DISPOSICIONES CONSTITUCIONALES INDIRECTAS

than one sense, and yet the Persian poetry has reached to such a high pitch of excellence, is sufficient to show the superiority of this poetry over Arabic poetry.

3. Arabic poetry requires only the ' qafiya ' while the Persian has both qafiya and radif.

He says of Indian scholars :

' Again, the scholars of India, especially those who live in Delhi, are superior in poetic talent to men of good taste found anywhere else in the world. The Arab, the Khurasani, the Turk, the Hindu or others who come to various cities of India in the possession of the Mohammadans like Delhi, Multan or Lakhnauti, not to speak of Gujrat, Malwa or Deogir, which are still the demonaic abodes of the Hindus, cannot change their tongue even if they spend their whole lives here, and shall always compose after the fashion of their own country But a writer who has been brought up in the cities of India, especially Delhi, can, without actual contact or intercourse with any particular people, write verse after the manner of that people—nay, 'can even mould their prose and poetry to his own requirements¹ and can write successfully in the style of any country he goes to. It has been proved by experience that several of our men, without even visiting Arabia, have acquired an eloquence in Arabic which was denied even to great Arab masters . . . ' . . I have seen many a Tazik and Turk, who learnt Turkish in India by education and study and spoke it so eloquently that pure Turks coming from Khorasan were astonished.2

Similarly, the Persian language, although, of course, its original home was Persia, has lost its purity of idiom everywhere except in Mawaraun-nahr, the language of that country being like that of India.

The Khurasani, for instance, says chi for chih, while some say kaju for kuja, although they write the words properly But the Persian in India from the river Sind to the sea-shore3 is one and

in-When we possess such uniformity of idiom, it is but natural poetry is great. This Persian of ours is, moreover, the original Persian,⁴ The Hindui tongue, no doubt, varies greatly in

idiom in different parts of the country, but Persian is the same throughout its length and breadth, and it is pronounced as it is 'written. It is not like the tongue of the people of Azerbaijan, who say "kardakun" for karda, or like that of the Sistanls who always conclude their words with '' sin ", e.g. karda-i-sln, giifta-i-sin. Yet, when some of the B&l&is came here

—and they were learned and scholarly persons, not boors—the Persian writers of Delhi adopted their speech in order to mock them, and wrote so well in that style that they could not criticise or find fault with their writing.'

The Diwan has got more than ninety qa^Idas and tarji's, about nine mathawis, numerous fragments and quatrains. The qa^Idas contain some of the finest specimens of Khusrau's poetry that have acquired a well-deserved fame. Several of them have been written as replicas to famous poems by older masters like Anwari, Kb&qanl, Zahir of Faryab and Kamal of Ispahan, but there are many more which are original.

Among the qasides are : (1) Jannat-un-najat, written in imitation of Sanai and contaming the praise of God, the poet's conception of Him and his ideas about religious beliefs and practices, written at the age of forty-one in 692 H. ; (2) Mir'at-us-Safa, a very well-known poem, being a replica to Khaqani's ' Shiniyya '.1 The poem written in a didactic strain is a very long one and was composed in 695 H. when the poet was almost forty-five. The main theme is the praise of the Prophet.

(3) Darya-i-abrar, another very famous poem, that excited the praise and jealousy of his contemporaries and successors, has for its main theine the eulogy of the saint Nizamuddin Auliya,2 (4)' Nazm-ud-Durar, another poem in a marked didactic strain. Other qasidas are mostly panegyrics

1 Poem rhyming in ' shin '. Khaqanl's poem contains 24 verses while the Mir'atus-Safa of Khusrau has 150 verses. Other imitations of the poem are : Jila-ur-Ruh, by JamI (130 verses), Anls-ul-Qalb by Fuclull of Baghdad (134 verses) and Umman-ul-Jawahir by 'Urfi (94 verses). (See Hajji Khalifa I V , 510.)

2 See Nawai's Majalis-un-Nafais (Trans, by M. Belin. Journal Asiatique X V I I , 1861, p. 329 seq.), where the author says how he praised the poem in the presence of Jami, how Jami composed his famous poem, Lujjat-ul-Asrar in reply to it and how Nawai himself composed another imitation, Bahr-ul-Afkar. According to Nawai, Khusrau said : ' Si par tels evenements quelconques mes oeuvres venaient a etre totalement perdues sauf cette qacide, je ne m'en inquieterais guere, car quiconque la lira saura apprecier ma valeur et mon talent dans la republique des ettres.' Khusrau's, Jaml's and Nawai's poems open respectively as follows:

addressed to Jalaluddin Flruz Khaljl, to his sons, Arkalik K h a n and Ibrahim Qadar Khan, to 'Alauddin K h a l j i and his brother, Almas Beg, Ulugh Khan, to Ikhtiyaruddin ' A l i bin Aybek (Hatam Khan), and to some other contemporary nobles.

The tarji's contain a very fine poem, written in imitation of a poem of KhaqanI, containing the praise of the Prophet, a panegyric named Nur-un-Ntir addressed to Jalaluddin Khalji, another addressed to 'Alauddin Khalji on the birth of a son, describing the decoration of Delhi on the auspicious occasion, an elegy on the death of Prince Mahmud Khan-i-Khanan, eldest son of Flruz K h a l j i , and another on the death of the poet's own son, Muhammad.

The mathnawis include Miftah-ul-futuh (which has often been considered as a separate work but which certainly belongs to the Ghurratul Kamal as evidenced by the ' bait-i-silsila' that precedes i t ) ,1

a long letter addressed to Tajuddin Zahid, written in 676 H. from Oudh, comprising 263 verses ; the Faras Namah a very humorous and interesting poem addressed to Amir ' A l i Sarjandar (Hatam Khan) describing the plight of a horse given by that noble to the poet and requesting the gift of another ; short poems descriptive of the splendour of certain princely structures and a very small but original sonnet addressed to a fan.

The fragments, as usual, are of various lengths and treat of very diverse topics. The fragments are followed by ruba'is (quatrains), and then comes a collection of ghazals. The qasaid in the Ghurra are some of the finest poems of Khusrau and display an elegance, a flow and a charm that is really wonderful. His imitations of the older masters have in some cases excelled the originals in sheer grandeur and pathos and have equalled them in artistic phraseology, while some of the original poems are among the best specimens of Persian poetry.

i T h e verse is in the same metre and has the same rhyme as the other introductory verses in the diwan and is, in fact, given in the abyat-i-silsila given collectively in the beginning of the diwan. It runs as follows :—

Here are a few lines from one of the qasidas in praise of Jalaluddin Firuz Khalji, after Zahir of F a r y a b¹:

' The loved one's sweet, honeyed mouth That bliss to life doth give,

To life-less ones from its sweet font v

The nectar rich doth give.

Lo ! Here am I but one of those Who pine away from her ! Sure, 'tis the lot of every one

Whom she false hopes doth give.

Long ages pass, but never doth She think of her poor friends I wish the kindly Lord to her

A softer heart may give ! What cares she in her regal pomp,

In her swift, bright career If there be one who from afar

Doth watch—his life doth give ? My heart is lost—I grope for it

In darkness in her alley ; Is there a soul of this lost one

A clue to me can give ? 0 Gard'ner 'ware the fiery sighs

The nightingale shall breathe ! Let not that fair rose its sweet scent

To morning breezes give ! My heart doth bleed w i t h jealousy

Of that impudent cup, For see how every moment she

A kiss to it doth give ! Lo ! E'en the Saki doth conspire

To rob me of my life ! Dead-drunk am I, and evermore

Fresh goblets he doth give !

E'en if with her fair hands She pours the wine for me and with

A gracious smile doth give t A thousand times my mouth I wash

W i t h purest nectar rare Ere may my mouth an humble kiss

On the kingly stirrup give V The mighty king, Jalaluddfn,

To whom the lofty heaven Its seven chairs as ladders for

The lofty throne doth give—

Firuz, the glorious king, whose fame From East to West spreading.

Each moment to all living things New hopes of peace doth give !

The ' Faras-Namah' is a fairly long mathnawl, written in an easy flowing style. Some portions of it are extremely interesting, and display a keen sense of humour in the poet. I give below a translation of part "of i t .

O horse-giver, listen—listen for a moment to the tale of the horse and the grief of Khusrau 1 When once in your generosity you bestowed horses on all that be, and so many stables, like ropes of pearls, were scattered, I pulled up courage and took away one of the pearls from the populous stables. Yes, I took a pearl, but not born of nacre, amber-coloured yet not amber. Nay, not a pearl but a sky-exploring cloud, that eclipsed the pearls of the sky,—a Tartar horse of sweet temper; a Turkish steed, unique in all Hind Hot in career like the sun, swift in flight as the desert wind His feet flew in air like birds and his shoes shone like the crescent moon in mid-air

Although I captured that demon, I was myself afraid of its malign influence. I recited and blew all the incantations I knew, but I fled from him and he from himself. But at last I got on to his back after a good deal of coaxing and wheedling—pale with fear like a dried-up leaf on an autumn twig—and drove him ever so gently. My hands and feet trembled as doth a rose swaying in the breeze, and I sat on his back a picture. of helplessness—like a piece of bone on the back of the Phœnix,1 dreadis fall every moment and preparing myself for death.

As I went through the streets, he jumped from house to house, trampling