Black Curls in a Mirror: The Eighteenth-Century Persian Kṛṣṇa of Lāla Amānat Rāy’s Jilwa-yi ẕāt and the Tongue of Bīdil

This paper is the first substantial study of the Jilwa-yi ẕāt, an unabridged Persian verse translation of the tenth skandha of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, completed in Delhi in 1732–33 by Amanat Ray, a Vaisnava pupil of the influential poet- philosopher Mırza ‘Abd al-Qadir Bıdil. The paper focuses especially on the textualization of Krsna and Krsnaite devotion within the framework of Persian literary conventions and the dominant Sufı-Vedantic conceptual atmosphere, with a special attention for the intertextual ties with the works of Bıdil. A few philological remarks on the contours of a hitherto largely ignored Krsnaite subjectivity in Persian are also included

Containing additional descriptions and indices

rev. and completed by Edward Edward

Die mystische, didaktische und lyrische Poesie und das spätere Schriftthum der Perser

von Hermann Eth

metadata [IO Islamic 327] کلّیّات ظهوری

Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad Ẓuhūrī, کلّیّات ظهوری This manuscript is now IO Islamic 327 in the India Office collections. [metadata: Carl Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, volume 1, no. 1500, here with annotations and hyperlinks]. A large (but by no means complete) collection of the poetical and prose-works of Maulânâ Nûr-aldin Muḥammad Żuhûrî of Tarshîz, or rather of Khujand near Tarshîz, in Khurâsân, who went in early life to Yazd and betook himself A. H. 988 (A. D. 1580) to the Dakhan, where he, like Malik Ḳummî, first settled in Aḥmednagar, and afterwards in Bîjâpûr. He married Malik Ḳummî’s daughter and died, according to most tadhkiras, A. H. 1025 (A. D. 1616), see the preceding copy of Malik Ḳummî’s Kulliyyât; only Beale, Oriental Biographical Dictionary, p. 286ᵇ, gives the later date, A. H. 1026 (A. D. 1617), and the Khulâṣat-alkalâm, No. 44 (col. 298 in the Bodleian Cat.), fixes his death in A. H. 1025 or 1027 (A. D. 1618); see besides Safinah, No. 559 (col. 229 in the Bodleian Cat.[Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library]); Khazâna-i-‘âmirah, No. 75 (ib., col. 258); Khulâṣat-alafkâr, No. 167 (ib., col. 308); Makhzan-algharâ’ib, No. 1503 (ib., col. 349), and A. Sprenger, Catal. [A Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Hindu'sta'ny Manuscripts of the Libraries of the King of Oudh], pp. 44, 112, 125, and 151; other copies of Żuhûrî’s works are described in Bodleian Cat.[Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library], Nos. 1076-1080; Rieu, [Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts] ii, pp. 678 and 679, 741 and 742, etc.; A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 580; Rosen, Persian MSS., p. 264; W. Pertsch, Berlin Cat. [Verzeichniss der Persischen Handschriften], pp. 909 and 910, etc. ‘Abd-alrazzâḳ Sûrati’s notice of the poet, under the title of مقدّمات ظهوری (written AH 1212/1797-98 CE), has been lithographed in Cawnpore, 1873. The present collection contains: A prose-treatise of the same character as Żuhûrî’s well-known prefaces to the Nauras, the Gulzâr-i-Ibrâhîm, and the Khwân-i-Khalil, but different from these three and from all the other treatises hitherto known as composed by the same author, in spite of the frequent mention of the گلزار ابراهیم, sec. fol. 1ᵇ, II. 4 and 5: گلزار ابراهیم نام نهاد; fol. 2ᵃ, I. 4 ab infra: آب بگلزار ابراهیم داد, and fol. 4ᵇ, last line: که شد گلزار ابراهیم نامش (the genuine preface to the گلزار ابراهیم follows in No. 4 of the present copy). Beginning, on fol. 1b : ای نورس گلزار براهیم از تو وی آتش نمرود تف بیم از تو پیرایۀ داد و زینت عدل توئی تمکین سریر شان دیهیم از تو This treatise, in ornate prose, interspersed with verses, seems like the three, mentioned above, written in homage of Ibrâhîm 'Âdil Shāh II (see No. 1499). Manba’-alanhâr (منبع الانهار), a mathnawî, which is ascribed in A. Sprenger, Catal., p. 482, to Malik Ḳummî, and appears there in the Kulliyyât of that poet; but the Khulâṣat-alkalâm (see above) gives extracts from this poem under Żuhûrî, see Elliott Coll., No. 184 in the Bodleian Library, ff. 40b-44b [ed note: this refers to Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî and Pushtû Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, no. 390, p. 295], beginning, on fol. 5b : بسم الله الرّحمن الرّحیم – اهدنا الصّراط المستقیم The title (not mentioned in the Khulâṣat-alkalâm) appears in the last bait: منبع انهار بپایان رسید. It is divided into eighteen نهر , with numerous subdivisions. As a strange coincidence it may be noted, that on fol. 11a, I. 11, the same bait is used which appears in Zulâlî’s حسن گلوسوز, see No. 1494. Fol. 220b , I.5 ab infra, and No. 1496, fol. 40b, viz.: بسم الله الرّحمن الرّحیم- تیر شهابست بدیو رجیم Tarkîbbands, tarji’s, and ḳaṣîdas, intermixed with some kit'as and ghazals, and concluded (on fol. 130b sq.) by various strings of rubaʿîs. Beginning, on fol. 66'b فتحست کلید بر گشادیم- بر نه ذر چرخ در گشادیم This initial poem has the following heading: بفتح ذرّ نه تو کلید گشایش از قلعه گشای فکر گرفتن و ذیل مدحت عادلخدویو بر کمر ترکیب بند کرده از خاتمه گرفتن ،. Preface to the گلزار ابراهیم, in ornate prose, mixed with verses, beginning, as in all other copies of this prose-treatise, on fol. 138b : خرّمی چمن سخن بطراوت حمد بهار پیرائیست که گلزار ابراهیم در رخسار یوسف طالقان الخ. It is in praise of Ibrâhîm ‘Âdilshâh II, and concludes with the following bait: داستان شد ختم بستان رخش-غیرت گلزار ابراهیم باد Another series of tarkîbbands, tarji’s, and ḳaṣîdas, beginning, on fol. 146b: ای شده سود از تو زیان همه-جنس غمت زیب دکان همه The initial ḳaṣîdah of No. 1076 of the Bodleian Cat., and of No. 931 in the Berlin Collection cannot be traced in either series of tarkîbbands and ḳaṣîdas; nor is the long tarji’band found here, which appears in the same copy of the Bodleian Library, fol. 24b sq. Ghazaliyyât (غزلیّات), beginning, on fol. 224b : بر داشتی نقاب زدیدن برآمدم در گفتن آمدی زشنیدن بر آمدم The usual initial ghazal, viz. ايكه (آنکه or) خواهد داشت الخ (see No. 1505), is not found in this copy; all ghazals however, exhibit the takhalluṣ ظهوری. Another very large collection of rubâ’is, divided into twenty-two sections, beginning, on fol. 236b: بر مهر زعارض تو تقدیم خوشست پیش تو زمه سجدۀ تعظیم خوشست There are also some additional rubâ’is on the margin of ff. 244a-246b. This copy is not dated, but is decidedly one of the oldest we possess, since there are, on fol. 1a, several seals of the emperor Shâhjahân, to whose library this MS. belonged, with the dates A.H. 1045 and 1046 (A.D. 1635-1637). No. 327, ff. 284, 2 coll., each II. 18; distinct Nastaʿlîḳ; illuminated frontispieces on ff. 1b, 5b, and 138b; size, 10⅝ in. by 5⅞ in