Sufism as Medium and Method of Translation

The translation of various Indian Hindu ¹ Sanskrit texts into the Persian language during the period of the Mughal Empire is a fairly well documented phenomenon of South Asian history, at least in its bibliographic details. Starting roughly with the reign of Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) and continuing through the period of Prince Dara Shikuh (d. 1659), Mughal Muslim nobles patronized and facilitated the translation of numerous Hindu Sanskrit treatises – including, among others, the Atharva-Veda, various Upanisads, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and Bhagavad-Gita, and a number of the Puranas – into Persian, the official administrative language of the empire. ² One such translation, initiated at the request of the soon-to-be emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–1627), was the courtier Nizam al-Din Panipati’s (d. 1609/10) Persian rendition of the Laghu-Yoga-Vasistha, completed in 1597. Subsequently, around the year 1611, the famous Iranian Muslim philosopher Mir Abu al-Qasim Findiriski (d. 1640/41), having made several journeys to India from his homeland of Safavid Persia, began to cut-and-paste his own condensed version of the Laghu-Yoga-Vasistha from Nizam al-Din’s translation, entitling his shorter edition the Muntakhab-i Jug Basisht (“Selections from the Yoga-Vasistha”). An examination of this latter text will be the focus of this essay, though, before we can proceed, some general preliminaries are in order.

Unsurprisingly, this phenomenon of Mughal translations of Sanskrit texts has long captured the attention of contemporary scholars. In previous decades of scholarship, one can readily discern an attraction – or revulsion, as the case may be ³ – to the notion that the pre-modern Muslims of Mughal South Asia might have exerted such great efforts to comprehend Hinduism, and thus manifested an admirably liberal, tolerant attitude toward their Hindu brethren. Anticipating the partition of South Asia into modern-day Pakistan and India, such scholars are quick to affirm that two broad trajectories characterized the Mughal period: the forces of rigid Islamic orthodoxy, on the one hand, and the spirit of universal tolerance, on the other, of which this translation movement was perhaps the grandest expression. ⁴ To quote a rather representative example from this era of scholarship:

This process of rapprochement and mutual adjustment suffered temporary setbacks at times … due to conflicts between the forces supporting orthodoxy and liberalism, between bigotry and the spirit of tolerance. Within Muslim society itself there were small sections which clung fast to orthodoxy and shunned every gesture of reconciliation with other religious groups, while there were also quite a large number of them who condemned the attitude of the bigoted sections and stood for mutual good-will and tolerance. (Rizvi, 1965: 330)

More recently, authors have become wary of the presuppositions that they perceive to be underlying these previous generations of scholarship. In particular, such scholars as Carl Ernst, Richard Eaton, Bruce Lawrence, Muzaffar Alam, and Tony Stewart have cautioned against the assumption that “Hinduism” and “Islam” are objective, ontological entities, emphasizing instead the historically, humanly constructed nature of these categories; ⁵ if we today remark that, in 17th-century Mughal South Asia, a war was being waged between the forces of “orthodoxy” and “rapprochement” between “Hinduism” and “Islam,” then it is because we are projecting distinctively modern categories back into the pre-modern past. As Ernst articulates the matter, one needs to make the “effort to realize that the modern concept of ethnic and linguistic nationality did not exist prior to the nineteenth century … it is [too] often assumed that the conflict between Hinduism and Islam (construed as political entities) is one of the eternal verities” (Ernst, 2004: 19–20). Elsewhere, Ernst adds regarding “assumptions about the immutable essences of Islam and Hinduism”:

I would like to argue that this kind of approach is fundamentally misleading, for several reasons. First, this approach is ahistorical in regarding religions as unchanging, and it fails to account for the varied and complex encounters, relationships, and interpretations that took place between many individual Muslims and Hindus … The political context for the Mughal interest in Sanskrit lies in the imperial program devised by Akbar and followed in varying degrees by his successors. Although earlier writers on the Mughals have treated this interest primarily as an indication of liberal personal religious inclinations on the part of Akbar, this romantic conception should yield to a more realistic analysis of policy aspects. (Ernst, 2003: 173, 179)

And so, current approaches to Mughal studies tend to situate the translation movement more closely within its historical, political, and social context. John Richards and Muzaffar Alam, for example, have analyzed the Mughal interest in Sanskrit as an imperial attempt to establish local Indian credentials and legitimacy for the dynasty, on the one hand, and to develop new models of practical governance that drew on indigenous Sanskrit theories of rulership, on the other. ⁶ Tony Stewart, though not treating the Mughal court specifically, has suggested one of the most intriguing interpretations of the translation movement through the framework of contemporary Euro-American linguistic, hermeneutical, and translation theory. Stewart describes, in detail, the practical processes by which Muslim authors, in a new Indian context, actively “seek equivalences,” that is, deliberately search for overtly similar but imprecise “translations” between the two languages, merely locating approximate terms and concepts – “perfect translation” being neither possible nor intended – so as to express “a thoroughly Islamic worldview” through “an ostensibly Hindu terminology,” ⁷ this terminology being the basic religious vocabulary of the Indian context (Stewart, 2001: 286). ⁸ This approach, Stewart insists, again shifts attention away from the “ontological nature” of the categories at play, and instead focuses on the social conditions, “both creative and constraining,” of linguistic and conceptual production (Stewart, 2001: 287).

Each of these interventions has provided vital correctives for the way scholarship on the Mughal period has been conducted: no doubt, imperial political motives, pragmatic considerations for successful rulership in a religiously and ethnically diverse empire, and natural processes of linguistic expression and accommodation all played important roles in various features and moments of the translation movement. But what are we to make of a participant in this movement who had no apparent political power or discernible political motives in India, nor any manifest interest in Indian theories of governance whatsoever? Furthermore, while a contemporary Euro-American linguistic framework may help us considerably to analyze the basic processes of Mughal translations, how should that framework itself be modified in light of the contextual particularities of Mughal South Asia? On all these fronts, it is my contention that a more detailed consideration of the Islamic, and, in particular, Sufi worldview(s) of the participants in question can shed a great deal of light on the motivations and inner workings of the translation movement. In truth, modern scholars have long observed that the primary resource for Mughal translators in rendering Sanskrit materials into Persian was the technical vocabulary of Sufism (Islamic mysticism), drawing in particular from classical Persian mystical poetry and from the tradition of speculative gnosis initiated by the famous 13th-century Sufi, Ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240). ⁹ Yet most scholars have remained largely content with simply noting this observation, rarely considering in any great depth or detail what this fact suggests about the nature of the Mughal translation movement. Indeed, Ernst does admit a certain category of translators, Prince Dara Shikuh foremost among them, who were engaged with “metaphysical” or “mystical” Sanskrit works, being primarily interested “in a particular kind of mystical and esoteric knowledge that is shared, in [their] view, by a small elite within both communities” (Ernst, 2003: 183, 187). Now, as Sufis have, for centuries, sought to articulate and refine just what esoteric knowledge is, surely there is something more to be said regarding the role of Sufi thought in Mughal translation practice. It is precisely to this end that this essay will be devoted to a brief examination of one such “metaphysical translation,” the aforementioned Muntakhab-i Jug Basisht of Mir Findiriski.

The Sanskrit Laghu-Yoga-Vasistha (hereafter “Laghu”), of which Findiriski’s Muntakhab-i Jug Basisht (hereafter “Muntakhab”) is an abbreviated Persian translation, was composed by the Kashmiri pundit Gauda Abhinanda sometime between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. In the original Sanskrit work, ¹⁰ the famous Hindu hero Rama, having lost all taste for kingship and the things of this world, engages in a lengthy spiritual dialogue with the renowned sage Vasistha. After guiding Rama, by means of numerous didactic discussions and parables, through successive levels of instruction regarding supreme divine knowledge (jnana), Vasistha eventually convinces Rama that he should return to his worldly kingly duties, but should all the while remain rooted in that supreme knowledge which grants ultimate liberation (moksa) even while still living this life. By 1597, Nizam al-Din Panipati had translated the entire Sanskrit work into Persian, some fifteen years after which Mir Findiriski, having migrated from Safavid Persia and spent considerable time in various parts of India, condensed Nizam al-Din’s translation into his own shorter Persian rendition of the Sanskrit treatise, the Muntakhab.

For all appearances, the Mughal nobles’ choice of the Laghu for translation into Persian fits very well with Richards’ and Alam’s analyses of the translation movement: the Laghu, besides being a popular South Asian work, also contains a great deal of commentary on the nature and qualities of the ideal king. Its translation could thus serve the double purpose of broadening the appeal of the Mughal court amongst indigenous Indian peoples, while also providing a rich resource for native Indian theories of good governance. Findiriski’s recension of Nizam al-Din’s translation, however, reveals that these were not the only reasons for a Muslim of the Mughal period to take an interest in this work: in his version of the treatise, Findiriski only chose to include the metaphysical, cosmological, and soteriological passages – treating such topics as the nature of ultimate Reality (brahman, atman), the nature of the phenomenal universe, the nature of the human individual, and his or her capacity to know ultimate Reality and attain liberation – while leaving out nearly all the Laghu’s more political portions on kingship and governance. Indeed, given what we know of Findiriski’s travels, it would be difficult to attribute any overt political motives to his exploits in India: the compilers of the biographical compendiums (tazkirahs) uniformly report that, despite securing great fame and repute in Safavid Iran as a teacher of Peripatetic (mashsha’i) philosophy and even enjoying a favorable relationship with the Safavid kings Shah ‘Abbas and Shah Safi (r. 1587–1629 and 1629–1642), in India, Findiriski took great pains to remain incognito, performing only menial jobs so as to avoid any and all recognition. ¹¹ While modern historiographers would rightly caution against accepting such accounts at face value, the fact that generations of biographers unanimously remembered Findiriski in this fashion, in addition to his near total absence from the Mughal court, ¹² suggests that he simply did not have any overt political interests in South Asia; at the very least, the trajectory of his life-activities, as well as the tenor of the passages from the Laghu that interested him most, indicate that Findiriski’s interests were not merely political. ¹³

But, if not merely political, then what else? Fortunately for us, Findiriski has left some clues: as he stitched together his condensed edition of the Laghu, Findiriski inserted numerous selections from the corpus of classical Persian Sufi poetry ¹⁴ – taken from such well-known poets as Farid al-Din ‘Attar (d. 1220), Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), Mahmud Shabistari (d. 1320), Muhammad Shams al-Din Hafiz (d. 1389), Muhammad Shirin Maghribi (d. 1406), Shah Ni‘mat Allah Vali (d. 1431), and Qasim-i Anvar (d. 1433) – and also included a few verses of his own in praise of the Laghu-Yoga-Vasistha. ¹⁵ These additional insertions provide us with a precious glimpse into Findiriski’s thoughts on the Laghu. So, let us begin with his laudatory verses:

This discourse [i.e., the Laghu-Yoga-Vasistha] is like water to the world; pure and increasing knowledge, like the Qur’an. Once you have passed through the Qur’an and the Prophetic sayings, no one has sayings of this kind. An ignorant one who has heard these discourses, or has seen this subtle cypress-grove, Attaches only to its outward form (surat); thus, he makes a fool of himself. ¹⁶

While a thorough analysis of these verses is not possible here, let it suffice to point out the main features of Sufi thought and metaphysics that are referenced therein. The allusion to apparent, exoteric form (surat, zahir) on the one hand, and esoteric meaning or essence (ma‘na, haqiqat, zat, batin) on the other – correlated with the “ignorant” versus the “knowing” ones, respectively – is a recurring central theme of the Persian Sufi poets. The accompanying image of “pure water to the world” recalls the conventional poetic motif of the one, essential substance “water” which, across the world, may assume the various outward forms of “wave,” “ice,” “snow,” and “foam,” etc. As Annemarie Schimmel explains this motif of Sufi writing:

[Rumi discusses] “the ocean of inner meaning” and the external world … us[ing] the image of the foam on the sea to express this very idea … outward manifestations and all forms visible to the eyes are nothing but straw and chaff which cover the surface of this divine sea … the outward material forms are always conceived as something … which hides the fathomless depths of the ocean. (Schimmel, 1993: 77)

The [Sufi] poets … like to speak of the ocean, the billows, the foam, and the drop, which in each instance look different and yet are the same water. Niffari seems to have been the first to use the symbolism of the divine ocean. Ibn ‘Arabi had visualized the divine essence as a large green ocean out of which the fleeting forms emerge like waves, to fall again and disappear in the fathomless depths. (Schimmel, 1975: 284)

Thus, absolute Reality, which transcends every articulation and form, is symbolized by formless water; this Reality, in turn, assumes various delimited forms in the world, just as water appears sometimes as foam, sometimes as ice, and sometimes as snow, yet all these forms are ultimately one and the same water. And so, according to this Sufi metaphysics, ¹⁷ one and the same transcendent Reality attains manifestation in the world in diverse forms. Findiriski’s implication, it seems, is that, though the Qur’an and the Laghu are evidently disparate in accidental form, they nevertheless express the same Truth in essential reality. Only the knowing sage, however, will be able to perceive this common essence; the ignorant one, caught up in the world of forms, will never be able to discern the shared basic substance of ice and foam. As Findiriski asserts, quite in this vein, in one of his marginal notes to Nizam al-Din’s translation: “after understanding to the extent of my capacity (isti‘dad ), I find no opposition in any issue at all between the Brahmins (barahimah, i.e. Sanskrit intellectuals) and the Islamic philosophers (falasifah).” ¹⁸

This doctrine of form and essence is intimately tied up with the cosmological framework of God’s Names and Attributes (al-asma’ wa’l-sifat). According to a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, God has ninety-nine divine Names, ¹⁹ each of which, as many Sufis such as Ibn ‘Arabi have affirmed, articulates an attribute of God’s total, ineffable Reality. The effects or traces (athar) of these names, however, can be discerned within the phenomenal world if one is able to glimpse beyond the forms. ²⁰ And so, the divine Name “the Beautiful” (al-jamil ), for instance, may be manifested in both a flower and a gazelle: at the level of form, these two objects, qua objects, can never be identical, but the transcendent essence they manifest – God’s own dimension of beauty, i.e. His Name “the Beautiful” – is a singular reality. Indeed, in this Sufi metaphysics, the entire phenomenal universe is envisaged as simply the trace and manifestation of God’s many Names, as the Sufi poet Rumi explains in his Fihi ma Fihi: “God says [in a hadith qudsi ²¹ ], ‘I was a Hidden Treasure, so I wanted to be known.’ In other words, ‘I created the whole of the universe, and the goal in all of it is to make Myself manifest, sometimes through Gentleness and sometimes through Severity … Therefore all creatures make God manifest” (Chittick, 1983: 48). ²² In this cosmological scheme, furthermore, below the formless level of reality wherein the Names and Attributes have their origin are successive levels of crystallization and corporealization, embracing such “lower” (though still supra-physical) realities as the Platonic forms, angelic beings, and the imaginal (khayali) realities associated with dreams, each of which can attain even more diverse manifestations in the levels below them. ²³ Findiriski echoes such a vision of the created order, in which diverse phenomenal forms manifest transcendent essences and realities, in his own poetry, as in his famous Qasidah-i hikmiyyah:

Whatever is there above has a form below; if the form below, by the ladder of gnosis (ma‘rifat), is trodden upward, it will become the same as its principle (asl). No outward understanding (fahm-i zahiri) can grasp these sayings … The jewel is hidden in the mystery of the ancient sages, only he who is wise can uncover these mysteries. Leave aside these words! … We can say all these [words] of Him, but He is above all that … This winding, twisting world possesses nothing, nothing [of its own]. ²⁴

Of course, not all manifestations of God’s Names and Attributes are created equal, and the prophets (al-anbiya’) – especially the Prophet Muhammad – are typically considered to be the most pure and direct manifestation possible within the realm of creation, hence their revered qualification to be receptacles for divine revelation (wahy). In illustrating the multi-faceted nature of the phenomenon of prophecy (nubuwwah) in his Fusus al-hikam, for example, Ibn ‘Arabi describes how each of God’s prophets is specially associated with a particular one of the divine Names; this association, in turn, determines the manner in which revelation – the depository of absolute Reality in the here-below – is manifested in and through that prophet, almost as though the entire constellation of divine Names and Attributes is somehow skewed or oriented in a unique manner in accordance with the unique qualities and affinities of the prophet’s soul in question. ²⁵ Ibn ‘Arabi further stresses that each individual soul too possesses a unique relationship with, and capacity to manifest, the divine Names and Attributes. Thus, every individual’s reception of an inheritance (wirathah) from the prophets will also be somehow unique, resulting in a diversity of religious paths that is as numerous as the number of people in the world, even if the source and end goal be one and the same Reality. ²⁶ In this fashion, not only can the diversity of revelations be explained, ²⁷ but the variety of subsequent developments in different religious civilizations throughout history can also be grounded in the basic metaphysics and anthropology of Sufi thought. Findiriski again echoes these notions in his Qasidah-i hikmiyyah: “everyone understands the words [of the ancient sages and prophets] only from his own imagination; they do not grasp the words, for these words are mysterious … Would that the sages before us had said everything completely, so that the opposition of those who are incomplete would be removed!” In his Risalah-i sana‘iyyah, Findiriski similarly describes the imperfect state of those who fail to see the common meaning (ma‘na) behind the varying expressions (alfaz) of the ancient Greek philosophers, the Islamic philosophers, and the books of the Brahmins and Indians (barahmanan va hindavan). Here Findiriski also emphasizes that, like a doctor who always treats the particular ailments of the particular patient in front of him, each prophet too speaks in a way that is uniquely suited to the needs, temperaments, and capacities of the specific community he is addressing, which accounts for the differences in the messages brought by each prophet, all of them nevertheless representing one and the same all-encompassing Reality. ²⁸

These considerations of prophethood bring us to Findiriski’s peculiar utilization of the image of the cypress tree (sarv), which in Persian poetry is frequently associated with the Prophet Muhammad as beloved. ²⁹ Typically, however, the cypress–beloved, because it demands the total attention – nay, absorption – of the lover, must remain singular and unique. Hence, the cypress “is often called azad, ‘free,’ because it stands majestically alone” (Schimmel, 1992: 164). Yet, Findiriski in his verses has mentioned not a solitary cypress, but rather, a populated cypress-grove; indeed, according to Mojtaba’i, the latter half of Findiriski’s laudatory verses is actually a quotation from the poet Sana’i’s (d. 1130) Hadiqat al-haqiqat (“Garden of Reality”), ³⁰ with the sole modification that the phrase “manner of explanation” (tarz-i bayan) has been changed to “cypress-grove” (sarvistan). What could be the significance of a multitude of prophet–beloveds, or, to use the language of Findiriski’s verses, a multitude of “subtle discourses”? In light of the Sufi metaphysics outlined above, wherein the one Reality can be distinguished from its multiple manifestations in the world, my suggestion is that, just as God’s Names and Attributes, and the celestial realities and essences, have attained the most direct manifestation possible in the Qur’an (through the pure and blessed soul of the Prophet Muhammad), ³¹ the Laghu, in Findiriski’s estimation, is also a similarly complete and profound manifestation; the two manifestations, the Qur’an and the Laghu, are separate cypress trees, each communicating the singular glories of God’s Reality with such brilliance as to demand our dedication and devotion, provided we have the eyes to see it.

But would Findiriski say that the Laghu is an equally profound manifestation as the Qur’an? His phrase “once you have passed through the Qur’an and the Prophetic sayings” would suggest not. This phrase, however, may also have an additional meaning, rather along the lines of the Mughal prince Dara Shikuh’s self-description of having turned to the study of Sanskritic materials only after having already, personally, attained to the highest realizations and realities of the Sufi path. ³² By the phrase “passing through the Qur’an and Prophetic sayings,” Findiriski may mean exactly this – coming to the end of the Islamic spiritual path, which coincides precisely with the attainment of the very highest, formless Truth – for, the only way to become one of the wise ones who can see beyond esoteric forms is to practice religion (din, madhhab) in the particular – or, as Rumi often phrases it, to follow in the footsteps of a prophet. ³³ It is only through the form that one’s field of vision can be opened up to the universal essence; universal realities are only available to us in the here-below as manifested in particular forms, so one must penetrate the particular form in order to ascend to the level of the universal reality, or, as Findiriski indicates in his qasidah quoted above, one can only climb the ladder of gnosis “upward” if one starts from the “form below.” ³⁴ Hence, forms cannot be haphazardly equated in the here-below – ice is never foam at the level of form, nor a flower a gazelle – but can only be identified transcendently. ³⁵ Such a perspective is what allows Findiriski to be still so dedicated to the shari‘ah (formal Islamic law and practice) in his “Treatise on the Arts” (Risalah-i sana‘iyyah), as when he praises the efforts of the Prophet and the custodians of God’s revelation, while likening the shari‘ah to a universal medicine for souls and societies. ³⁶ Indeed, as modern scholars have increasingly recognized, a great many of the most influential Sufis in Islamic history – Rumi and Ibn ‘Arabi included – have also demonstrated a pronounced dedication to the intricacies of Islamic law and practice. ³⁷ The affirmation of a single, supra-formal, transcendent Absolute, thus, does not require the dismissal of the very real distinctions that occur at each and every level of reality beneath this Absolute, which include all the levels where we humans, practically speaking, always live.

Having glimpsed, at least in broad outline, the Sufi perspectives and resources that Findiriski brought with him to his study of the Laghu, let us consider how it might refine our interpretation of the body of the Persian translation itself. I translate a characteristically metaphysical passage from the Muntakhab below, side-by-side with my translation of the original Sanskrit passage from the Laghu. ³⁸

OPEN IN VIEWER

Laghu-Yoga-Vasistha (Abhinanda, 1937: 6:11:34–35, 6:12:2–6)

Muntakhab-i Jug Basisht (Mojtaba’i, 2006: folio 99; farsi 108)

[Brahman] is not born, nor does it die in any way, in any place, or at any time; brahman alone expands [itself] in the phenomenal 39 form of the world. This brahman is the whole [world], one, tranquil, without beginning, middle, or end, free from becoming and unbecoming. Having thought thus, be happy! … He who, O Rama, regards this multitude of rays as distinct from the sun, for him, that multitude is, indeed, as if other than the sun. He by whom the bracelet is regarded as distinct from the gold [of which it is made], for him, indeed, that gold is not the same as that bracelet. [But] he by whom the rays would be regarded as indistinct from the sun, for him, those rays are the same as the sun. He is said to be unwavering. 40 He by whom the bracelet is regarded as indistinct from the gold, he is said to be unwavering, possessing the great understanding of the oneness of the gold. Having left aside all multiplicity, be firm in the condition of true knowledge – [which is] completely free of any object (of knowledge) 41 – situated in the womb of pure consciousness.

The whole world is the manifestation of that Being and Reality and is found in it, which has no beginning, end, or middle, which is not born nor dies, into which change and transformation have no access. Having given space in your heart for this belief concerning it, repose at peace and ease! Know that all these variegated existents and determined forms that come into sight, innumerable and without limit, are all occasions for the appearance of the Essence and manifestations of Absolute Being. The root of all of these appearances is the one Essence of brahman, just as with ornaments and gold-pieces, such as bracelets, earrings, anklets, and rings, etc., each of which has its own distinct determination and form: the source of all of those ornaments is the one essence of gold, which remains the very same gold even after those forms are shattered. Or just as, upon the rising of the exalted sun, thousands upon thousands of scattering beams, radiance, and rays can be seen, [still] the root of all those limitless and endless beams and lights is the one essence of the exalted sun. When someone attains brahma-jnana (“knowledge of brahman”) and arrives at complete knowledge of the Essence, his vision becomes effaced and he becomes annihilated (fani) in the Essence, like a drop which falls into the ocean and becomes the ocean. Shaykh [Farid al-Din] ‘Attar [d. 1220]: The eye which is not fixed upon the source – the ocean – Is fixed upon the drop; how can [such a man] be Muslim (musalman)? So long as the drop and the ocean do not become one, How can the stone of your unbelief (kufr) become the gem of faith (iman)? I see everything as the one sun, But I don’t know how it will shine upon you!

Both versions of the passage begin with a description of absolute Reality (Sanskrit, “brahman”) that is quite standard in Hindu Sanskrit literature. ⁴² Ultimate Reality transcends all descriptions; it is eternal and immutable, thus suffering no change whatsoever even as it manifests itself in the form of the world. One may note the seamless inclusion, in the Persian translation, of standard Sufi designations for the Absolute, such as “Being” (hasti), “Reality” (haqiqat), and “Essence” (zat). One might also note the inclusion, in the Persian translation, of the technical term “manifestation” (mazhar), which, as we have seen above, carries with it the entire Sufi metaphysics and cosmology of God’s Names and Attributes. Now, while the author Abhinanda, in the original Sanskrit Laghu, is happy to speak about the Absolute as “expanding” itself (jrmbhate) in the phenomenal form of the world (jagad-vivarta-rupena) or “shining itself forth” (svayam ullasati) as other objects, ⁴³ he never articulates a framework for this shining forth that quite corresponds with the Names and Attributes. ⁴⁴ So far, it seems, Stewart’s above-mentioned account of the Muslim translators merely looking for overt similarities – but not seeking “perfect translation,” at least not of technical and nuanced theological concepts – may hold true.

Both versions of the passage then move on to two common analogies employed throughout the Laghu: the golden bracelet and the sun and its rays. To begin with the golden bracelet, in the Laghu, this analogy emphasizes the fact that the gold of which a bracelet (or any other ornament) is made is itself far more enduring than the particular ornamental form that the gold has assumed: some heat or hammering would alter the shape and thus make the bracelet no longer a bracelet – it would become, for example, liquid or shards – but such a process would not make the gold cease to be gold; the gold will endure through any such process of formal alteration. The import of this teaching is that any given ornament or gold-piece is, to one who sees beyond the form, really just gold, rather as ice and foam are really just water. Similarly, even as brahman shines itself forth as the myriad forms of the world, it itself remains wholly unchanged and transcendent, the essential reality underlying every fleeting form and apparent transformation. ⁴⁵ While the Persian translation, in typical Persian prose-style, embellishes the analogy and includes additional lines of explanation – presumably required for a Persian-speaking audience but not so for Sanskrit-readers ⁴⁶ – the original passage is rather fairly represented, at least at the doctrinal level. ⁴⁷

The Laghu’s recurring analogy of the sun and its rays again expresses the view of the essential identification between brahman and the phenomenal world, even if Abhinanda did not spell out all the analogy’s implications in this particular instance. Each ray of sunlight, according to the analogy, though fleeting and pale in comparison with the sun, is ultimately nothing other than the sun itself; even if only a dim extension, the basic substance of every individual ray is nothing but sunlight. Furthermore, regardless of the fate of the sun’s rays – no matter how many times they may be bounced off objects, refracted, inflected with color, or simply fizzle out into the blackness of space – the sun itself remains transcendently and majestically unaltered. In just the same way, Abhinanda repeats time and again in the Laghu, the basic reality of all objects is simply brahman, the source of the entire phenomenal order, while any apparent transformations are merely transient and illusory, brahman ever remaining exactly what it is. ⁴⁸ Only one who possesses great wisdom, however, will be able to see that this is in fact the case. Again, the Persian translation seems to present this teaching rather faithfully, despite some poetic elaboration, while the verse of ‘Attar’s poetry that Findiriski has inserted can leave little doubt that the same metaphysical teaching – namely, the identification between the phenomenal order and the Absolute, or, what amounts to the same for these thinkers, the nothingness of the phenomenal order in the face of the Absolute – is represented in both versions of the passage.

Subsequently, however, the Persian translator Nizam al-Din begins to take a few liberties. While the Sanskrit Laghu speaks of the one of great understanding, who has laid aside all multiplicity, as abiding in the womb of pure consciousness (suddha-cin-matra, a term that Abhinanda uses synonymously with brahman), Nizam al-Din, perhaps to make the passage a bit more recognizable to readers raised in the Persian literary tradition, instead speaks of the wise one who is “annihilated” (fani) in the Essence like a drop in the ocean. Now, the addition of the new analogy of the ocean-drop, though certainly an original insertion, does not seem to be all that much of a modification. Indeed, throughout the Laghu, Abhinanda is happy to speak of the disappearance of the individual ego in the one-and-only pure consciousness, ⁴⁹ while he also makes frequent use of the image of the transient wave on the ocean of brahman, an analogy that runs along very similar lines. ⁵⁰ The image of the drop and the ocean, accordingly, expresses the same metaphysical teaching as the previous analogies: just as the drop – a sort of fleeting individuation of the ocean that bears (virtually) no effect on the ocean itself – consists of nothing other than ocean-water, similarly, the objects of the phenomenal world, the appearance and forms of which are transient and illusory, are really nothing other than brahman. The original contribution of this analogy is mainly in the emphasis it places upon the subjective aspect of this knowledge, that is, on the disappearance of the realized sage himself in the Absolute.

The introduction of the term “annihilated” (fani), however, is perhaps more significant. The term “annihilation” (fana’) has a very long history in Sufi thought and practice, dating back very nearly to the earliest founding figures of the tradition, ⁵¹ and has been reconsidered and refined by perhaps every subsequent Sufi teacher in history. While the basic meaning of the term is the “annihilation” or “extinction” of the individual ego or lower self (nafs) in the face of God’s absolute Reality, the word fana’ is certainly one of the prime candidates, on Stewart’s interpretation mentioned above, for a technical term that cannot be “purely” translated, but rather, provides a broad “equivalence” that thus helps the Muslim translator in question to express his own Islamic worldview in the guise of the local terminology (in this case, the Sanskrit term brahma-jnana, “knowledge of brahman”). Yet, considering this moment of translation from within the perspective of the Sufi metaphysics outlined above, it seems that a somewhat different interpretation might emerge: though, with fana’ and brahma-jnana, we may indeed be speaking about two religious concepts, experiences, or forms that are somehow distinct, one may nevertheless assert that the transcendent reality manifested therein is shared between them. Taking our lead from the poet ‘Attar – whom Findiriski has inserted into this passage – one man may be looking at a drop and another at foam, but both should have their attention fixed on the ocean whence the two objects came, or (to utilize ‘Attar’s second analogy), should know the two distinct objects as only the light of the one sun. ⁵² Stewart is surely correct when he affirms that the translation is “imperfect,” but, when one takes into account these Sufi tenets, it can further be said that what is an “imperfect” translation at one level can still be a “perfect” translation at another, more transcendent level.

In the face of this framework, one might, understandably, raise the objection that, if everything expresses the one and only Reality in the end anyway, what is to stop someone from translating “cat” as “dog” and then claiming, on this supposed metaphysical basis, that the translation is perfectly accurate? At least one Sufi response, it seems from the foregoing, would be to say that such an objection again fails to take into account the distinct levels of reality. There are certain essential realities, or certain aspects of the Real, that, for example, a flower does manifest, and other realities that it does not, even if all those essential realities alike ultimately refer to the (still more transcendent) absolute Reality. Stated more simply, a flower does manifest God’s dimension of Beauty (the divine Name “al-jamil”), but it does not, to say the least, manifest His Name “the Slayer” (al-mumit) particularly well; the case is likewise, mutatis mutandis, for a gazelle. ⁵³ If one recalls Rumi’s famous story of the elephant in the dark room – wherein different men, unable to see the elephant and touching different parts of it, describe this single multi-faceted object in multiple ways (“like a fan,” “like a pipe,” “like a pillar,” etc.) ⁵⁴ – there the men offered partial but still good descriptions of the reality before them; other descriptions, such as “minuscule” or “orange,” would have been inaccurate and irrelevant. Analogously, calling a cat “furry” would be a good but incomplete description, while calling a cat “dog,” without any further qualification, would be plainly useless. This lesson, as the teaching goes, applies all the more profoundly to the descriptions of transcendent realities.

Thus, within this Sufi metaphysics, even though everything ultimately returns to oneness and unity, and all forms are ultimately connected in a single Reality, within the realm of manifestation, some connections are more relevant than others. We can similarly observe in the Laghu that, though Vasistha teaches Rama that all the different labels of different people ultimately refer back to one and the same ultimate Reality, and that Rama should see himself and the whole world as not other than that Reality, ⁵⁵ Vasistha simultaneously implores Rama to keep an eye on what his reality is at the level of form: Rama, by birth, by constitution, by temperament, by destiny, is a king, and so he must live this life out as a king. The Sufis, similarly, speak of the realized individual as “balancing the outward (zahir) and the inward (batin)” and as “seeing with two eyes [i.e., of the outward and the inward].” ⁵⁶ To develop this discriminative capacity and vision, however, requires the years of practice and dedication that are entailed in the spiritual path. If one is unwilling, then it seems that one must remain an “ignorant exoterist” drowned in the world of forms, unqualified to plumb the depths of these “subtle discourses” of which Findiriski speaks.

So, if one were to speculate on what Findiriski might have to say to the likes of Alam, Stewart, or Ernst today regarding the translation of the Laghu, I submit that Findiriski would confirm that they have a point, yet none of them quite have the complete picture. Yes, “religions” (Findiriski might say: “shara’i‘,” “adyan,” “madhahib”) are most certainly historical things, ever changing through time as humans and circumstances compel them to; yet, in the account provided by this Sufi metaphysics, all such change is precisely the playing out of the possibilities already contained within a transcendent, immutable reality, namely, the total constellation of God’s Names and Attributes as deposited in the multiple revelations sent through the blessed souls of the prophets, and subsequently received uniquely by each individual soul. Again, yes, the Muntakhab is evidently an “imperfect” translation of the Laghu along the lines that Stewart suggests; yet, such imperfection can give way to another type of transcendent perfection, provided the reader has eyes to see: what is at one level the use of an ostensibly Hindu vocabulary to express substantially Sufi ideas is, at the same time, an attempt to express, as far as language will allow, what is universal and shared between both communities, precisely because Sufi thought contains within itself the insistence that it should transcend its own concepts and formulations. ⁵⁷ No word or form can capture the Absolute; the best words and forms are those which best help us to transcend those very same words and forms, so as to reach the level of universal Reality.

No doubt, Findiriski and our modern scholars come to an impasse at a certain point. Where Findiriski sees religious practice to be divesting a soul of all its human particularities and contextual qualities so as to approach God’s universal realities (tajarrud, takhalluq), modern scholars have instead tended to see an individual becoming, only all the more intensely and profoundly shaped by his immediate social and cultural context, falling ever deeper into cultural particularity. This short essay is not the place to adjudicate such a disagreement. Yet, when scholars of South Asia are unanimous in their goal to cease projecting modern assumptions back into the pre-modern past, it becomes incumbent upon us all to understand, as far as our capacities and contexts will allow, the perspectives and worldviews of those whom we seek to study in their own terms. It is my hope that this essay has been at least a very small step toward fulfilling that duty.