśipu. Hirayakaśipu hated Viu because the god had killed his brother. Prahlāda was always completely devoted to Viu and thus enraged his father, who decided to torture the boy until he renounced his devotion. Every attempt Hirayakaśipu made to destroy Prahlāda, including throwing him into a pit of fire, was rendered harmless by the boy’s prayers to Viu. Hirayakaśipu finally gave up his terrible efforts and accepted his son again.

grove of plantain trees: the kadalī vana or plantain forest (Musa supientum) 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.

he gave his head, then set foot: a reference to the namāz-i ma‘akūsa or ulī sādhanā practised by Sufis in imitation of Nāth yogic practice.

zikr: a reference to the technical movements of head and mouth which are attached to the Sufi practice of ikr (lit. ‘remembering’, Ar.), recalling the Names of God. The Sufis were particularly adept at the practice of invoking the Divine Names (davat al-asmā’), which is here evoked allegorically as a necessary stage on the seeker’s path towards union.

Having lost his love, he could not recognize himself: a reference to the famous Sufi ḥudī,‘He who knows himself, knows his Lord.’ Manohar has forgotten himself because he has lost his love, and he has now to awaken and train himself through ascetic practice in order to reach God/his love.

the moon of the second night: the moon of the second night is supposed by the poets of this genre to be spotless and unblemished because of its smaller size, hence a better simile for the purity and radiance of the beloved’s face than the full moon. See v. 81, p. 35.

The soles of her feet were red with dye: it is a traditional Indian mark of beauty to have the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands painted or dyed red with lac, an insect extract.

a heavenly nymph banished to earth by the curse of Indra: Indra frequently sent celestial nymphs to earth to excite the passions of holy men and to distract them from gaining ascetic power. See note to p. 6 above.

yojana: a measure of distance roughly equal to eight miles.

As she stretched out her lovely arms … began to shine: the image suggests that her two breasts, which are round like the orbs of the sun and the moon, come into view when the maiden extends her arms. In the mystical or allegorical imagery of the poem, the sun and the moon could also refer to particular wind-channels in Manohar’s subtle body that began functioning at this stage in his transformative interior journey.

truth is the essence of this world: a reference to the central value of the ‘true essence’ (sat bhāva) of the romance, which is the ultimate identity-in-difference of God and the world, lover and beloved, seeker and sought.

Brahma’s cosmos: a reference to the yogic notion of the macro-cosmic universe within the symbolic body, the brahmāa (lit. ‘Brahma’s egg’). This is entered through the gateway between the eyes, the tenth door or duśama-dvāru, and is supposed to contain within it all the planets and stars, the sky and ether, and all the cosmic stations on the ascetic path.

Tell me carefully … through you: here the poet anticipates the maiden’s place in the narrative, to act as a guide on the path of love for Manohar.

Pemā: another allegorical character who functions as Manohar’s helper on his quest. Her name means Love, here a reference to the Sufi notion of ordinate love and not to the Indian God of Love, Kāmadeva.

My home is the city of Ease-of-Mind: Citbisarāu, the name of Pemā’s city, could either mean Ease-of-Mind (cittu-viśrāma) or For-getfulness (cit-bisarāun). In either case it is a paradisaical city with a garden around it, where consciousness is lost. In the suggestive passage that follows, Pemā and her friends suggest unmanifested souls at play in the garden of paradise. Love’s incarnation in this mortal world is allegorically described as the demonic kidnapping of Pemā (Love) and her imprisonment in a dark and dreary forest, guarded by a demon who signifies the lower or carnal soul, the seat of lust, greed, and egotism.

husu birds: the bar-headed goose (Anser indicus), which breeds on the lakes of Central Asia and in the winter migrates to India. The haṃsa is used very commonly as a poetic device. It is famed for its snow-white beauty and grace and its flight to Lake Mānasa at the beginning of the rainy season to unite with its beloved. It also possesses the unique ability to separate milk from water when the two have been mixed, which is evidence of its great wisdom.

the fifth note of the scale: the leading or regnal note or vādī svara that establishes the general character of a rāga. It is supposed to be so called because its tone is produced by air drawn from five parts of the body: the navel, breast, throat, heart, and forehead.

Entering the picture-pavilion: the citrasārī or picture-pavilion, a gallery with pictures painted on the walls, is a reference to the ‘ālam alimāl or world of images, an intermediary stage between paradise and the mortal world. The allegorical reference is heightened in the next verse by the girls’ (or unmanifested souls) inability to speak when they emerge from the pavilion; language itself is inadequate to describe the higher levels of mystical experience.

They could not open their mouths … spoke through gestures and signs: only signs and gestures can communicate the new stage of manifestation, signifying the radical breakdown of language as one strips away the veils that cover divinity.

Without life my body lives on … fire of separation: Pemā’s condition is therefore just like the Sufi’s, who lives in the world away from God’s paradise. The condition of separation keeps the Sufi perpetually mindful of his divine source, from which he has been incarnated into this mortal world. Similarly, Pemā’s kidnapping by the demon suggests her mortal incarnation. Manohar’s task in the following sections will be to kill the demon and take Pemā back to her native land, the paradise-like realm of Citbisarāu.

ghee: ghee is butter clarified over a flame until it is free of all impurities. It is poured over a fire during many rituals and makes the flames leap up with greater intensity.

Pemā’s Sorrow: readers will recall that Pemā means Love, so that in the following allegorical passage it is the abstract value of love that is being held captive by the demon in the plantain forest. The demon, who signifies the ego or the carnal soul, will have to be killed by the seeker Manohar in order to release the Princess Love.

Vāusuki: one of the seven great nāgas s (serpents) who hold up the earth.

Kubera: the god of riches and treasure, he is the regent of the northern quarter of the earth.

mahaā: the mahuā (Bassia latifolia) is a tree bearing sweet flowers that are used for preparing liquor. Elephants are much addicted to mahuā blossoms.

caper bush: the caper or karīl bush (Capparis aphylla) is a thorny and leafless shrub which grows in deserts and is eaten by camels.

henna: the henna plant (Lawsonia inermis; mehndi, Hind.) forms a very dense, thorny bush, with sprays of fluffy, gold flowers which have a heavy fragrance. The leaves are crushed into a paste which is used to create red designs on the hands and feet or to dye hair.

jasmine flower: the jasmine (Jasminum auriculatum; jūhī, Hind.) has very small and extremely fragrant white flowers.

flume-of-the-forest: also known as the parrot tree because it is attractive to parrots (Butea frondosa; hāk, Hind.). Between January and March it blooms in a riot of reddish-orange flowers covering the entire crown, and the sight of hāk trees blossoming in a grove is said to look like a forest fire, hence its English name.

rose-apple: the rose-apple (Eugenia jambos; galāb jamun, Hind.) is a middle-sized tree with greenish-white flowers and small, pear-shaped, yellow or pink edible fruit.

the green jack-fruit wrapped itself in a thorny sari: the jack-fruit tree (Artocarpus integrifolia; kaahal, Hind., panasa, Skt.) bears the largest edible fruit in the world, up to a hundred pounds in weight. The light-green skin of the fruit is covered in spiky growths.

ghunghuci berry: the ghunghuci tree (Abrus precatorius) bears red berries with a characteristic black dot.

The baahal fruit turned yellow: the baahal tree (Artocarpus lakoocha; vauphala, Skt., ‘large fruit’) bears sizeable yellow fruit from which a yellow dye is made.

the tamarind grew twisted: the tamarind tree (from Persian tamar-i Hindī, meaning ‘Indian date’; Tamarindus indicu, umblī, imlī, Hind.) has a short, strong trunk, with black bark covered in deep fissures and horizontal cracks. The flowers are small, creamy or yellow, and scented. The brown, twisting pods contain hard seeds and sour pulp which is used in cooking.

The wishing-tree left this world altogether: the wishing-tree or kalpataru, is one of the five trees in Svarga, the heaven ruled by Indra, and is reputed to grant all wishes.

green pigeon: the green pigeon (Bucula aenea; hāurila, Hind.) is believed to avoid all contact with the earth. It hangs upside down from twigs to drink from streams and if killed it will continue to grasp the twig rather than fall to the ground.

The drongo lost its own voice … many tongues: the common black drongo (Dicrurus adsimilis; bhngu, Skt.; bhujaga, bhujan, Hind.) has black plumage and a long; forked tail. It rides on the back of grazing cattle to eat the insects disturbed by the animal’s movement. It is known for coming very close to fires to catch the insects roused by the smoke, which gives it two other Sanskrit names, dhūmyāt,‘smoky’, and kolusā,‘black like charcoal’. It has a very wide repertoire of sounds and is an accomplished mimic.

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 parents, 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), consisting 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.

Kārtik: Kārtik (kārtika, Skt.; kātik, Hind.) is the month sacred to Viu, and corresponds to October–November. It was the traditional time of departure for husbands and lovers going on trading or martial expeditions or on ascetic pilgrimages. The ‘festival of lights’ referred to is the holiday of Dīvālī or Dīpāvalī, which is dedicated to Lakmī, the goddess of wealth. Dīvālī is celebrated with the lighting of many lamps and the giving of presents.

Aghan: the month of Aghan (āgrahāyaa, Skt.) begins the season of winter (hemanta) and corresponds to November–December.

Pūs: the month of Pūs (paua, Skt.) is the equivalent to December-January, and is a very cold time in north India.

Māgh: Māgh (māgha, Skt.) corresponds to January–February, and is the month of winter, the cold season (śiśira, Skt.).

Phāgun: Phāgun (phālguna, Skt.) heralds the beginning of spring and corresponds to February–March. The spring festival of Holī falls during the ten days prior to the day of the full moon in Phāgun. One of the most widely and exuberantly celebrated holidays in India, Holī is characterized by the singing of ribald songs and the throwing of coloured water and powder. A bonfire is always kindled in each village and a doll-like effigy of Prahlāda’s stepmother Holikā is burnt (see note to p. 75 above). Normally strict social distinctions are overturned and everyone joins equally in teasing, chasing, and splashing each other with coloured water.

Caita: Caita (caitra, Skt.) is the first month of spring (basanta) and corresponds to March–April. The land grows green again in this month and it is thought of as the romantic season.

Baisākh: Baisakh (vaiśākha, Skt.) corresponds to April-May, and is a verdant and colourful season in north India, but the heat of summer is beginning to build.

Jeh: Jeh (jyeha, Skt.) May-June is the height of summer (grīma, Skt.), and is the hottest month of the year. Traditionally it is also the favoured month for weddings.

my lord: here the poet uses the word sāī (<svāmī, Skt.), which signifies master and can also mean the Lord of the universe.

Asāh: Asāh (āāha, Skt.) falls in June–July, and is the ‘month of clouds’, as it is the beginning of the monsoon. It is thus considered a month of return and reunion, as husbands who had been travelling would try to return home before the rains began. The image of a woman watching the approaching dark clouds while waiting anxiously for her husband’s return is frequently evoked in Indian literature.

life: another allegorical reference to the divine spirit. The word used by the poet is jīva.

Every concern fled … anxious for you: a reference to tark-e duniyā, the Sufi value of giving up the world for the sake of the beloved.

patchwork cloak: a reference to the dalq-i muraqqa‘ or patched cloak of the Sufis, the rough garment signifying their status as travelling mystics.

Gorakh’s path: here, as elsewhere, a reference to asceticism in general rather than specifically to the path of the Nāth yogis. The usage is characteristic of the poet’s strategy of using vernacular imagery to approximate Persianate Sufi ideas, emptying the desā word of its specificity and employing it to signify a notion in Sufi ideology.

syces: a syce (sais, Hind., originally from Arabic, sā’is,‘groom’, a loanword from Syriac sausī, meaning ‘to coax’) is a common Indian term for a groom or ostler.

like the full moon of Caita … Viśākhā, Anurādhā, Jyehā: a reference to the moon of the spring month of Caita, when everything begins to turn green again. For a description of Caita, see verse 410 above. Viśākhā, Anurādhā, and Jyehā are the names of lunar aster-isms through which the moon travels in this month.

Queen’s palace, where all the women were staying: reference is here made to the ranivāsa or women’s quarters that were a characteristic part of royal palaces in India.

Anurādhā: a constellation considered particularly auspicious. See also note to p. 181 above.

orange: the word used is kusumbhī, bastard saffron or safflower, Carthamus tinctorius, from the flower of which a red or orange dye is made.

unguent: here the poet uses the word uban, a fragrant paste made of gram flour or barley meal that softens and cleans the skin before the application of cosmetics. See also note to p. 27 above.

white kite: the ‘white kite’ or black-winged kite (Elanus caeruleus; kapāssi, Hind.) is a dainty grey and white hawk with black patches on its wings. The sight of it is thought to bestow good luck.

Āratī: a common religious ritual of circling a tray of lamps clockwise in front of an object to be worshipped.

The Secret of Love: the following passage plays charmingly on the mystery to which the seeker has to awaken, namely the identity of being between lover and beloved and their coincidence as subject and object of desire within the human being. At all costs, the mystic must not disclose this secret publicly.

Manūr: usain bin Manūr al-Hallāj was a Sufi mystic hanged for blasphemy AD 26 March 922. He publicly proclaimed the words anal-haqq or ‘I am the Truth’, which is one of the names of God. al-Hallāj was ‘… a man who deeply influenced the development of Islamic mysticism and whose name became, in the course of time, a symbol for both suffering love and unitive experience, but also for a lover’s greatest sin: to divulge the secret of his love’ (Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), p. 64).

dhamār: see note to p. 101 above.

nilgai: the nilgai (Bosephalus tragocamelus) is a wild antelope-like creature, 130–40 centimetres tall, with a tawny or grey coat, a dark mane, and short horns among the males of the species. It is found only in the Indian subcontinent, ranging from the Himalayas to the southern elevations of Mysore.

The psychic channels … in his body: the psychic channels of the moon (iā) and the sun (pigalā) are nerve conduits that flow from the nose to the base of the spine. A balance between their masculine (pigalā) and feminine (iā) energies is necessary for good health. See also note to p. 36 above.

bimba fruits: see note to p. 37 above.

five nectars: pañcāmta, a mixture of milk, curds, ghee, honey, and sugar, served to the bridegroom and guests as a special food at the wedding.

betel leaves: betel leaves are chewed after eating as a digestive aid. See note to p. 23 above.

The marriage knot … seven times: this is a reference to the saptapadī (lit. ‘seven steps’), a marriage ritual in which the bride and groom go seven steps around a sacred fire with the ends of their garments tied together. This is a symbol of their future co-operation in married life.

between the lovely lily and the moon: this is a reference to a kind of water-lily or night-lotus which closes during the day and opens at night. It is thus believed to be in love with the moon as it opens only to see its beauty. See also note to p. 127 above.

Canopus: a bright star in the southern constellation of Argo navis, particularly noticeable in the cool autumnal nights of Kuvār.

The Rite of Departure: the following section uses the gavanā or gaunā, the child-bride’s departure to her husband’s house after the consummation of the marriage, to present an allegory of the soul’s departure for the heavenly kingdom of the beloved. The idea is commonly found in Indian Sufi poetry, which often celebrates the death-anniversary of a Shaikh as his nuptials (‘urs) with the divine lover. The mystic is depicted as a woman longing for the husband’s house, to which he has gone after death. It will be noted that here the poet makes the married Madhumālatī subject to her lord’s wish, rather than the divine maiden who was the object of his quest.

You must serve your lords wholeheartedly: this verse and the following verses employ a cunning extended reference to the mastery of God through the mothers’ presentation of advice to the new brides: of serving the husband, and by implication, God. In Sufi terms, God is like the master of the house into which the novice goes like a new bride. The image is carried through several parts: the husband is like the Lord, he must be served like God, he takes the bride/the soul to a paradise-like realm where He is the master (the foreign land which is mentioned repeatedly in the text).

She had given up all illusory attachments: here the poet makes clear that the new marital home is an implied reference to heaven, the true home of the soul which has been sent into this world, and now leaves it as the bride of God. All her attachments to her natal home are illusory, and must be abandoned if she is to attain eternal happiness.

Vibhīaa left Lakā … untroubled by what might happen: this is a reference to the incident in the Rāmāyaa concerning Vibhīaa, who was the younger brother of the demon-king Rāvaa. When Rāvaa kidnapped Sītā, Vibhīaa advised Rāvaa to return her and beg forgiveness from Rāma. Rāvaa was furious with Vibhīaa and expelled him from Lakā. Vibhīaa became an ally of Rāma and told him all of Rāvaa’s military secrets. When Rāma won the battle and killed Rāvaa, he crowned Vibhīaa the king of Lakā.

took hold of their ears humbly: holding the ears with both hands is an Indian gesture of humility and remorse.

yojanas: a yojana is a traditional Indian measure of distance, equal to eight miles.

who has died himself before his death: this entire verse plays with the immortality of love despite the perishability of the human body. In this first couplet, dying before death refers to fanā, the annihilation of the carnal soul that is necessary if the seeker is to meet the divine beloved.

one’s body becomes immortal: death itself is celebrated as the fruit of life, for although formless, it allows humans to live on through love.

The elixir of immortality … wherever it is found: the text for this line of the final couplet is not very clear, as the poet uses so hānva or ‘the place’ but does not clarify the poetic reference any further. In context, we have taken it to mean the place where immortality abounds and is therefore, by extension, the sanctuary of love.