DARA SHIKOH’S S JOURNEY-The Dawn
DARA SHIKOH’S S JOURNEY
Books & Authors, DAWN, March 21, 2010
Of all the enlightened souls produced and nurtured in the past by the then Indo-Islamic Culture Prince Dara Shikoh appears to me the one who is most relevant man to our times.
It is not without reason that of late his name has come to the fore and attracted the attention of our liberal intellectuals. Even a play high lighting his enlightened attitude has been staged in Lahore.
Perhaps this production of Ajoka has also played a part in turning our attention to the mystic-minded prince.
In fact, at a time when on both sides of the Indo-Pak border the forces of obscurantism are in the ascendant and at the same time movements the likes of Aman Ki Asha are slowly gaining strength, Prince Dara Shikoh appears to be coming from behind the curtain history and extending a helping hand to us.
This situation reminds me of my visit to Patna just two years ago. During my brief stay there, I had the honour of being a guest at a function organized by the renowned Khuda Baksh Oriental Library, which is perhaps the foremost library of Oriental bearings in South Asia.
The Director of the library, the esteemed scholar Dr. Imtiaz Ahmed, was kind enough to present me some precious publications of the library. Among them was a rare piece of Vedantic literature, a Sanskrit book originally translated into Persian by Dara Shikoh and later into Urdu by Maulvi Abul Hasan.
The book bears the title Yoga Vasishtha and contained in its pages the ascetic teachings of the great rishi vasistha which were addressed to Sri Ramachnadraji.
Prince Dara was deeply involved in mystic learning and has to his credit a number of books in this respect. His two books, Safinatul Auliya and Sakinatul Auliya are easily available in Urdu translations, the later having been published recently in Lahore.
But there are some other scholarly works by Dara namely his translations from Vedantic works inn Sanskrit, which are not easily available to us.
In fact the prince was a great scholar of Sanskrit and was as well-versed in the Vedas as was in Islamic mysticism. His involvement in Vedantic literature is evident from the fact that while engaged in the study of Upanishads he translated about 50 of them into Persian and compiled them under the title Sirrul Asrar (the mystery of mysteries).
As for the book under review Yoga Vasistha, here is a tale associated with it that was told by Dara himself. He talked about reading this book as translated and summarized by Sheikh Soofi.
That same night, he says he saw in his dream two personalities, the aged personality appeared to be Vasisththa Rishi, the mentor of Sri Ramachandra, while the younger one was Sri Ramachandra himself.
The Risihi affectionately said to “Dara, you are truly a seeker. Meet Ramachandra. He is brother to you.” Sri Ramachndra embraced him and as directed by his Guru offered him some sweetmeat.
Inspired by this dream, Dara planned to prepare an authentic translation of the book with the help of some chosen Pandits of Hindustan.
This Persian version into Urdu in the late 19th century by Maulvi Abul Hasan and published by Naval Kishore Press. Its 3rd edition appeared in 1898. Now Khuda Baksh Library has undertaken the task to publish it.
The author of the book is Valami Rishi. On being asked by the disciple Bhardwaj he begins telling him how on one occasion in the darbar where Vasishita Rishi present, his father Raja Darrath wanted to know the cause of his sorrow. ‘And why have you lost interest in worldly affairs and in life style?
The young Ramachandra explained his sorrow and his lack of interest in worldly affairs by declaring that human life is transitory and the whole cosmos is just a mirage having not a drop of water so as to quench the thirst of thirsty souls. ‘In fact, the world we see is just the figment of our fancy.’
This long statement by Sri Ramachandra reminds me of this verse by Ghalib;
ہستی لے مت فریب میں آجایٌو اسد
عالم تمام حلقہَ دامِ خیال ہے
جز ہم نہیں ہستی اشیا مرے آگے
ہاں کھائیو مت فریب ہستی
ہر چںد کہیں کہ ہے نہں ہے
(Don’t be taken in by being, Asad/ The entire world is but a web of imagination. The being of things is not but an illusion/ So be not fooled no matter how hard they say it is; it is not)
Vasishtha Rishi confirmed young Ramachandra perception of the world. But the wise guru has much more to say to his disciple, to explain the intricacies of this figment of fancy that is also called the world.
Sri Ram goes on putting questions to the guru and the guru goes on explaining the phenomenon of ephemeral human life and the way one can get rid of the web of deception and achieve perfect of mind which is free of all worldly attachments.
This book was a milestone in Dara’s journey in the world of Vedantic thought. The journey led him to believe that Islamic mysticism and Vedanta have much in common, and that the commonalities he discovered can be helpful to him in the realization of his dream of peaceful coexistence of two faiths that are seemingly opposed to each other.
****
SHARE WITH FRIENDS WISDOM POSTINGS:
- CAUSE AND EVENTS – SPATIAL And TEMPORAL RESPECTIVELY
- WHETHER ‘BRAIN-POWER’ OR ‘HEART-IMPULSE’ PLINTHS ‘HUMAN GEN’?
************
Advertisements
No comments:
Post a Comment