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May 2, 2004
REVIEW: Inspired by the sufis
AMONG all the 10 gurus of the Sikhs only Baba Nanak was born in west Punjab where the Lehnda dialect of Punjabi is spoken and which has produced the best Punjabi poetry in old and modern times. Only Baba Nanak visited the extreme eastern parts of India and on the western side he travelled upto Makkah and in Baghdad he met one of his teachers, Shah Murad, and one of his junior contemporaries, Shah Behlol, the mentor of Lahore’s sufi poet and non-conformist mystic, Shah Husain. Both the teacher and the disciple were poets and whatever they wrote was in western Punjabi. Both were brought up against a background common to Baba Nanak.
Some of the most stirring incidents in Baba Nanak’s life are related to places in west Punjab like Hasan Abdal, Eimanabad, Nankana Sahib (his birthplace from where he received his education from a learned Muslim scholar, Syed Hasan), Khanewal and Diwan Chawali Mashaikh (Vehari) and Manzoorpura in Narowal district on the right bank of the river Ravi where he died in 1539, the year Shah Husain was born in Lahore. Because of the damage caused by floods, the Sikhs had abandoned the original spot where Nanak’s shrine was and had moved it to the left bank of the river now in district Gurdaspur.
Baba Nanak was much inspired by the poetry of the sufis and he not only collected the poetry of the 12-13th century poet Baba Farid of Pakpattan but also included it in his compilation, later known as the Grant Sahib, from which the pieces included in the book under review have been taken.
It was during his last journey that Baba Nanak was captured by the invading forces of the emperor Babar. Though he was released by Babar himself, Nanak wrote a wonderful piece on that barbarous attack and the human miseries that followed.
The tresses that adorned these lovely heads And were parted with vermilion, Have been shorn with cruel shears Desecration and desolation Follow in the footsteps Of the great Mughal Babar. None, none in Hindustan, can eat his supper in peace For the Muslim woman The hour of prayer is past For the Hindu The time of worship is gone.
And Nanak, how completely helpless Mere men are.
This and another piece about the Mughal invasions, though very beautiful, have not been translated by Khushwant Singh who is an authority on the Sikh religion and its history. This book includes poetry pieces of five other Gurus but out of the total 222 pages, 146 go to Baba Nanak whose poetry has been translated into English by many Sikh and non-Sikh translators. One such translation was done by Prof J.R. Puri, head of the department of philosophy, Punjabi University, Patiala, and the book was published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Dera Baba Jaimal Singh in 1982.
Both Puri and Khushwant Singh have translated a number of pieces that are common and there are similarities found in both the translators’ works.
Khushwant:
Beyond comprehension, without end Beyond reach beyond description Immortal, beyond cause and effect Beyond the pale of caste and castelessness Beyond the cycle of life, death and rebirth Self existent and alone Without desire, without delusion.
Puri:
Unknowable is my Lord, without end Unfathomable is He, beyond description Immortal, beyond cause and effect Beyond the pale of caste and castelessness Beyond the cycle of life, death and rebirth Self existent and alone Without desire, without delusion.
There is another translation of Bara Mah. Khushwant’s translation is:
If the husband comes not home, how can a wife
Find peace of mind?
Sorrows of separation waste away the body
The koel calls in the mango grove,
Its notes are full of joy.
The Chet Puri version is:
If the husband comes not home
How can a wife find peace of mind?
The sorrows of separation wastes away her body.
The koel calls in the mango grove,
Her notes are full of joy
In Khushwant’s view the language used by the Sikh gurus was Punjabi of the 15th and the 16th century. That is not correct. Punjabi of that time was used by Shah Husain. The entire work is set to metres of classical Indian music in which the hymns had been arranged. The copy with the viewer is without 16 pages (161-176) which speak of the standards of quality control of the publisher.
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