21 Amir Khusrau and Indian Poetics

Dr. Mrinmoy Pramanick

 In this module we will briefly learn about Amir Khusru and his poetic contribution in Indian poetry and music. And we will also learn about his thought on poetry. Amir Khusru is a talent with multiple layered of artistic expression. He wrote his poetry in Persian and Hindi and so skillfully accommodated many words of Arabic into his work. He also knew quite a few other Indian languages, including Sanskrit. He is also a renowned critic of Indian poetic works in medieval India. He practiced multilingualism in his work and in his knowledge. Amir khusru appears as a symbol of multilingual ethos of India. His work can be considered as work of Comparative Literature in today’s sense, Ganesh Devi opined. In this module we will try to portray different dimensions of such a great mind of India.

Introduction

“Khusro’s enduring fame in India rests on the riddles, quibbles and songs written by him”.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Discovery of India (1961)

Amir Khusru is originally a Turkish by birth. His family settled in India few generations back before Amir Khusru’s birth. He took birth 1253 A.D. and he died in 1325 A.D. He began his career as a soldier but he also was well known for his poetic talent since the childhood. Famous saint of Delhi Nizamuddin Auliya was his spiritual guru. Auliya was impressed by Khusru’s talent when Khusru was a boy. One side he is a poet of high talent and in the other he is popular among the common people of India. A poet and a composer Khusru successfully reached to the heart of the common people of India with his masterly skill on language and power of expression. His songs and poems are so popular even now.

Ganesh Devi informed, though Khusru knew Sanskrit very well he never translated any of the theoretical texts from Sanskrit into Persian. He tried to represent his own theoretical philosophical understanding of poetry and literature through his poetic practices. According to Devi, “… he believed literature to be a matter of creation in the languages that are spoken and understood” (Devy, Ganesh;). He was much advance in literary practice than his time was. When different languages, especially Sanskrit was very much confined within the access of the upper caste Hindus, Khusru practiced poetry in the language of the people. He wanted to send the poetry in the inner world of domestic life of the people. And the language as a tool, he used showed that poetic spirit passionately kept in his mind.

His Nuh Siphir is one side reflection of his literary wisdom and in other side it reflects the reality of literary appreciation in medieval India. In this work he introduced a comparative study of Sanskrit philosophy and knowledge of art with other established scholarship like Rumi.

Nuh-Siphir and Its Significance

Nuh Siphir was written in 1318. Nuh Siphir means “The Nine Heavens (or Spheres).” This book was written by him in his old age when he is extremely rich by his experience and knowledge. He also talks about the time of and the reign of Kutbu-d dín Mubárak Sháh, as he lived during this time.

This book is encyclopedic in nature. It is a narrative pictoriography of the then India observed by Amir Khusru. He talks about birds, animals, flowers, trees, people, culture, religion, languages, religions, rituals etc. in this book. His Sufi orientation makes him to observe every aspects of India in very keen manner. He also appreciated some Hindu customs and religion. A critical mind also is very much reflected in this book. Khusrao was disciple of Sufi Saint Nizamuddin Auliya. He very sincerely thought about religious harmony and he presented a conversation between a Muslim Haji going to Mecca and a Hindu Brahmin going to Somnath temple. Throughout this book we can observe a strong feeling and powerful expression of secularism. His poetry is reflection of secular mind. It is that secular what is practiced by Khusru himself throughout his life.

He is very much significant because of introducing an alternative critique of literature and also for offering alternative poetics other than established high merit of Sanskrit philosophy of art and literature in early medieval India. As we mentioned it in beginning that his works carry a comparative spirit and ethos of multilingualism which is India’s very reality. We go back to Khusru and his Nuh Siphir not because of its merit only but because of the methodology and philosophy what he offers for the contemporary India.

In his Nuh Siphir (1318) he talked about different issues on literature, language, multilingual culture. Caste and wisdom etc. This book is translated into English by R. Nath and Fayez ‘Gwaliari’, under the title India as Seen by Amir Khusru.

Different Spheres in Nuh Siphir

A website persian.packhum.org holds famous writings of the Persian authors and poets. This website naturally holds writings of Amir Khusru along with a full English translation of Nuh Siphir .Here a very brief introduction about different spheres have been extracted from the aforementioned web source.

“The First Sphere.

Praise of God and the Prophet, and of the author’s spiritual teacher, Nizámu-d dín Aulyá.

The Second Sphere.

Khusrú Khán is despatched for the conquest of Arangal (Warangal), in Tilang,* with an army consisting partly of Hindus.

The Third Sphere.

Praises of Hindústán.—Its Climate.—Animals.—Learning and Languages.

The Fourth Sphere.

Admonitions and precepts for kings, chiefs, soldiers, and the common people.

The Fifth Sphere.

The king’s fondness of hunting.—His preserves.—Praise of the seasons of Hindústán.— Dialogue between the king’s bow and arrow.

The Sixth Sphere.

Birth of Prince Sultán Muhammad on the 23rd of Rabí’u-l awwal, 718 H. (June 25th, 1318 A.D.).—The king distributes gold and jewels among the nobles after seeing the child.—Its education.

The Seventh Sphere.

Encomium upon spring and new year’s day; on flowers and birds.—The king’s public audience, and the honours and robes bestowed by him upon the nobles, especially upon Khusrú Khán.

The Eighth Sphere.

The king’s skill in the game of chaugán.—Dialogue between the bat and the ball.

The Ninth Sphere.

The poet exalts his own merits, and boastingly says that though at that time, in all ‘Ajam and Írán, the two poets of chief celebrity were Shaikh Sa’dí Shírází and Hakím Humám Tabrízí, yet he excelled them both; because, whatever might be the merit of their verses, they possessed not the same multifarious accomplishments as himself”. (NUH SIPIHR OF AMÍR KHUSRÚ)

In this book, Khusru described about his learning of Sanskrit from the Brahmins and how this knowledge and wisdom was secret to the Brahmins only. To talk about this, he expressed his great regards for Indian knowledge and wisdom. He stated that there are objects to be learnt in every nook and corner of India. He observed the language practice and linguistic communication of different communities. India has several language living and the Indians are able to speak more than one language and dialects where as it is difficult for others like Chinese Turkistan, Turk, Arabs etc.

He stated that Indians are master of learning different languages. The skill what Indians have for learning a language is comparable to the Indian’s power to conquer a land. Then he went into travel of knowledge and knowledge exchange. He rightly pointed out that the Brahmans never go outside to learn new things from others and they also do not bother to evaluate their knowledge by others through visiting new lands. But India is very much famous for its arts and science what attracts scholars across the world.

Later he argued about the greatness of Dimna Khaliala or Panchatantra, what he consider as best book of knowledge, written in India. Panchatantra does not have ‘excellent flight of imagination’ as poetry generally has. It is only the stories which is told by the animals and birds. This book is translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Dari in his time. He claimed that different scholars of the world got their inspiration from this book. Such a book of wisdom is rare creation in the history of the world, Khusru claimed.

His Nuh Siphir is an excellent writing on Indian literature, language, art, music and poetics. He stated in detail about Indian music and its cross cultural genealogy. In his impression, Indian music already had reached in the highest of merits and different scholars and musicians who had come to India, got inspired with the Indian music, they put their own excellent inputs and merits in it and brought a new move in the musical journey. In the course of the time in history, different musicians and scholars of music who ever came to India, put new features in Indian music but they (foreigners) could not influence or change the basic structure of the Indian music. With journey and cross cultural encounter new genres of music have been introduced, new turns in known musical genre has been observed. And this how the whole history of Indian music has become the history of many voices, many cultures and multiple stories of Indian civilization.

He also added that our (Indian) music is so sweet that it can hypnotize the animals like deer. Several instances are there what shows that deer is hypnotized by the Indian music. With this Khusru tried to bring the sweetness in the notice of the people, he also claimed again and again about the high merit of Indian music what not only attracts the scholars of different parts of the world but also attracts another world of living creatures.

Khusru’s understanding and his commentary on Indian languages is not only based on the elite languages or the languages of power. But he did field survey on Indian languages and then put his expert comment on it. He commented that he even learned and gather knowledge on the languages of peasants which shows his vision about language study. He understood that the language only cannot be learnt from the books written but true languages also is lying down on the fields and roads of the common masses. He understood that the knowledge is not only the sole property of the elitist or established language/s or the language of power but, world view and wisdom is also there in the vision of common masses who use different dialects and mode of language to express their content of speech. And so, he learnt from the Indian peasants also.

Each language has its own feature and distinct nature. Many communities of India believes their language is best and they do not allow other language to rule over them. Though gradually in the fate of history, we observe that it was not Khusru’s time, much later than Khusro, few languages are started ruling over others.

He believed in the morality of authenticity. As he is Indian, he lives in India, he believed that he is only eleigible to talk about Indian languages not about the Arabic or Turkish language. So in his master piece Nuh Siphir he talked, debated, argued about Indian knowledge, Indian Poetics, Indian Music and Indian Languages. He specifically mentioned about Hindwi, Sindhi, Lahori, Kashmiri, Kubri, Dhur Samundri, Tilangi, Gujar, Maabri, Ghouri, Bengali, Oudhi, Delhi and many other languages. His note on Indian languages is one of the early notes which gave description about the modern Indian languages. It is considered as an early history of modern Indian languages also. He considered the Sanskrit, which he mentioned as the language of the Brahmans as the best language among all these aforementioned languages. He describes Sanskrit as ‘pearl among the pearls’. He also mentioned about knowledge on literature, grammar, poetics, philosophy found in Sanskrit language.

Other Works of Amir Khusru2

His works include poems, masnavi, and other historical writings. Those are,

• Bāğ va bahār or The Garden and the Spring (1302)
• ʿAšīqa or Lover (1315-16)
• Ašīqa
• Ḫazāʾin al-futūḥ The Treasuries of Conquests (1311-12)
• Miftāḥ al-futūḥ The Key to Conquests (1291)
• Qirān al-saʿdayn The Meeting of the Two Favored by Heaven (1289)
• Qirān al-saʿdayn (1289), this is a Masnavi.

Amir Khusru was a polyglot, a generous poet, a historian to propose Indian historiography for writing history of Indian literature, culture and society. Along with all these he was an artist and master of music and instrument.

‘Sacred Songs’ website informs us that Amir Khusru is regarded as the ‘father of Qawali’. His works on music is symbol of cross-cultural practice. He enriched the Hindusatani classical music with Arabic and Persian beats and elements. He also modified the raga Dhrupad. He originated tarana style in Indian music. Many of his poems are still popular in popular culture across the India. He also has been credited for inventing tabla (Amir Khusru).

Being a polyglot and extremely genius artist, he played with language like he did with poems. And thus he contributed a lot in Indian languages of art, music and literature. He has been created multilingual texts in true sense. He created creole kind of language with Bhojpuri and Persian what he called as Hindvi (Amir Khusru).

His writings is a reservoir of data about medieval India. And because of that historians have a keen interest on Khusru’s writings. K.A. Nizami says,

“Amīr Khusrau’s poetical works constitute a veritable source of information for the social and cultural history of medieval India. They contain wealth of details about Indian birds and animals, languages and religions, fruits and flowers, clothes, curtains, ornaments, weapons, customs and ceremonials… (Which) help us in reconstructing a picture of the social and cultural life of medieval India”

(Chaudhary, Neha; Narayan, Saarang;).

Many scholars and critic acknowledges Khusru as a historian because of historical documentation he did in his writings. Without Khusru, if it is not impossible, it is obviously difficult to write complete history of medieval India and Nuh Siphir and his masnavi is authentic source for that. Though there is debate whether Khusru can be called as historian. This is question is raised by Neha Chaudhary and Saarang Narayan in their article “Was Amir Khusrau a Historian? Examining his Work in a Contemporary Framework”.

Conclusion

Amir Khusru is regarded as a rare genius literary figure and artist in Indian literature. His Nuh Siphir is not only a literary contribution but a historical text and it also proposes a method of preparing encyclopedia in the time as early as medieval India. He was far ahead than his time. Nuh Siphir can be considered as a model of historiography, a literary historiography and a composite model of encyclopedia. The literary thought for what he is important for the critics and theorists of literature is the concept of historiography for literature, culture and society. He for the first time in medieval India addresses the multilingual reality of India and he showed how people should acknowledge it and practice it and also show regard to the multilingual reality of India. His works are symbol of cross-cultural aesthetics of literature and music. Even the languages he created for his songs and poems are very much cross-cultural. The crisis what modern India faces and the problems what we try to address in modern India through our literary practices and writings actually addressed by Amir Khusru long back in medieval India. And his Nuh Siphir is the poetics of that.

References

• “Amir Khusru.” n.d. Sacred Songs. <http://sacred-songs.blogspot.in/2007/06/amir-khusro.html>.
• Chaudhary, Neha; Narayan, Saarang;. “Was Amir Khusrau a Historian? Examining his Work in a Contemporary Framework.” Inquiries 8.3 (2016). Web. <http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1372/was-amir-khusrau-a-historian-examining-his-work-in-a-contemporary-framework>.
• Devy, Ganesh;. “Amir Khusrau: Multilingual Literary Culture.” Indian Literary Criticism.
• Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2010. 92-95. Print.
• “NUH SIPIHR OF AMÍR KHUSRÚ.” n.d. 21 January 2017. <http://persian.packhum.org/persian/main?url=pf%3Fauth%3D20%26work%3D005>