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The passage of Indian Poesy III
from Mar 2023
By Dr. TLN Swamy
The passage of Indian Poesy took a distinct turn in the second millennium of C.E. If the primary language of Poetry was Sanskrit mostly in the first millennium, Poets turned to vernacular languages more like Hindi, Awadhi, Braja, etc. Though literary works in Dravidian languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and other regional languages started their journey in the first millennium and flourished further in the second millennium.
As the prominence of Sanskrit started to come down, many of its offspring languages started emerging as the medium of poetic expression. In the era of life filled with uncertainties when the rest of the world in the west was busy conquering and confiscating, India was lost in its literary and philosophical conquest and was caught off-guard by the invading West Asian nations and surrendered itself.
With the foreign rulers came the foreign culture and languages whose wedding with the Indian languages resulted in the birth of beautiful offspring such as Urdu It is virtually impossible to cite each of the myriads of Indian poets. Let us reminisce just a few of the top and greatest Indian poets who shaped and peaked medieval Indian literature to its pinnacle.
THE QAWWALI KING “KHUSROW”
Khusro dariya prem ka, Ulti waaki dhaar Jo utra so doob gaya, Jo dooba so paar
Oh, Khusrow, love is like a river flowing in reverse One who dives in it drowns; the one who drowns gets across.
Amir Khusrow, often referred to as “Tuti-e- Hind” (Parrot of India), has been called the “Father of Urdu literature,” who also introduced the “Ghazal” style of songs. A Sufi singer himself, Khusrow is a musician par excellence as much as a poet and a scholar A Mystic and a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, he influenced the essential cultural tradition of India, the Hindustan reeling under the rule of the Islamic sultanate resulting in a transformed music system of India in the form of Hindustani music, the Ghazal and Qawwali traditions.
Khusrow was born in 1253 in Patiali in the Kasganj district of modern-day Uttar Pradesh to a Turkic father who was a fief in the Delhi sultanate and a native Indian mother. Khusrow became proficient in Turkish, Persian, Arabic and Urdu languages He started with poetry at 9, just a year after his father’s death He enjoyed the patroonship of many Sultans of the Delhi sultanate, including the Mamulks, and the Khaljis, who gave him the title of Aamir and the Tughlaqs. Khusrow’s ghazals were set to music and were sung every night before the Sultan In his late 50s, Khusrow became a disciple of Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya He started the “Qawwali” tradition, singing a fusion of Persian and Indian music. Auliya’s tomb in Nizamuddin dargah in Delhi has his favourite disciple next to him after his death in 1325 C E
THE SARV MATH KE SANTH “KABIR”
Kal kare so aaj kar aaj kare so ab, Pal mein pralay hoeigi, bahuri karoge kab
Tomorrow’s work, do today, today’s work, do now Any moment catastrophe can strike, then the work will be done how
Bada hua to kya hua, Jaise ped Khajoor Panthi ko Chaya nahin, Phal laage ati door
What is the point in growing, Like a Date tree which Neither provides shade to a traveller, Nor the fruits are within reach.
Maaya mari na Man mara, Mar mar gaye shareer. Aasha Trishna na mare, Kah gaye Das Kabir.
Neither Illusion nor mind has died; bodies kept dying. Hope and Passion are still alive, Goes so Kabir saying.
Kabir Das was a 15th-century mystic poet and Saint who influenced the Bhakti movement of Hindustan. His verses found a place in the holy script of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib. Despite being critical of organized religions condemning the unfair practices of all religions, he was hated and threatened initially by staunch Hindus and Muslims alike for his truthful views. Still, he was later embraced and owned after realizing the truth. Born in 1398 C.E. at Varanasi, Kabir was believed to have lived for about 120 years before he died in 1518. His Muslim connection and name are attributed to his foster parents, Neeru and Neema, Muslim weavers. They found the abandoned child at Lahartana lake in Varanasi. He is believed to have become a disciple of Bhakti poet Saint Swami Ramanand of Vaishnavism.
Kabir’s poems cover various aspects of life and devotion to God. Being in vernacular Hindi, they became prevalent among the ordinary and elite public alike, earning him many disciples and followers known as Kabir Panthies. Kabir Panth is a religious community continuing its legacy as their founder Saint Kabir seems to have lived in Kabir Khana in Varanasi, where the Kabir math still celebrates his legacy.
Kabir’s ideas are believed to have influenced Saint Guru Nanak, who was raised as a Hindu and went on to found Sikhism in the 15th century. Some of the verses of Kabir were incorporated into the Adi Granth scripture of Sikhism.
THE RAM BOLA “TULSIDAS”
Tulsi kaya khet hai, Mansa bhayou kisaan paap punya dou beej hai, buvai so lunai nidaan
Body is the field, Mind is the farmer, bad and good deeds are the two seeds; whichever you sow reap you so
Tulsidas, a Vaishnava Hindu Saint believed to have lived for 112 years from 1511 to 1623 C.E. A very popular poet and author of the Hanuman Chalisa and Ram Charita Manas in Awadhi language. He was born in Soron town of Kasganj district in U.P and died in Varanasi, similar to Kabir das. An ardent devotee of Sriram, he spent most of his life in Rama’s Ayodhya and Varanasi.
He is acclaimed as one of the greatest poets in Hindi. Tulsidas was said to have not cried after birth but uttered the word ‘Ram,’ so he was named “Ram bola” by his parents, who had abandoned him just on the 4th day of his birth due to some inauspicious incidents after his birth. A female servant of his mother raised him for about five years before she died; he was then adopted by his Guru Naraharidas, who named him Tulsidas.
He narrated the story of Ramayana many times during his childhood motivating him to translate the scholarly Sanskrit epic into the vernacular Awadhi language. Tulsidas later moved to Varanasi and studied Hindu philosophy before becoming a wandering Saint. Besides writing Ram Charitra Manas, which still exists in the Tulsi ghat of Varanasi, where he lived and wrote it, he also wrote many works in Sanskrit and Braja languages. Many of his odes are popular as bhajans, such as...
Srirama Chandra kripalu bhajamana Harana bhava bhaya dhaarunam
SHAYARI KA SHER “GHALIB”
Mirza Ghalib (1797 to 1868 C.E.) wrote in Urdu and Persian. He was born in Agra to a family of Mughals who migrated from Samarkand, present-day Uzbekistan, during the reign of Ahmed Shah. Ghalib lost his father in early childhood and was raised by his uncle, who died when he was barely nine. At about 13, he married Umrao Begum and moved to Delhi. None of his seven children survived, probably depressing him to describe life as a continuous painful struggle and imprisonment.
In contrast, marriage is a second imprisonment, which is a recurring theme in his poetry. He was a courtier in the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar who bestowed him the title of Mirza. When the British kept the emperor under surveillance, Ghalib had to travel to Calcutta to petition the British Governor General to reinstate his abolished pension. This travel to the ‘City of Joy’ helped him be exposed to the literary circles of Calcutta and established further as a renowned poet. During his stay there, he wrote many poems in Urdu and Persian.
His Ghazals touching upon various aspects of life and sorrow, have touched the hearts of many a common person.
He wrote many letters in Urdu, creating a new trend of letter writing with informal simplicity absorbing the reader’s attention and getting acclaimed as one of the best prose writers in Urdu. Ghalib died in 1868 and was buried in Hazrat Nizamuddin near Nizamuddin Auliya, next to the father of Urdu poetry, Amir Khusrow. Renowned for his short couplets of Urdu Shayari, Goes so Ghalib ka Sheyr…
Manjil milegi bhatak kar hi sahi, Gumrah to wo hai jo ghar se nikle hi nahi
Destination will be reached by those who wander. The real Strays are those who don’t leave home at all.
THE VISHWAKAVI “TAGORE” - THE EPILOGUE
Thus far, poetry had been more traditional, grammatical and generally metrical. Still, with the advent of Modern poets and particularly after the influence of the English language imposed by British rule, the modern trends started creeping into the Indian poets who began writing in English as well.
One such iconic poet of India who brought the very first Nobel prize to India in literature was Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore from Bengal for his poem Gitanjali A prolific writer in Bengali, Tagore was like an epilogue to traditional Indian literature who carried its legacy into the modern era and acclaimed to be the “Vishwakavi”(Universal Poet).
In a multilinguistic country like India, Poetry has increased in hundreds of its regional languages taking inspiration from the rich literary culture of their parental languages like Sanskrit, Dravid and many a mixture of both. A countless number of regional poets contributed to the vast ocean of Indian literature, instating India on top of the world with the most extensive literary works produced so far. Indeed it needs many lifetimes to even glimpse through all the glorious Poesy of India.
A true reader knows how to tread its passage, enjoying the odic aromas en route and often halting for a sumptuous feast whenever encountered.
