Kamal’s heart sank. Like that Shaivite yogi of Shravasti did this man also have knowledge of the unknown?
“Her non-combatant brother was killed in the war. She was all alone in the world, she said, and she came to me. She thought I was a Sharqi general. The foolish girl couldn’t distinguish between military uniforms and flags. She said you had promised to come back, so she wandered in the forests looking for you. But no swan and no dark clouds brought you her message . . .
“Then she said to me, ‘Throw away this sword in the river, soldier. Haven’t you killed enough?’
“That hit me. I, a born fighter—a Thakur, a worshipper of Durga Bhavani—I became a different person. She said, go to Kashi and stay with Sant Kabir while he is still around. So I have taken sanyas and I mostly live there. And you, poor deluded man, go to Kashi too, before it is too late.”
Abruptly, the former general rose to his feet and left. He never spoke to Kamal again.
The Ganga flashed on. Boats continued to sail on its gold-and-blue surface—state barges, merchantmen, galleys, fishing rafts . . . Their sails swelled in the evening wind against the setting sun and it looked as if hundreds of swans were about to fly away to the snowy north. Songs rose from dugouts and dinghies—the hymns of yogis, the chants of fakirs. Cargo ships sailed towards the country’s great markets bearing cotton textiles from Gujarat and Bengal, silks and brocades from Kashi, artifacts from the Deccan. People from distant lands were voyaging on the great river. Bhikshus from Tibet and Kashmir, Arab tourists, architects from Shiraz, Javanese dancers. There was peace and prosperity in the country. Sultan Sikander ruled in Dehli and all was well with the world.
Kamal sat down next to the solitary, ochre-robed bhikshu one evening. The monk raised his eyes. It was the night of Vaisakh Purnima. Tonight, two thousand years ago, Gautam Siddhartha had been born in the remote foothills of the Himalayas. On another night of the Full Moon of Spring he had attained Knowledge. The moon rocked on the waves, its rays fell on the bhikshu’s face.
“How does one liberate oneself from one’s thoughts?” Kamal mused aloud.
“Thought cannot know itself, it cannot go outside itself. There is no God outside the universe, there is no universe outside God. There is no difference between Right and Wrong, but the Absolute is beyond everything. It is Silence,” he replied tonelessly.
Kamal walked back to his corner, greatly dejected. The ship cast anchor alongside a picturesque hillock. A grey stone khanqah was visible through the branches of a khirni tree. Kamal picked up his bag and disembarked. He climbed the hillock and reached the hospice. The khanqah belonged to the Order of the Chishtis and was surrounded by green fields where some murids were working as volunteers. They grew food for the community kitchen. A saint’s tomb and the mosque-school were hidden behind lush creepers. It was an immensely peaceful place, a Sufi retreat.
16. Kamal Among the Patched-smock People
Kamal recalled his mystic friends of Jaunpur who used to talk about the Chishti Way of Love, Beauty and Melody. Inside the khanqah, qawwali was in progress, Amir Khusro’s famous Bahut kathin hai dagar panghat ki—the path to the well is difficult to tread—part of rural India’s romantic lore, but in this qawwali it had acquired spiritual meaning.
Kamal stepped in gingerly and took off his shoes. Then he sat down on the threshold. He had always been slightly hostile to mystics although he used to say, “Some of my best friends are Sufis!”
The ecstatic singing came to an end. The Master who presided over the lodge was a gentle, venerable old man. He welcomed the world-weary traveller affectionately and asked him how he was. Suddenly, Kamal burst into tears.
Sattar is one of the Ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God. He mercifully hides the shameful or embarrassing faults and shortcomings of human beings. According to Sufi tradition, during the Mystical Night Journey of the Lord Prophet from Jerusalem to the highest of heavens, Allah gave him a metaphorical khirqa or robe of spiritual authority and said, ‘Bestow it on one of your Companions who gives you this answer.’ Then God whispered the answer to the Prophet. On his return to earth Mohammed asked his companion, Abu Bakr, what he would do if he got this khirqa. Abu Bakr said he would spread truthfulness in the world, Omar said he would establish justice, Osman said he would abolish poverty. Finally Ali was asked and he gave the answer that Allah had whispered to the Prophet. He said he would hide the shameful shortcomings of individuals from their fellow-beings. He was given the robe of valayat, spiritual eminence. He passed the khirqa to his elder son, Imam Hasan, who granted it to Hasan Basri, one of the earliest mystics of Islam. From Hasan Basri the symbolic Khirqa Rehmani was transmitted to major Sufis in later centuries.
Ali is called Waliullah, Friend of God, and is regarded as the fountainhead of mysticism by most Sufi orders, especially by the Chishtis. In a silsila, or spiritual lineage, a murshid appoints one of his murids as his khalifa at the time of his death, and gives him the Khirqa-i-Iradat or the Robe of the True Disciple. The Khalifa inherits the murshid’s copy of the Qoran, his prayer rug, cap or turban, rosary, his symbolic begging bowl and sandals. These objects are preserved as holy relics. Sometimes the khilafat becomes hereditary. This Chishti house was established by Makhdoom Jehanian Jehangasht, or globe-trotter, who also planted this khirni tree in the last century.
Is this the sanctuary where I can hide my guilt as a deserter?
I have been given a cell in the quadrangle. I have become a khadim of the murshid. I’ll also keep jotting down the murshid’s teachings in my notebook, Insha Allah. I am glad I did not throw it in the river.
Wandering dervishes keep coming and going. They wear patched clothes following the sunnat of the Lord Prophet who, because of his humility and poverty, mended and patched his clothes.
I remember what Champavati had said, that some day these people would rescue me from my delusions . . .
The inmates of the khanqah were not monks since there is no monasticism in Islam. Many of them were householders who came to stay there for a while, and the murshid was also a married man. His family lived in a tiny house attached to the tomb. The Sufis’ was a speech culture, they talked and talked. They spoke about the Prophet and Ali and the great saints, they taught through parables and anecdotes. One of the murids kept taking notes which were then compiled as the murshid’s malfoozat. Kamal read many hagiographies in the khanqah’s library. He was amused to learn in The Malfoozat of Makhdoom Jehanian Jehangasht that after Timur’s invasion, Mongol fashion had become popular in Delhi and the elite had begun sporting Chinese-style pigtails!
As a khadim or “servant” of the pir, Kamal took his turn fanning the Master. He washed the guests’ hands and served them food and sometimes helped in the kitchen. Whenever a disciple was found to suffer from too much ego the murshid appointed him supervisor of the visitors’ shoes. In humility, hospitality and forgiveness the murshid imitated the qualities of the Lord Prophet. The Chishtis also made Hindus their murids—the murshid and the non-Muslim together held a handkerchief in their hands and the murshid made the novice repeat after him: “From now on I will shun evil and lead a life of purity,” after which the new murid was greeted by the congregation and sweets were distributed. He continued to worship in his own way.
One afternoon the murshid held a long discourse explaining the Spaniard Ibn Arabi’s Theophany. Sheikh-ul Akbar, the Sheikh of Sheikhs, Mohiuddin Ibn Arabi, had written one hundred books on metaphysics and metapsychology. He had said that all spiritual experience has its own validity. After the lecture the murshid turned towards Kamal and said, “Go to Kashi and meet Mian Kabir before it’s too late.”
“Sir, a yogi I met on board the ship told me to do the same.”
“I know,” the murshid beamed.
This did not surprise the once sceptical Kamaluddin because clairvoyance or roshan-zamiri, ‘luminous conscience’ as it was called by the Sufis, was not an uncommon psychic phenomenon. Still, he asked a fellow disciple, “Why does the hazrat w
ant me to go to Kashi and meet Kabir Das?”
“That may be one more step in your progress,” the man answered. “Perhaps you are restless because you’ve lost someone. You may find some peace on this journey.”
Kamal took his murshid’s leave, bade goodbye to his new friends and set out once again—now towards Banaras. Walking through many villages he reached a lush forest. There he found a group of Vaishnava sadhavis from Bengal, on their way to Mathura. Sitting under a fragrant tree they were beating time with their cymbals. In the distance, yogis blew into conch-shells. Wild partridges cooed in the bushes, tuneful songs wafted up like incense from the mahua grove. Kamal sat down on the edge of a tank and listened to the sounds of the forest.
He realised he was in the Silence and the sounds he heard were the various reflections of the Silence. He was in the Sufis’ World of Wonderment. This Silence was also the Absolute and he listened attentively. The Vaishnava women were singing the song of Burdwan’s Jaidev Goswami in Raga Basant:
Beautiful Radha . . . all of springtime waited by the woods for Krishna. Krishna the all-forgetful. I know where Krishna tarries in these early days of spring. When every wind from the sandal woods brings fragrance on its wings, brings fragrance stolen from the thickets of cloves. In jungles where the bees hum and the koel flutes her love.
I know how Krishna passeth these hours of blue and gold. He danceth with the dancers, and of Radha thinketh none. See lady! how Krishna passed these idle hours, decked forth in folds of woven gold and crowned in forest flowers; in the company of the gopis who dance and sing and play, lies Krishna laughing, dreaming his Spring away.
Kamal loitered on the woodland paths in the company of swallows and ‘mehri’ birds. Then he came upon the Ganga again, gleaming through the rose-apple trees. He was looking around for Champa, in fact, she could well be one of these Vaishnava women singing the Jaidev song. Radha signified the ecstasy of the soul which has found the true meaning of Love, of which the Iranian mystic-scholar, Ruzbehan, had written—Radha was the human soul yearning to be one with the Divine, what the Sufis called Fana-fi-Allah.
“Champavati of Ayodhya?” said a villager when asked. “After the war she was left all alone. There was nobody to look after her so she joined a band of Vaishnava sanyasins and has gone away to Brindaban. Women without men become nuns, sir, men without women turn into sadhus . . .” he said in a matter-of-fact way and walked on.
Kamal had reached Banaras. There lay Shivpuri on the other side of the river, the spires of its gilded temples blazing in the sun. Myriads of temple bells rang out in unison. The air was heavy with incense, puja flowers lay strewn in narrow lanes; throngs of men and women bathed on the ghats. Kashi, the Eternal City!
There was a Muslim weavers’ hamlet at the edge of the wood. A group of quaint-looking Madari qalandars passed by and Kamal mingled in with a crowd of humble people who were on their way to Mian Kabir’s house.
He stayed in Kashi with the followers of the poet-saint, sang his hymns and heard his discourses. Kabir’s syncretic outlook reminded Kamal of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi who had lived in Turkey two hundred years earlier. They all say the same thing, but it doesn’t help.
Stirring things were happening in Sikander Lodhi’s regime. A child called Nanak was born in Punjab in a Khatri household, destined to found a new syncretic religion. The Muslims called him “Nanak Shah Faqir”. “Shah” and “Sultan” in Sufi vocabulary signified spiritual elevation, faqirs or humble mystics were Kings of the Spiritual World. Like the Catholic mystics of contemporary Europe, the mystics of India were not too popular with the clerics. The pandits and maulvis of Banaras resented Kabir Das and sent petitions to Sultan Sikander to chastise this heretical weaver who was misleading the masses. Sultan Sikander requested Mian Kabir to leave Banaras.
After Kabir Das left Kamal went straight to the river-port and sailed away to Bengal because he wished to meet an eminent mystic of the Suhravardy Order at Chittagong. Kamal had become a wandering dervish. The Suhravardy missionaries had been especially successful among the lower castes of Bengal. Kamal stayed at their khanqah for a few months, then at the behest of the Suhravardy sheikh, set off on his wanderings once again.
17. Folk Singers of Bengal
Everybody seemed to be a singer in Bengal. Storytellers chanted roop-kathas; ferrymen, snake-charmers and elephant-trappers sang their ballads. They sang of Allah, Mohammed or Radha-Krishna. Vaishnavism was flourishing. Kamal rowed his boat from dargah to dargah, also singing. There were dangerous rapids in Chittagong, broad, winding rivers, mountain paths shaded with radhakali and krishnachura blossoms. Mosques and Tantric temples lay hidden in bamboo groves.
Once he came across a band of minstrels singing the Ballad of Nizam the Robber. Kamal had never heard such a strange ode to the Prophet. Its author had been a notorious highway-man of these parts a century ago. He was transformed into a man of peace by the Suhravardy Sufis and ended up as a saint himself. Kamal sat down near the singers and listened.
Had there been no Incarnation of Mohammed,
There would have been no
Kingdom of God in the Three Worlds.
Hail, Hail Abdullah, Hail Blessed
Amina,
Hail the City of Medina, and
All the saints and the Lady Fatima, Mother of the world.
Now I bow down before Brindaban,
Hail Lord Krishna, the Eternal
Lover of sweet Lady Radhey.
My respects to all the sects of the Mussalmans,
I bow down before the mosque of the Great Pir at Naupara
And the mosque of Hirmai to the left;
For the great saint once passed through these tracts.
Now I proceed onwards and arrive at Sita Ghat
Where I worshipfully bow before the ideal of womanly virtues, Sita Debi,
And her Lord Raghunath.
Hail, Hail, Hail . . .
Kamal smiled indulgently. This ode was certainly one of the marvels and strange tales of Hindustan, and he would have mentioned it in his travelogue but he had long stopped writing his diary, and had lost the notebooks during his wanderings.
Abul Mansur Kamaluddin of the Royal Library of Jaunpur had been forgotten. Nobody knew now who this tanned, blue-eyed man with greying hair was, who sat listening to the story of Kanchanmala from a minstrel, or who was penning a local folk-tale in Arabic . . .
He heard the folkore from Muslim village women and visualised many a scene of Bengal’s fascinating Buddhist past, and the glorious days of the Pala and Sena kings. It had been a land of merchant-princes whose peacock-shaped vessels sailed on the great rivers. Right now, multitudes of worshippers of Gautam Buddha, Tara and Durga were being converted by the Sufis.
He married a Sudra girl called Sujata Debi. He couldn’t see anything wrong in her being a “low caste” woman. The local maulvi who married them named her Amina Bibi. Kamal grew paddy on a fertile piece of land. The pond in front of his bamboo hut was covered with lotuses and tiny colourful fish darted over its waters. When the Bow of Indra appeared in the sky after the rains, Kamal sat on his little veranda playing the stringed instrument called ananda lahiri, the Wave of Bliss.
The gypsies or banjaras carried commercial goods from place to place on their bullock-carts. They told Kamal that Sultan Hussain Sharqi had died. What a man he had been, larger then life! He was of the stuff that Julius Caesar was made. Would he be remembered through his music or forgotten even in that, because in this country people do not remember artists’ names? Only their work survives—who was the sculptor who made the ‘Girl with the Kadam Bough’ that Kamal had seen lying in a corner of the burnt-down, ancient house in Shravasti? As for himself, he had already become a nameless puthi and ballad-writer of Bengal. And he had once said that like Maulana Dawood who wrote Chandain, he would be remembered as Maulana Kamal, author of the mystical allegory Champavati! But he never got around to writing it.
His sons, Jamal and Jalal, became architects. Ami
na died. Kamal had a flowing beard. Strands of grey hair fell upon his shoulders as he wrote his Murshidi and Marfati songs, sitting in his picturesque bamboo hut near Sonargaon.
In 1525 there was another upheaval in faraway Dehli. Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi, son of Sikander Lodhi, lost out to the newcomer, Zhiruddin Babur of Central Asia, who had been invited by Rana Sanga, the Rajput, to overthrow the Lodhi king. Kamal’s elder son, Jalal, told him that he was going to Dehli to build for the Mughals. Kamal said nothing. He had roamed the earth and had arrived at his destination; now the world lay before his sons, the choice was theirs.
Sher Khan ousted Sultan Ghiasuddin of Bengal and occupied the throne of Gaur. This Sher Khan of Sahasram, Bihar, had also been educated in the University of Jaunpur and he, too, joined politics and decided to capture power at Dehli. So there was a terrible war between Sher Khan and Humayun, son of Babur.
Now they were called Shahenshahs, Emperors. The rulers of the Islamic world had long adopted all the pomp and splendour and titles of the vanquished Sassanian Shahenshahs of Iran and emperors of Byzantium. So the Mughal ruler was Shahenshah, King of Kings, like Darius who had proclaimed he was Lord of the Earth from Sunrise to Sunset . . .
The mighty Mughal entered Gaur and coins were struck in his august name. The Emperor was bewitched by Bengal and called Gaur, Jannatabad, the City of Paradise.
Then Kamal thought of the long-ago Persian dervish of Dehli with whom he had first come out to Jaunpur. That hermit had told him all about it—the business of change in dynasties’ currencies, and place-names. Kamal had seen it all. He was a Witness. And the Moving Finger wrote on . . .
Within a year Sher Khan invaded Bengal, driving the Great Mughal back to Dehli. A fearful war raged between the Pathan Sher Shah Suri and the Mughals. (Sher Shah later turned out to be a good king, a great builder of highways and public works and an able administrator.) Kamal’s elder son lost his life fighting in the streets of Gaur. One night some of Sher Shah’s soldiers reached Kamal’s hut. “Your architect-son Jamal has gone over to Dehli to join the Mughal government. Traitor! We are taking you to Gaur to cast you in a dungeon.”
River of Fire Page 11
