The celebration of failure as dissent in Urdu Ghazal

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 33, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 861-881

  Mukhia, Harbans ^a  

^a JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY   (India)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 11444264698     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X99003522     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. Much of this construction of decadence is indeed equated with 'excessive' sexual indulgence, perceived as 'moral' decline. Sir Jadunath Sarkar speaks of the setting-in of a 'moral canker in the Mughal Empire', manifest, among other things, as the 'sexual excess' and 'drug habit' of Muhammad Shah, last of the line of notable imperial rulers; see Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. I (Calcutta, 1932), pp. 5, 7. In Tara Chand's vision, in the 18th century '. . . an indescribable malaise had settled upon the spirit of India [and] a moral and intellectual canker was sapping its vitality', though his reference point is art and literature; see his History of the Freedom Movement, I (Delhi, 1961), pp. 217-18. The ghazal itself has frequently been perceived as an index of medieval 'moral' decadence. See M. Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature (London, 1964), pp. 33-4. However, doubts about the notion of decline in the 18th century began to be raised early. Hermann Goctz in his The Crisis of Indian Civilization in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Calcutta, 1938), conceded the decay of the imperial polity, but saw cultural efflorescence in the period. George D. Bearce too questioned the construction of decline in the sphere of culture and traced the notion to 'the historiography of nineteenth century utilitarians and reformers of Britain' reinforced by historians inspired by the freedom struggle; see his 'The Culture of Eighteenth Century India: A Reappraisal', Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 24th Session, 1961, pp. 287-96. More recently several valuable works of C. A. Bayly have opened the problematic of decline to an encompassing re-evaluation.
2. Much of this construction of decadence is indeed equated with 'excessive' sexual indulgence, perceived as 'moral' decline. Sir Jadunath Sarkar speaks of the setting-in of a 'moral canker in the Mughal Empire', manifest, among other things, as the 'sexual excess' and 'drug habit' of Muhammad Shah, last of the line of notable imperial rulers; see Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. I (Calcutta, 1932), pp. 5, 7. In Tara Chand's vision, in the 18th century '. . . an indescribable malaise had settled upon the spirit of India [and] a moral and intellectual canker was sapping its vitality', though his reference point is art and literature; see his History of the Freedom Movement, I (Delhi, 1961), pp. 217-18. The ghazal itself has frequently been perceived as an index of medieval 'moral' decadence. See M. Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature (London, 1964), pp. 33-4. However, doubts about the notion of decline in the 18th century began to be raised early. Hermann Goctz in his The Crisis of Indian Civilization in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Calcutta, 1938), conceded the decay of the imperial polity, but saw cultural efflorescence in the period. George D. Bearce too questioned the construction of decline in the sphere of culture and traced the notion to 'the historiography of nineteenth century utilitarians and reformers of Britain' reinforced by historians inspired by the freedom struggle; see his 'The Culture of Eighteenth Century India: A Reappraisal', Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 24th Session, 1961, pp. 287-96. More recently several valuable works of C. A. Bayly have opened the problematic of decline to an encompassing re-evaluation.
3. Much of this construction of decadence is indeed equated with 'excessive' sexual indulgence, perceived as 'moral' decline. Sir Jadunath Sarkar speaks of the setting-in of a 'moral canker in the Mughal Empire', manifest, among other things, as the 'sexual excess' and 'drug habit' of Muhammad Shah, last of the line of notable imperial rulers; see Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. I (Calcutta, 1932), pp. 5, 7. In Tara Chand's vision, in the 18th century '. . . an indescribable malaise had settled upon the spirit of India [and] a moral and intellectual canker was sapping its vitality', though his reference point is art and literature; see his History of the Freedom Movement, I (Delhi, 1961), pp. 217-18. The ghazal itself has frequently been perceived as an index of medieval 'moral' decadence. See M. Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature (London, 1964), pp. 33-4. However, doubts about the notion of decline in the 18th century began to be raised early. Hermann Goctz in his The Crisis of Indian Civilization in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Calcutta, 1938), conceded the decay of the imperial polity, but saw cultural efflorescence in the period. George D. Bearce too questioned the construction of decline in the sphere of culture and traced the notion to 'the historiography of nineteenth century utilitarians and reformers of Britain' reinforced by historians inspired by the freedom struggle; see his 'The Culture of Eighteenth Century India: A Reappraisal', Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 24th Session, 1961, pp. 287-96. More recently several valuable works of C. A. Bayly have opened the problematic of decline to an encompassing re-evaluation.
4. Much of this construction of decadence is indeed equated with 'excessive' sexual indulgence, perceived as 'moral' decline. Sir Jadunath Sarkar speaks of the setting-in of a 'moral canker in the Mughal Empire', manifest, among other things, as the 'sexual excess' and 'drug habit' of Muhammad Shah, last of the line of notable imperial rulers; see Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. I (Calcutta, 1932), pp. 5, 7. In Tara Chand's vision, in the 18th century '. . . an indescribable malaise had settled upon the spirit of India [and] a moral and intellectual canker was sapping its vitality', though his reference point is art and literature; see his History of the Freedom Movement, I (Delhi, 1961), pp. 217-18. The ghazal itself has frequently been perceived as an index of medieval 'moral' decadence. See M. Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature (London, 1964), pp. 33-4. However, doubts about the notion of decline in the 18th century began to be raised early. Hermann Goctz in his The Crisis of Indian Civilization in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Calcutta, 1938), conceded the decay of the imperial polity, but saw cultural efflorescence in the period. George D. Bearce too questioned the construction of decline in the sphere of culture and traced the notion to 'the historiography of nineteenth century utilitarians and reformers of Britain' reinforced by historians inspired by the freedom struggle; see his 'The Culture of Eighteenth Century India: A Reappraisal', Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 24th Session, 1961, pp. 287-96. More recently several valuable works of C. A. Bayly have opened the problematic of decline to an encompassing re-evaluation.
5. Much of this construction of decadence is indeed equated with 'excessive' sexual indulgence, perceived as 'moral' decline. Sir Jadunath Sarkar speaks of the setting-in of a 'moral canker in the Mughal Empire', manifest, among other things, as the 'sexual excess' and 'drug habit' of Muhammad Shah, last of the line of notable imperial rulers; see Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. I (Calcutta, 1932), pp. 5, 7. In Tara Chand's vision, in the 18th century '. . . an indescribable malaise had settled upon the spirit of India [and] a moral and intellectual canker was sapping its vitality', though his reference point is art and literature; see his History of the Freedom Movement, I (Delhi, 1961), pp. 217-18. The ghazal itself has frequently been perceived as an index of medieval 'moral' decadence. See M. Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature (London, 1964), pp. 33-4. However, doubts about the notion of decline in the 18th century began to be raised early. Hermann Goctz in his The Crisis of Indian Civilization in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Calcutta, 1938), conceded the decay of the imperial polity, but saw cultural efflorescence in the period. George D. Bearce too questioned the construction of decline in the sphere of culture and traced the notion to 'the historiography of nineteenth century utilitarians and reformers of Britain' reinforced by historians inspired by the freedom struggle; see his 'The Culture of Eighteenth Century India: A Reappraisal', Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 24th Session, 1961, pp. 287-96. More recently several valuable works of C. A. Bayly have opened the problematic of decline to an encompassing re-evaluation.
6. The classic argument in this genre was put forward by Sir Jadunath Sarkar in his 4-volume Fall of the Mughal Empire (Calcutta, 1932-50).
7. The leader of this group of distinguished historians is indisputably Irfan Habib, whose influential work, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, published in 1963, laid down the framework of the alternative argument, which, at least for Habib and his AMU colleagues, still remains like Caesar's wife-above the slightest suspicion. Any doubts raised by other historians are dismissed by a frantic wave of the hand. Thus, several recent papers published in the name of M. Athar Ali on India's 18th century exhibit a deep sense of insecurity at growing knowledge, insecurity that is manifest as aggressive, at times bemusing, reassertion of arguments that are at best passé; such, for example, is the debate on the somewhat sterile old dichotomies about India's 18th century being dark or bright or whether the Mughal empire was centralized or decentralized. See M. Athar Ali, 'Recent Theories of Eighteenth Century India', The Indian Historical Review, XII, 1-2, 1986-87, pp. 102-10; M. Athar Ali, 'The Mughal Polity - A Critique of Revisionist Approaches', Modern Asian Studies, 27, 4, 1993, pp. 699-710. The formula applied in these articles is simplicity itself: 'While in India these conclusions [of Irfan Habib] received considerable acceptance and have received continuing confirmation from studies of documentary material from all parts of India, these views have been subjected to increasing suspicion by an ever larger set of Western scholars.' The world is thus neatly divided into the supporters and opponents of AMU historians [=Irfan Habib], a division that also coincides with the scholars' national identities! The demarcating line is, sadly, vitiated by some deserters like Muzaffar Alam and Chetan Singh; but then happily there is compensation, for Eric Stokes from the rival ranks can mercifully still be mobilized to AMU's rescue. At any rate, M. Athar Ali assures us that Alam's and Singh's scholarship is quite shoddy anyway, and all one needs to do is to 'blow away the smoke' of their 'verbiage' to reach the immovable rock of historiographical truth established 'since the early 19605' [=Agranan System]!. If one were to extend Professor M. Athar Ali's Indian vs. the Western scholars dichotomy just a wee bit, the validity of one's argument would then also be liable to the test of whether one was a North or a South Indian or a Hindu or a Muslim historian! See also Z. U. Malik, 'Core and Periphery: A Contribution to the Debate on the Eighteenth century', Social Scientist, 210-11, Nov-Dec. 1990, pp. 3-35, for the dark vs. bright 18th-century debate.
8. The leader of this group of distinguished historians is indisputably Irfan Habib, whose influential work, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, published in 1963, laid down the framework of the alternative argument, which, at least for Habib and his AMU colleagues, still remains like Caesar's wife-above the slightest suspicion. Any doubts raised by other historians are dismissed by a frantic wave of the hand. Thus, several recent papers published in the name of M. Athar Ali on India's 18th century exhibit a deep sense of insecurity at growing knowledge, insecurity that is manifest as aggressive, at times bemusing, reassertion of arguments that are at best passé; such, for example, is the debate on the somewhat sterile old dichotomies about India's 18th century being dark or bright or whether the Mughal empire was centralized or decentralized. See M. Athar Ali, 'Recent Theories of Eighteenth Century India', The Indian Historical Review, XII, 1-2, 1986-87, pp. 102-10; M. Athar Ali, 'The Mughal Polity - A Critique of Revisionist Approaches', Modern Asian Studies, 27, 4, 1993, pp. 699-710. The formula applied in these articles is simplicity itself: 'While in India these conclusions [of Irfan Habib] received considerable acceptance and have received continuing confirmation from studies of documentary material from all parts of India, these views have been subjected to increasing suspicion by an ever larger set of Western scholars.' The world is thus neatly divided into the supporters and opponents of AMU historians [=Irfan Habib], a division that also coincides with the scholars' national identities! The demarcating line is, sadly, vitiated by some deserters like Muzaffar Alam and Chetan Singh; but then happily there is compensation, for Eric Stokes from the rival ranks can mercifully still be mobilized to AMU's rescue. At any rate, M. Athar Ali assures us that Alam's and Singh's scholarship is quite shoddy anyway, and all one needs to do is to 'blow away the smoke' of their 'verbiage' to reach the immovable rock of historiographical truth established 'since the early 19605' [=Agranan System]!. If one were to extend Professor M. Athar Ali's Indian vs. the Western scholars dichotomy just a wee bit, the validity of one's argument would then also be liable to the test of whether one was a North or a South Indian or a Hindu or a Muslim historian! See also Z. U. Malik, 'Core and Periphery: A Contribution to the Debate on the Eighteenth century', Social Scientist, 210-11, Nov-Dec. 1990, pp. 3-35, for the dark vs. bright 18th-century debate.
9. The leader of this group of distinguished historians is indisputably Irfan Habib, whose influential work, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, published in 1963, laid down the framework of the alternative argument, which, at least for Habib and his AMU colleagues, still remains like Caesar's wife-above the slightest suspicion. Any doubts raised by other historians are dismissed by a frantic wave of the hand. Thus, several recent papers published in the name of M. Athar Ali on India's 18th century exhibit a deep sense of insecurity at growing knowledge, insecurity that is manifest as aggressive, at times bemusing, reassertion of arguments that are at best passé; such, for example, is the debate on the somewhat sterile old dichotomies about India's 18th century being dark or bright or whether the Mughal empire was centralized or decentralized. See M. Athar Ali, 'Recent Theories of Eighteenth Century India', The Indian Historical Review, XII, 1-2, 1986-87, pp. 102-10; M. Athar Ali, 'The Mughal Polity - A Critique of Revisionist Approaches', Modern Asian Studies, 27, 4, 1993, pp. 699-710. The formula applied in these articles is simplicity itself: 'While in India these conclusions [of Irfan Habib] received considerable acceptance and have received continuing confirmation from studies of documentary material from all parts of India, these views have been subjected to increasing suspicion by an ever larger set of Western scholars.' The world is thus neatly divided into the supporters and opponents of AMU historians [=Irfan Habib], a division that also coincides with the scholars' national identities! The demarcating line is, sadly, vitiated by some deserters like Muzaffar Alam and Chetan Singh; but then happily there is compensation, for Eric Stokes from the rival ranks can mercifully still be mobilized to AMU's rescue. At any rate, M. Athar Ali assures us that Alam's and Singh's scholarship is quite shoddy anyway, and all one needs to do is to 'blow away the smoke' of their 'verbiage' to reach the immovable rock of historiographical truth established 'since the early 19605' [=Agranan System]!. If one were to extend Professor M. Athar Ali's Indian vs. the Western scholars dichotomy just a wee bit, the validity of one's argument would then also be liable to the test of whether one was a North or a South Indian or a Hindu or a Muslim historian! See also Z. U. Malik, 'Core and Periphery: A Contribution to the Debate on the Eighteenth century', Social Scientist, 210-11, Nov-Dec. 1990, pp. 3-35, for the dark vs. bright 18th-century debate.
10. The leader of this group of distinguished historians is indisputably Irfan Habib, whose influential work, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, published in 1963, laid down the framework of the alternative argument, which, at least for Habib and his AMU colleagues, still remains like Caesar's wife-above the slightest suspicion. Any doubts raised by other historians are dismissed by a frantic wave of the hand. Thus, several recent papers published in the name of M. Athar Ali on India's 18th century exhibit a deep sense of insecurity at growing knowledge, insecurity that is manifest as aggressive, at times bemusing, reassertion of arguments that are at best passé; such, for example, is the debate on the somewhat sterile old dichotomies about India's 18th century being dark or bright or whether the Mughal empire was centralized or decentralized. See M. Athar Ali, 'Recent Theories of Eighteenth Century India', The Indian Historical Review, XII, 1-2, 1986-87, pp. 102-10; M. Athar Ali, 'The Mughal Polity - A Critique of Revisionist Approaches', Modern Asian Studies, 27, 4, 1993, pp. 699-710. The formula applied in these articles is simplicity itself: 'While in India these conclusions [of Irfan Habib] received considerable acceptance and have received continuing confirmation from studies of documentary material from all parts of India, these views have been subjected to increasing suspicion by an ever larger set of Western scholars.' The world is thus neatly divided into the supporters and opponents of AMU historians [=Irfan Habib], a division that also coincides with the scholars' national identities! The demarcating line is, sadly, vitiated by some deserters like Muzaffar Alam and Chetan Singh; but then happily there is compensation, for Eric Stokes from the rival ranks can mercifully still be mobilized to AMU's rescue. At any rate, M. Athar Ali assures us that Alam's and Singh's scholarship is quite shoddy anyway, and all one needs to do is to 'blow away the smoke' of their 'verbiage' to reach the immovable rock of historiographical truth established 'since the early 19605' [=Agranan System]!. If one were to extend Professor M. Athar Ali's Indian vs. the Western scholars dichotomy just a wee bit, the validity of one's argument would then also be liable to the test of whether one was a North or a South Indian or a Hindu or a Muslim historian! See also Z. U. Malik, 'Core and Periphery: A Contribution to the Debate on the Eighteenth century', Social Scientist, 210-11, Nov-Dec. 1990, pp. 3-35, for the dark vs. bright 18th-century debate.
11. Later on, realizing that such stridency was somewhat out of tune with the ghazal's genre, Jigar republished it as a poem (nazm) rather than as a ghazal. See Sadiqur Rahman Qidwai, Tasir na ke Tanqeed (New Delhi, 1991), p. 132. However, it is this poetry of overt protest that is the theme of Muhammad Hasan's 'Urdu Mein Ehtejaji Adab', Asari Adab, 29-30, May-Aug. 1977, pp. 28-49.
12. Later on, realizing that such stridency was somewhat out of tune with the ghazal's genre, Jigar republished it as a poem (nazm) rather than as a ghazal. See Sadiqur Rahman Qidwai, Tasir na ke Tanqeed (New Delhi, 1991), p. 132. However, it is this poetry of overt protest that is the theme of Muhammad Hasan's 'Urdu Mein Ehtejaji Adab', Asari Adab, 29-30, May-Aug. 1977, pp. 28-49.
13. Sadiq, however, observes that early on in the course of its evolution, the ghazal would usually comprise 'ten lines (five couplets) or so', A History of Urdu Literature, p. 19.
14. Sadiq, however, has no doubt about the erotic nature of the ghazal: '. . . the ghazal . . . is almost wholly erotic . . .', ibid., p. 16. The certitude indeed arises from Sadiq's reluctance to distinguish between sensuality and eroticism.
15. Khurshidul Islam and Ralph Russell, Three Mughal Poets: Mir, Sauda, Mir Hasan (Delhi reprint, 1991), pp. 98-9, 107-8.
16. Ralph Russell, The Pursuit of Urdu Literature: A Select History (Delhi, 1992), p. 32.
17. Ibid., pp. 33-5.
18. Marion Molteno, 'Approaching Urdu Poetry', cited in Ralph Russell, The Pursuit of Urdu Literature, p. 15.
19. Victor Kiernan, 'Persian poetry and its cosmopolitan audience', in Christopher Shackle (ed.), Urdu and Muslim South Asia: Essays in Honour of Ralph Russell (London, 1989, OUP Delhi reprint, 1991), p. 14.
20. Ibid., p. 15. See also Victor Kiernan, Poems by Faiz (London, 1971), Introduction, p. 36, where Urdu poetry has been envisioned as society's safety-valve.
21. Ibid., p. 15. See also Victor Kiernan, Poems by Faiz (London, 1971), Introduction, p. 36, where Urdu poetry has been envisioned as society's safety-valve.
22. All the authors cited above have perceived the experience of love in purely corporeal, sexual terms. If one were to accept the articulation of the notion of love between man and woman exclusively in terms of sexual experience, the contrast then between Europe and India is indeed the other way round. For, it was the Christian Church in Europe which established a double association of sex with guilt and guilt with Eve, responsible for the fall of Adam from the Garden of Eden. Through the Middle Ages down to modern times the Church frowned upon sexual pleasure as sin, even when mediated through marriage. Simone de Beauvoir in her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter gives voice to this feeling inculcated in her through her family's surveillance of her sexuality in her childhood. For the Church's grave disapproval of any kind of joy in sex, see among many works, Georges Duby, The Knight, The Lady and The Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, tr. from the French by Barbara Bray (Harmondsworth, 1985); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (ed.), A History of Women, vol. II entitled Silences of the Middle Ages (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1992), especially the Section 'Norms of Control'; Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, England, 1983); Jean-Louis Flandrin, 'Contraception, Marriage and Love in the Christian West', tr. from the French by Monica Juneja, in Maurice Aymard and Harbans Mukhia (eds), French Studies in History, vol. II (New Delhi, 1990), pp. 44-71. In India, on the other hand, if Manu had a purely functional vision of sex which implicated the subjugation of woman to man, there was also the long libertarian tradition of which Vatsayayana's Kama Sutra is the best known, though not the only work. This tradition is placed in the Hindu religious mode in which Kama, sexual pleasure, becomes an object of life's pursuit, Vatsayayana becomes a sage and temples are built with explicit sexual motifs. The tradition lays great stress upon sex as an object of pleasure for both the man and the woman; indeed, the man is enjoined upon to please the woman in every which way she can be pleased before, during and after love-making. It was the perfect compatibility of the pursuit of sexual pleasure and devotion to god that %vas idolized by an eighteenth-century Hindi poet, Anand Kavi, in his composition Koka Manjari. An illustration: Man has taken his avatara for the sake of three objects Earning wealth, worshipping god and making love to beautiful women The medieval Muslim Arabic text, The Perfumed Garden of Sheikh Nefzawi, also written in a religious mode, similarly emphasizes sex as an object of pleasure. See Charles Fowkes (ed.), The Illustrated Kama Sutra, tr. Sir Richard Burton (Middlesex, 1987). The book also contains the translations of two other texts, The Ananga-Ranga of Kalyana Malla and The Perfumed Garden, all of them profusely illustrated with photo reproductions of erotic medieval Indian paintings and sculptures, themselves evidence of the relative absence of inhibitions about sex compared to Europe.
23. All the authors cited above have perceived the experience of love in purely corporeal, sexual terms. If one were to accept the articulation of the notion of love between man and woman exclusively in terms of sexual experience, the contrast then between Europe and India is indeed the other way round. For, it was the Christian Church in Europe which established a double association of sex with guilt and guilt with Eve, responsible for the fall of Adam from the Garden of Eden. Through the Middle Ages down to modern times the Church frowned upon sexual pleasure as sin, even when mediated through marriage. Simone de Beauvoir in her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter gives voice to this feeling inculcated in her through her family's surveillance of her sexuality in her childhood. For the Church's grave disapproval of any kind of joy in sex, see among many works, Georges Duby, The Knight, The Lady and The Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, tr. from the French by Barbara Bray (Harmondsworth, 1985); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (ed.), A History of Women, vol. II entitled Silences of the Middle Ages (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1992), especially the Section 'Norms of Control'; Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, England, 1983); Jean-Louis Flandrin, 'Contraception, Marriage and Love in the Christian West', tr. from the French by Monica Juneja, in Maurice Aymard and Harbans Mukhia (eds), French Studies in History, vol. II (New Delhi, 1990), pp. 44-71. In India, on the other hand, if Manu had a purely functional vision of sex which implicated the subjugation of woman to man, there was also the long libertarian tradition of which Vatsayayana's Kama Sutra is the best known, though not the only work. This tradition is placed in the Hindu religious mode in which Kama, sexual pleasure, becomes an object of life's pursuit, Vatsayayana becomes a sage and temples are built with explicit sexual motifs. The tradition lays great stress upon sex as an object of pleasure for both the man and the woman; indeed, the man is enjoined upon to please the woman in every which way she can be pleased before, during and after love-making. It was the perfect compatibility of the pursuit of sexual pleasure and devotion to god that %vas idolized by an eighteenth-century Hindi poet, Anand Kavi, in his composition Koka Manjari. An illustration: Man has taken his avatara for the sake of three objects Earning wealth, worshipping god and making love to beautiful women The medieval Muslim Arabic text, The Perfumed Garden of Sheikh Nefzawi, also written in a religious mode, similarly emphasizes sex as an object of pleasure. See Charles Fowkes (ed.), The Illustrated Kama Sutra, tr. Sir Richard Burton (Middlesex, 1987). The book also contains the translations of two other texts, The Ananga-Ranga of Kalyana Malla and The Perfumed Garden, all of them profusely illustrated with photo reproductions of erotic medieval Indian paintings and sculptures, themselves evidence of the relative absence of inhibitions about sex compared to Europe.
24. All the authors cited above have perceived the experience of love in purely corporeal, sexual terms. If one were to accept the articulation of the notion of love between man and woman exclusively in terms of sexual experience, the contrast then between Europe and India is indeed the other way round. For, it was the Christian Church in Europe which established a double association of sex with guilt and guilt with Eve, responsible for the fall of Adam from the Garden of Eden. Through the Middle Ages down to modern times the Church frowned upon sexual pleasure as sin, even when mediated through marriage. Simone de Beauvoir in her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter gives voice to this feeling inculcated in her through her family's surveillance of her sexuality in her childhood. For the Church's grave disapproval of any kind of joy in sex, see among many works, Georges Duby, The Knight, The Lady and The Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, tr. from the French by Barbara Bray (Harmondsworth, 1985); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (ed.), A History of Women, vol. II entitled Silences of the Middle Ages (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1992), especially the Section 'Norms of Control'; Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, England, 1983); Jean-Louis Flandrin, 'Contraception, Marriage and Love in the Christian West', tr. from the French by Monica Juneja, in Maurice Aymard and Harbans Mukhia (eds), French Studies in History, vol. II (New Delhi, 1990), pp. 44-71. In India, on the other hand, if Manu had a purely functional vision of sex which implicated the subjugation of woman to man, there was also the long libertarian tradition of which Vatsayayana's Kama Sutra is the best known, though not the only work. This tradition is placed in the Hindu religious mode in which Kama, sexual pleasure, becomes an object of life's pursuit, Vatsayayana becomes a sage and temples are built with explicit sexual motifs. The tradition lays great stress upon sex as an object of pleasure for both the man and the woman; indeed, the man is enjoined upon to please the woman in every which way she can be pleased before, during and after love-making. It was the perfect compatibility of the pursuit of sexual pleasure and devotion to god that %vas idolized by an eighteenth-century Hindi poet, Anand Kavi, in his composition Koka Manjari. An illustration: Man has taken his avatara for the sake of three objects Earning wealth, worshipping god and making love to beautiful women The medieval Muslim Arabic text, The Perfumed Garden of Sheikh Nefzawi, also written in a religious mode, similarly emphasizes sex as an object of pleasure. See Charles Fowkes (ed.), The Illustrated Kama Sutra, tr. Sir Richard Burton (Middlesex, 1987). The book also contains the translations of two other texts, The Ananga-Ranga of Kalyana Malla and The Perfumed Garden, all of them profusely illustrated with photo reproductions of erotic medieval Indian paintings and sculptures, themselves evidence of the relative absence of inhibitions about sex compared to Europe.
25. All the authors cited above have perceived the experience of love in purely corporeal, sexual terms. If one were to accept the articulation of the notion of love between man and woman exclusively in terms of sexual experience, the contrast then between Europe and India is indeed the other way round. For, it was the Christian Church in Europe which established a double association of sex with guilt and guilt with Eve, responsible for the fall of Adam from the Garden of Eden. Through the Middle Ages down to modern times the Church frowned upon sexual pleasure as sin, even when mediated through marriage. Simone de Beauvoir in her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter gives voice to this feeling inculcated in her through her family's surveillance of her sexuality in her childhood. For the Church's grave disapproval of any kind of joy in sex, see among many works, Georges Duby, The Knight, The Lady and The Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, tr. from the French by Barbara Bray (Harmondsworth, 1985); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (ed.), A History of Women, vol. II entitled Silences of the Middle Ages (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1992), especially the Section 'Norms of Control'; Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, England, 1983); Jean-Louis Flandrin, 'Contraception, Marriage and Love in the Christian West', tr. from the French by Monica Juneja, in Maurice Aymard and Harbans Mukhia (eds), French Studies in History, vol. II (New Delhi, 1990), pp. 44-71. In India, on the other hand, if Manu had a purely functional vision of sex which implicated the subjugation of woman to man, there was also the long libertarian tradition of which Vatsayayana's Kama Sutra is the best known, though not the only work. This tradition is placed in the Hindu religious mode in which Kama, sexual pleasure, becomes an object of life's pursuit, Vatsayayana becomes a sage and temples are built with explicit sexual motifs. The tradition lays great stress upon sex as an object of pleasure for both the man and the woman; indeed, the man is enjoined upon to please the woman in every which way she can be pleased before, during and after love-making. It was the perfect compatibility of the pursuit of sexual pleasure and devotion to god that %vas idolized by an eighteenth-century Hindi poet, Anand Kavi, in his composition Koka Manjari. An illustration: Man has taken his avatara for the sake of three objects Earning wealth, worshipping god and making love to beautiful women The medieval Muslim Arabic text, The Perfumed Garden of Sheikh Nefzawi, also written in a religious mode, similarly emphasizes sex as an object of pleasure. See Charles Fowkes (ed.), The Illustrated Kama Sutra, tr. Sir Richard Burton (Middlesex, 1987). The book also contains the translations of two other texts, The Ananga-Ranga of Kalyana Malla and The Perfumed Garden, all of them profusely illustrated with photo reproductions of erotic medieval Indian paintings and sculptures, themselves evidence of the relative absence of inhibitions about sex compared to Europe.
26. All the authors cited above have perceived the experience of love in purely corporeal, sexual terms. If one were to accept the articulation of the notion of love between man and woman exclusively in terms of sexual experience, the contrast then between Europe and India is indeed the other way round. For, it was the Christian Church in Europe which established a double association of sex with guilt and guilt with Eve, responsible for the fall of Adam from the Garden of Eden. Through the Middle Ages down to modern times the Church frowned upon sexual pleasure as sin, even when mediated through marriage. Simone de Beauvoir in her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter gives voice to this feeling inculcated in her through her family's surveillance of her sexuality in her childhood. For the Church's grave disapproval of any kind of joy in sex, see among many works, Georges Duby, The Knight, The Lady and The Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, tr. from the French by Barbara Bray (Harmondsworth, 1985); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (ed.), A History of Women, vol. II entitled Silences of the Middle Ages (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1992), especially the Section 'Norms of Control'; Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, England, 1983); Jean-Louis Flandrin, 'Contraception, Marriage and Love in the Christian West', tr. from the French by Monica Juneja, in Maurice Aymard and Harbans Mukhia (eds), French Studies in History, vol. II (New Delhi, 1990), pp. 44-71. In India, on the other hand, if Manu had a purely functional vision of sex which implicated the subjugation of woman to man, there was also the long libertarian tradition of which Vatsayayana's Kama Sutra is the best known, though not the only work. This tradition is placed in the Hindu religious mode in which Kama, sexual pleasure, becomes an object of life's pursuit, Vatsayayana becomes a sage and temples are built with explicit sexual motifs. The tradition lays great stress upon sex as an object of pleasure for both the man and the woman; indeed, the man is enjoined upon to please the woman in every which way she can be pleased before, during and after love-making. It was the perfect compatibility of the pursuit of sexual pleasure and devotion to god that %vas idolized by an eighteenth-century Hindi poet, Anand Kavi, in his composition Koka Manjari. An illustration: Man has taken his avatara for the sake of three objects Earning wealth, worshipping god and making love to beautiful women The medieval Muslim Arabic text, The Perfumed Garden of Sheikh Nefzawi, also written in a religious mode, similarly emphasizes sex as an object of pleasure. See Charles Fowkes (ed.), The Illustrated Kama Sutra, tr. Sir Richard Burton (Middlesex, 1987). The book also contains the translations of two other texts, The Ananga-Ranga of Kalyana Malla and The Perfumed Garden, all of them profusely illustrated with photo reproductions of erotic medieval Indian paintings and sculptures, themselves evidence of the relative absence of inhibitions about sex compared to Europe.
27. Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature, p. 34. Sadiq's lament, however, lacks even in originality, for Ram Babu Saksena, in his A History of Urdu Literature, had already foreshadowed it: 'Facts were divorced from poetry . . .' (New Delhi, 1990 reprint of the first 1927 edn), p. 21.
28. Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature, p. 34. Sadiq's lament, however, lacks even in originality, for Ram Babu Saksena, in his A History of Urdu Literature, had already foreshadowed it: 'Facts were divorced from poetry . . .' (New Delhi, 1990 reprint of the first 1927 edn), p. 21.
29. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. I (Moscow, 1954), p. 79.
30. See n. 13 above.
31. Of the immense amount of literature on this theme, see Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ihn Arabi, tr. from the French by Ralph Manheim (Princeton, 1969), p. 221; Javad Nurbakhsh, 'Two Approaches to the Principle of the Unity of Being', in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism (London, 1992), p. xii; J. C. Burgel, 'Ecstacy and Order: Two Structural Principles in the Ghazal Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi', in ibid., p. 64. William C. Chittick in his The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany, 1983), deals with the theme of love in a chapter, pp. 194-231. Mir Valihuddin traces the stages of the Sufi spiritual experience of love in Love in its Essence: The Sufi Approach (New Delhi, 1967).
32. Of the immense amount of literature on this theme, see Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ihn Arabi, tr. from the French by Ralph Manheim (Princeton, 1969), p. 221; Javad Nurbakhsh, 'Two Approaches to the Principle of the Unity of Being', in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism (London, 1992), p. xii; J. C. Burgel, 'Ecstacy and Order: Two Structural Principles in the Ghazal Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi', in ibid., p. 64. William C. Chittick in his The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany, 1983), deals with the theme of love in a chapter, pp. 194-231. Mir Valihuddin traces the stages of the Sufi spiritual experience of love in Love in its Essence: The Sufi Approach (New Delhi, 1967).
33. Of the immense amount of literature on this theme, see Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ihn Arabi, tr. from the French by Ralph Manheim (Princeton, 1969), p. 221; Javad Nurbakhsh, 'Two Approaches to the Principle of the Unity of Being', in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism (London, 1992), p. xii; J. C. Burgel, 'Ecstacy and Order: Two Structural Principles in the Ghazal Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi', in ibid., p. 64. William C. Chittick in his The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany, 1983), deals with the theme of love in a chapter, pp. 194-231. Mir Valihuddin traces the stages of the Sufi spiritual experience of love in Love in its Essence: The Sufi Approach (New Delhi, 1967).
34. Of the immense amount of literature on this theme, see Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ihn Arabi, tr. from the French by Ralph Manheim (Princeton, 1969), p. 221; Javad Nurbakhsh, 'Two Approaches to the Principle of the Unity of Being', in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism (London, 1992), p. xii; J. C. Burgel, 'Ecstacy and Order: Two Structural Principles in the Ghazal Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi', in ibid., p. 64. William C. Chittick in his The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany, 1983), deals with the theme of love in a chapter, pp. 194-231. Mir Valihuddin traces the stages of the Sufi spiritual experience of love in Love in its Essence: The Sufi Approach (New Delhi, 1967).
35. Of the immense amount of literature on this theme, see Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ihn Arabi, tr. from the French by Ralph Manheim (Princeton, 1969), p. 221; Javad Nurbakhsh, 'Two Approaches to the Principle of the Unity of Being', in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism (London, 1992), p. xii; J. C. Burgel, 'Ecstacy and Order: Two Structural Principles in the Ghazal Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi', in ibid., p. 64. William C. Chittick in his The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany, 1983), deals with the theme of love in a chapter, pp. 194-231. Mir Valihuddin traces the stages of the Sufi spiritual experience of love in Love in its Essence: The Sufi Approach (New Delhi, 1967).
36. Aijaz Ahmad (ed.), Chacals of Ghalib (New York and London, 1971), p. xvi.
37. See, for the most recent discussions of this aspect, essays by S. Hossein Nasr, Leonard Lewisohn, Annemarie Schimmel, Johann Christoph Burgel and J. T. P. Bruijn in Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism.
38. Shah Waliullah's is clearly the most vigorous attempt to establish a homogenous cultural personality of the Indian Muslims under the hegemony of the ulema's vision. See S. A. A. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times (Calcutta, 1980); and Mohammad Umar, Islam in Northern India during the Eighteenth Century (New Delhi, 1993).
39. Shah Waliullah's is clearly the most vigorous attempt to establish a homogenous cultural personality of the Indian Muslims under the hegemony of the ulema's vision. See S. A. A. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times (Calcutta, 1980); and Mohammad Umar, Islam in Northern India during the Eighteenth Century (New Delhi, 1993).
40. At the heart of Foucault's notion of discourse lies the question of relation of power whether between individuals, groups or institutions. Foucault has developed this notion in several of his writings, but see especially his 'Two Lectures' and 'Truth and Power' in Colin Gordon (ed.), Michel Foucault: Power/Knowledge Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-77 (Sussex, 1980), pp. 78-133.
41. For a discussion of various movements of sectarian opposition within early Islam, Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. I: 'The Classical Age of Islam' (Chicago, 1974), pp. 241-79.
42. Although the study of Sufism has been carried out extensively, the best recent introduction to the theme is Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love.
43. The Naqshbandi order of the Sufis in particular had no problem with courting proximity to the rulers and partaking of their largesse. One of the leading figures of this order, Khwaja Ubaidullah Ahrar, justified such closeness with the ruler thus: 'Times have become very evil. If possible, there is no act better than serving at the court of the kings and rulers [through which] to assist the poor and the oppressed'. See Jo-Ann Gross, 'Authority and Miraculous Behavior: Reflections on Karamat Stories of Khwaja Ubaidullah Ahrar', in Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism, p. 163.
44. It is thus that the most eminent saint of the Chishti order in India, Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya is invariably addressed in Khwaja Amir Khurd Kirmani Nizami, Siyar al-Auliya, a near contemporary record of the Shaikh's conversations, Urdu tr. by Khwaja Islam al Din Nizami (New Delhi, 1985).
45. Hasan Sijzi, Fuwaid al-Fu'ad, pp. 137-8 cited in K. A. Nizami, Some Aspects of Religion and Politics in India during the Thirteenth Century (Delhi, 1974 [reprint]), p. 176.
46. Hasan Sijzi, Fuwaid al-Fu'ad, pp. 137-8 cited in K. A. Nizami, Some Aspects of Religion and Politics in India during the Thirteenth Century (Delhi, 1974 [reprint]), p. 176.
47. S. Liyaqat H. Moini, 'The Hindus and the Dargah of Ajmer, A.D. 1658-1737: An Overview', in A. J. Qaisar and S. P. Verma (eds), Art and Culture (Jaipur, 1993), pp. 155-63.
48. A large number of Mughal miniatures depict the visits of imperial princes, and in some cases, of rulers themselves, to the hermitages with gifts. The depiction is nearly always suggestive of the superiority of the holy man and the acceptance of subordinate position by the prince, for the prince is shown observing great decorum in the holy presence whereas the saint is shown carefreely postured. Court chroniclers, like Shams Siraj Afif and Abul Fazl, are forever keen to establish the affinity of the rulers of their day with the darvish. Emperor Babur revelled in the epithet qalandar (recluse) and expressed his wish to hand over his throne to his son and become a renouncer.
49. Akbar S. Ahmad, Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society, London and N. Y., pp. 10 and 90.
50. For the invocation of pre-Islamic cultural and political ethos of Iran, the best and most renowned work is of course Firdausi's Shah Nama, tr. into English by Reuben Levy, revised by Amin Banani, under the title 'The Epic of the Kings' (London, 1967). For the Mongols, David Morgan, The Mongols (Oxford, 1986).
51. For the invocation of pre-Islamic cultural and political ethos of Iran, the best and most renowned work is of course Firdausi's Shah Nama, tr. into English by Reuben Levy, revised by Amin Banani, under the title 'The Epic of the Kings' (London, 1967). For the Mongols, David Morgan, The Mongols (Oxford, 1986).
52. For the invocation of pre-Islamic cultural and political ethos of Iran, the best and most renowned work is of course Firdausi's Shah Nama, tr. into English by Reuben Levy, revised by Amin Banani, under the title 'The Epic of the Kings' (London, 1967). For the Mongols, David Morgan, The Mongols (Oxford, 1986).
53. For the 'Intellect vs. the Heart' dichotomy, see Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love, pp. 220-6.
54. Jaidev's twelfth-century work Gilagovinda is a classic in its genre, though a shade paler than the Brahma-Vaivarta Purana. There is, besides, the Sringar-ras poetry of Bihari in the 17th century, edited and translated into English by K. P. Bahadur as Bihari: The Satsai (New Delhi, 1990). A good number of the legendary Kangra paintings revolve around the Radha-Krishna romance and some of them leave nothing to the imagination.
55. Naim Ahmad (ed.), Kulliyat-i Mir J'afar Zatalli (Aligarh, 1979).
56. Zia al-Din Barani, Fatawa-i Jahandari, English tr. by M. Habib and Afsar Khan under the title Political Theory of the Delhi Sultanate (Allahabad, n.d.), pp. 44-7.
57. Zia al-Din Barani, Tarikh-i Firuz Shahi, ed. Sir Saiyid Ahmad Khan (Calcutta, 1862), p. 290. Whether or not the conversation between the Sultan and the Qazi did take place, the attitude attributed to the theologian echoes one that actually existed as such in Barani's mind, for it closely parallels his observations in the Fatawa.
58. Abdullah, Tarikh-i Daudi, ed. S. Abd al-Rashid (Aligarh, 1954), pp. 59-60.
59. Mulla Abd al-Qadir Badauni, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, ed. Ahmad Ali and Lees, III (Calcutta, 1868), pp. 80-2.
60. Ralph Russell makes this valuable point in The Pursuit of Urdu Literature, p. 43.
61. Muhammad Sadiq is firm that Urdu ghazal owed nothing to anything Indian either in its motifs, or imagery or even the flora and fauna of the land; everything about it was of Persian origin. Hence, Sadiq finds the Urdu ghazal rather boring, a kind of 'museum piece', A Histoy of Urdu Literature, pp. 14-16. In this he is merely reiterating Ram Babu Saksena's view, A History of Urdu Literature, p. 21. However, several other critics and historians of the literature emphasize the Indian social and linguistic landscape which nurtured the Urdu ghazal. See, for such views, Syed Ehtesham Hussain, Urdu Adab ki Tanqidi Tarikh (New Delhi, 1983), pp. 31-2; Al-i Ahmad Suroor, 'Ghazal ka Fun' in Kamil Quraishi (ed.), Urdu Ghazal (Delhi, 1987), pp. 27-8.
62. Muhammad Sadiq is firm that Urdu ghazal owed nothing to anything Indian either in its motifs, or imagery or even the flora and fauna of the land; everything about it was of Persian origin. Hence, Sadiq finds the Urdu ghazal rather boring, a kind of 'museum piece', A Histoy of Urdu Literature, pp. 14-16. In this he is merely reiterating Ram Babu Saksena's view, A History of Urdu Literature, p. 21. However, several other critics and historians of the literature emphasize the Indian social and linguistic landscape which nurtured the Urdu ghazal. See, for such views, Syed Ehtesham Hussain, Urdu Adab ki Tanqidi Tarikh (New Delhi, 1983), pp. 31-2; Al-i Ahmad Suroor, 'Ghazal ka Fun' in Kamil Quraishi (ed.), Urdu Ghazal (Delhi, 1987), pp. 27-8.
63. Muhammad Sadiq is firm that Urdu ghazal owed nothing to anything Indian either in its motifs, or imagery or even the flora and fauna of the land; everything about it was of Persian origin. Hence, Sadiq finds the Urdu ghazal rather boring, a kind of 'museum piece', A Histoy of Urdu Literature, pp. 14-16. In this he is merely reiterating Ram Babu Saksena's view, A History of Urdu Literature, p. 21. However, several other critics and historians of the literature emphasize the Indian social and linguistic landscape which nurtured the Urdu ghazal. See, for such views, Syed Ehtesham Hussain, Urdu Adab ki Tanqidi Tarikh (New Delhi, 1983), pp. 31-2; Al-i Ahmad Suroor, 'Ghazal ka Fun' in Kamil Quraishi (ed.), Urdu Ghazal (Delhi, 1987), pp. 27-8.
64. Muhammad Sadiq is firm that Urdu ghazal owed nothing to anything Indian either in its motifs, or imagery or even the flora and fauna of the land; everything about it was of Persian origin. Hence, Sadiq finds the Urdu ghazal rather boring, a kind of 'museum piece', A Histoy of Urdu Literature, pp. 14-16. In this he is merely reiterating Ram Babu Saksena's view, A History of Urdu Literature, p. 21. However, several other critics and historians of the literature emphasize the Indian social and linguistic landscape which nurtured the Urdu ghazal. See, for such views, Syed Ehtesham Hussain, Urdu Adab ki Tanqidi Tarikh (New Delhi, 1983), pp. 31-2; Al-i Ahmad Suroor, 'Ghazal ka Fun' in Kamil Quraishi (ed.), Urdu Ghazal (Delhi, 1987), pp. 27-8.
65. For a fascinating account of this transformation, see Frances W. Pritchett, 'Emperor of India: Landhaur bin Sa 'dan in the Hamza cycle', in Shackle (ed.), Urdu and Muslim South Asia, pp. 67-75.
66. Sadiq, Urdu Literature, p. 45.
67. Harbans Mukhia, 'Indian Folklore and Peasant Mentality', submitted to the Seminar on 'Peasant Culture and Consciousness', Bellagio, January 1990.