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November 12, 2007

Some couplets of Abdul Qadir Khan Bedil Dehlavi

Prashant Keshavmurthy

Abdul Qadir Khan Bedil Dehlavi was among the most famous representatives of the so-called sabk-e hindi or "Indian style" of the Persian ghazal. Born in Patna or Azimabad in Bihar in eastern India in 1642, he spent much of his professional life in Mughal Delhi and died there in 1720. His style and imagery shares with others who practiced this kind of ghazal-composition an ingeniousness of metaphor and elaborateness of conceit, features that continue to endear his poetry to Persian-speakers in many Central Asian countries but disqualified him in his own lifetime in Iran.

Although barely read or even known in India today, Bedil has had a long afterlife in the brilliance and complexity of phrase of Ghalib's Urdu and Persian poetry on which he exercised an influence. However, his poetry remains distinguished from that of others of the sabk-e hindi style of the ghazal in its thematic and Aristotelian preoccupation with the wonder aroused by the created world, a wonder that is inexhaustible by the desire that accompanies it to interpret that world. This hermeneutic inexhaustibility derives from the divine origins of creatures. Our gaze, arrested by these creaturely and defective mirrors of their superior creator, leads away to the thought of that creator and, by analogy, to an understanding of the act of human poetic creation, of Bedil himself as a poet-creator.

Bedil Dehlavi with my own translations:

bar nemiayad ba joz hich az mu'amma-ye hubab
lafz-e ma gar vashikafi mani-e harf magust

The bubble's riddle throws up nothing at all.
Crack open my words and look-
it means 'Don't say it!'

*

safha-ye sada-ye hasti khatt-e nayrang nadasht
khiragi kard nazar-ha raqami paida shod

The world's plain page
bore not one wondrous line.
The eyes started in surprise and
behold- a mark!

*

Bedil sokhanat nist joz insha-ye tahayyur
ku ayina ta safha-ye divan-e to bashad

Bedil, your poetry's nothing but the creation of astonishment.
Show me a mirror that aspires to a page of your Divan.1

[1Divan is a collection of a poet's complete works.]

*

keshti-e chashmam ke hayrat badban-e shawq-e ust
ta za khod jonbad mohiti az gohr avarda ast

My eye's ship,
the sail of whose desire's astonishment,
draws an ocean out of a pearl
that it might swell.

*

nahoft-e mani-e makshuf-e bi-tamolli-am
nabastan-e muzha afaq ra muamma kard

Unhesitatingly, I conceal unconcealed meanings.
Not blinking made a riddle of the world.

*

zang-e rukh-e ayina gasht ba safai badal
anbar-e afaq zad ghuta ba kafur-e nab

The mirror’s clouded face grew
suddenly clear.
The world’s ambergris plunged suddenly deep
into the purest camphor.

*

Prashant Keshavmurthy is a doctoral candidate in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature in Columbia University, New York.

Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 01:18 AM | Permalink

Comments

nahoft-e mani-e makshuf-e bi-tamolli-am
nabastan-e muzha afaq ra muamma kard

Unhesitatingly, I conceal unconcealed meanings.
Not blinking made a riddle of the world.

Anyone speak Farsi? Is it possible made could be make? Or is the suggested double meaning a part of it?

Posted by: Carlos | Nov 12, 2007 7:16:38 AM

Hi Carlos. 'Kard' means 'made' rather than 'makes' which would be 'mikonad' (makes) or karde ast' (has made).

Posted by: Prashant | Nov 12, 2007 8:22:29 AM

"karde ast' (has made)."

There goes my double meaning...

Thanks!

Posted by: Carlos | Nov 12, 2007 9:02:07 AM

Very specular poems. Keep it up

Posted by: Foucault's offspring | Nov 14, 2007 12:53:24 PM

Brilliant! Bedil is pure ecstasy, sad that his poetry is not being disseminated as much as it deserves to be. Why don't you write a full length essay on him!!. Also, while Ghalib acknowledges his debts to him and as you say "Bedil has had a long afterlife in the brilliance and complexity of phrase of Ghalib's Urdu and Persian poetry on which he exercised an influence.....", Ghalib was also influenced by Meer ot atleast he considered him to be worthy of emulation. So you have
Tarz-e-Bedil mein reekhta likhna
Asadullah Khan qayamat hai
alongwith : ……Aap be-behra hain jo Aashiqe Meer nahin.....
I am very keen to find out how do we delineate these two streams in Ghalib's poetry or do both of these blend to create a unique effect in his works.
Last but not the least, Bedil was a multi-faceted personality .. what about his political views for example .... he wrote "Sadat booe namak harami kardand " when the Syed Brothers murdered Farukh Siyar.Maybe he just reacted to a Gujarat of his time or was there something deeper?

Posted by: Saood | Nov 24, 2007 6:41:40 AM

Sorry... read the last line as ---Maybe he was just reacting to a groteque political tragedy of his times or was there something deeper. MS-Word behaves strange sometimes.

Posted by: Saood | Nov 24, 2007 7:40:05 AM

Thank you for your comments, Saood, and for reading these carefully. If you were in new york, I'd have asked you to join us tonight at a Bedil-Khwaani we are having, an Afghan friend and I.
Sure, I will someday write a longer piece on Bedil but only after having read some of his major masnavis, especially `Irfan and Mohit-e `Azam.
As to your question, I wonder if the influences of Mir and those of Bedil are easily distinguished in Ghalib's poetry. But if you think they are, I'd be eager to know how you think so. What they all share for sure is the wonderment I speak of, but this is stressed in Bedil's case. What i think is distinctive about Mir and thence perhaps Ghalib is their shared emphasis on the materiality of the linguistic sign. Mir:

aaj rukti nahin khaamey ki zabaan, rakhiye mu'aaf \
harfon ka tool bhi jo mujhse ghataaya na gayaa

Ghalib:

aatey hain ghayb se ye mazaamin khayaal men \
Ghalib, sareer-e khaama navaa-ye sarosh hai

This latter line is itself an allusion to the 12th century Anvari whom Ghalib admired. Anvari's misra: "The reed-pen's scratching is Israfil's horn".

Best,
Prashant


Posted by: Prashant | Nov 24, 2007 10:11:08 AM

I love Bedil's poetries, because they are very simple, deep in meanings and beautiful in stucture.

Thank you for havng a site , and help intoducing him.
Regards
Manizheh

Posted by: Manizheh | Mar 7, 2010 3:24:28 AM

Wonderful to see translations of Bedil. I have been searching for a long time. Ever since I have listened to Ustad Sarahang, I have always wanted to read Bedil.

Posted by: Bhalachandra Sahaj | Oct 21, 2010 6:02:45 AM

I came across a couplet of Bedil:
Har do aalam khak shud, ta- bast naqsh-e-aadmi,
Aye bahar-e-neesti, qadr khud hoshyar baash.
I am ignorant of Farsi but could understand that perhaps it is concerning the Creation of man and may be considered, at that stage of creation, as a part of the Evolution to which Darwin referred. As an esteemed scholar of Persian, how do you explain this couplet?

Posted by: Prof. M.A. Mohsin | May 1, 2012 5:22:50 PM

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