Mahmood Gami, uncontrovertibly the most popular poet of the last two hundred years, sung by all the maestros of every age, and most carefully preserved in the manuscripts, is the founder of Kashmiri Sufi poetry. His eleven mathnavis, and hundreds of lyrical poems, represent a Sufi style of Kashmiri poetry which all his later followers followed in terms of the metaphors, similes, allegories, melodies and rhythm, as well as the fundamental leitmotifs of Islamic mysticism.He had a thorough understanding of Islamic thought, Persian poetry and religion, and, as such, Mahamood Gami experimented in a variety of ways to imbue Kashmiri poetry with variety of expression, wider range of themes, and intellectual depth; Kashmiri poetry before him comprised stray lyrics after the spiritual outpourings in the vaakhs and shruks of Lalla Dyad and Sheikh Noor-ud Din.
Mahmood Gami witnessed the rise and fall of three political periods of Kashmir history: the Afghan Rule (1752 A.C-1819 A.C.) the Sikh Rule (1814- 1842 A.C.), and the initial ten years of the Dogra rule (1846- 1947), but having his roots in the legendary past and space-less spiritual world, there is not even a single reference to the political vicissitudes of his time. Mahmood Gami was born in or around 1765 A.C. at Aravor (now known as Mahmoodabad), Shahabad. Following the legacy of his family, commanding respect for teaching, he too acquired thorough knowledge of the Quran, Islamic mysticism, and Persian literature. He was married in his early youth and had two sons, Shah Sultan, who died in his early youth and Asad Gami, whose progeny still live in his village. He started his poetic career by writing in the n’at genre in Persian. He assumed Gami as his pen-name because it was in consonance with the names of great Persian poets Nizami and Jami.
After trying his hand in Kashmiri n’at, he felt interested in enriching Kashmiri poetry by adapting the ever-lasting legends in the Islamic mysticism that had been the vehicle of heightened spiritual states of mind in Persian poetry. His first mathnavis was Shirin Khusrav, which, according to his colophon he wrote in 1199 A.H. (1791 A.C.E).The long poem is believed to be his first attempt in writing mathnavi, is not a frigid translation of the original but an adaptation.He has chosen the most significant event, beginning with Khusrav’s birth and schooling. The next episode in the daastaan is his feast in a farmer’s house which annoys his father, named Hormizd. He dreams that he is given the hand of an exceptionally pretty bride, named Sheereen, a horse named Shabdiz, a musician, named Barbad, and a vast kingdom, called Persia. Khusrav has a friend named Shapur who is a gifted painter. He tells him that Shirin is the niece of an Armenian queen, Mahin Banu. His friend uses all his mastery of depicting the details of a human form todescribes the visage of Sheereen.
The description of the princess’s beauty enamours Khusrav, and he eventually falls in love with her without having seen her in her real form. Then there is long vista of events that form the body of the mathnavi.
The tale, full of many dramatic twists is an allegory of the quest of the soul for truth, but truth assumes tantalizing forms and delusions. The poet intermittently invites the readers’ attention to the underlying Sufi implications of the catastrophic love.
Mahmud Gami’s mathnavi Lailawa Majnoon, also is a tale of human love which is sublimated to assume divine implications which are universal: unrelenting search, pain and suffering, and final reunion in death. The basic story is the same as is known to all that Qais, called Majnoon for his frenzied love, is enchanted by the black beauty of Laila. He approaches the father of Laila to seek her hand, but is rebuked for being mad. Laila, on reaching her adulthood is married in a rich family to a handsome and robust person, named Al-Thaqafi, nicknamed ‘Ward’ which in Arabic means a ‘red rose’. The news of Laila’s marriage makes Majnoon transgress all norms of normal life, renounces his home and wanders in a wilderness, called Najd, and sings melancholic songs of his selfless love. Laila dies of heart break on seeing her lover die of getting stoned by the mindless folks. Majnoon clings close to the grave of Laila and dies there. It is said that the people then got moved by his tragic end and buried him beside the grave of Laila, the only goal of his life. The story of undying love of Majnoon is rife with many mystic meanings, and several poets of all time in the East have written the tale in many long and moving narratives. In Kashmiri, too, there are several versified narratives based on the incident, but the most popular version of the daastaan is that of Mahmood Gami, who wrote it in the second half of the 19th century in the form of numerous lyrics roped together by narrative passages.
Mahmud’s skilful treatment of the narrative of a far off land of Arabia, referring to some remote imaginary past, assumes the local colour in terms of all the details of the physical world and human traits. The story of devastating passion, annihilation, and metaphoric re-union, Laila and Majnoon has become a recurring allegory in Kashmiri Sufi poetry.
Mahmud’s most popular mathnavi is his Yousuf and Zulaikha, which takes many poetic licence with narrative given holy book, the Quran to make it a daastaan of mystic dimension. (The story given in summary in 11 Aayats , i.e., 23-32, and 51 of the Surah, Ahsan al-Qassas). In writing his mathnavi, Mahmud was essentially influenced by the mathnavi of the same title written by Persian poet, Jami. (1414-1492A.C.E). Mahmud’s version was so popular that it was memorized verbatim by the folk singers. Numerous manuscript copies were circulated in the poet’s own life time as D. G. Buhler included it in his catalogue which he prepared in 1875 (p. 175). The literary merit of Mahmud’s mathnavi made German orientalist Karl Burkhard translate it into German in 1875. Mahmud made the story significant in terms of poetic demands, like figurative expression, human passion, conflicts, and Zulaikha’s role in society and family. In this sense Yousuf looks like a flat, or two dimensional character who is loved and being treated variously by various characters, like his brother, his seller, and his father. There is no conflict in his persona and is determined by destiny.
Mahmud’s long poem on the martyrdom of the Sufi saint Mansoor Hallaj is his poetic rendering of the leitmotif of achieving baqa through fanna, final jama and jam-al-jama, when the seeker discovers unity in plurality and plurality in Unity; objectivity of the phenomenal world becomes the threshold to the Transcendent Reality. Sufis believe that physical world is not vain, but the bridge toward the Reality (al-majazqantrah al-haqiqat.)
In Baghdad once lived Mansoor Hallaj,
the king of all sages and the enlightened.
For fifty years he lived as a common man
and then he was engrossed in his inner Truth.
He was transformed into God’s replica,
and thus began chanting “I am God!”
A drop of water lives in a flooding river,
and the river dwells in the tiny drop.”
Other long narrative poems of Mahmud, Sheikh San’an, Haroon Rashid, yak hikayat, ponpirinamah, pahilynaamah are allegorical renderings of various Sufi subjects which added to the repertoire of necessary referential imaginative world for finding parallels and anecdotal allusions and allegories; the Sufi poets of the 19th century benefitted from it.
Mahmud’s shorter poems like: “Dardi Nayistan” (the Pain of the Nothingness), tamsieylia adam ( Man’s Allegory), tshaar athbo rangay rangay (In Every Colour I shall Seek You) and many others, alleviated the language to meet the demands of expressing intimacy with khayaal (thought), the result of concerted effort and tribulations of the meditative mind. Here is one of his beautiful lyrics Dardi Nayistan.
With my own ears the sound of music I heard,
I shall tell you the pain of Nothingness.
The earth and the firmament, yet to be founded
Yet He glaringly stood amidst the void.
Neither any date nor a year was born,
I shall tell you the pain of Nothingness.
Mahmood Gami died in 1855, and was buried in his native village Aravor, which was named Mahmoodabad in the sixties of the last century. His mausoleum in the beautiful village is perhaps the most beautiful among all the mausoleums of Kashmiri poets. He enjoyed tremendous popularity in his own lifetime. His lyrics, of unrivalled melody and beauty of phrase,were sung by all the singers of every age and even in our time.
The author can be mailed at shafishauq@gmail.com
