Hindustani Lyrics

A free download from www.dertz.in

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hindustani Lyrics, by Various
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Hindustani Lyrics
Author: Various
Translator: Inayat Khan and Jessie Westbrook
Release Date: February 7, 2006 [EBook #17711]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HINDUSTANI
LYRICS ***
Produced by Ron Swanson
[Frontispiece: ZAFAR.]
HINDUSTANI LYRICS
RENDERED FROM THE URDU
BY
INAYAT KHAN
AND

JESSIE DUNCAN WESTBROOK
Sufism is the Religious Philosophy of Love, Harmony, and Beauty
LONDON:
THE SUFI PUBLISHING SOCIETY, LTD.,
86,
LADBROKE ROAD, LONDON, W. 11.
All rights reserved.
1919

CONTENTS.
PORTRAIT OF ZAFAR
FOREWORD
URDU LYRICS:--
ABRU
AMIR
ASIF
DAGH
FIGHAN
GHALIB
HALI
HASAN
INSHA
JURAT
MIR
MIR SOZ
MIR TAQI
MOMIN
MUSHAFI
MUZTAR

NASIKH
SAUDA
SHAMSHAD
TABAN
WALI
YAKRANG
ZAFAR
ZAHIR
ZAUQ
FRAGMENTS:--
ARZU
GHALIB
HATIM
MAZHAR
MIR DARD
MIR SOZ
MIR TAQI
SAUDA
TABAN
GLOSSARY

FOREWORD.
Of the many languages of India, Urdu (Hindustani) is the most widely
known, especially in Upper India. Both as a written and a spoken
language it has a reputation throughout Asia for elegance and
expressiveness. Until the time of Muhammad Shah, Indian poetry was
written in Persian. But that monarch, who mounted the throne of Delhi
in 1719, greatly desired to make Urdu the vogue, and under his
patronage and approval, Hatim, one of his ministers, and Wali of the
Deccan, wrote Diwans in Urdu. This patronage of poets was continued
by his successors, and exists indeed to the present day; and the
cultivation of Urdu poetry has always been encouraged at the many
Courts of India. Some of the Indian Rulers are themselves poets, and
find their duty and pleasure in rewarding with gifts and pensions the
literary men whose works they admire. The Court of Hyderabad has for
long had a circle of poets: the late Nizam was himself eminent as a
writer of verse. The Maharaja-Gaekwar of Baroda is a generous patron
of literary men, and the present Rulers of lesser States such as Patiala,
Nabha, Tonk, and Rampur, are deeply interested in the cultivation of
poetry in their Dominions.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many towns in India had
extensive and flourishing literary coteries, and it is from the poets of
that period that this handful of verses is gathered. The Mushaira--a
poetical concourse, wherein rival poets meet to try their skill in a
tournament of verse--is still an institution in India. Delhi, Agra,
Lucknow, Lahore, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, Calcutta, and
Hyderabad, have all been, and some still are, nests of singing birds. Of
the extent of Urdu literature some idea may be gained from the fact that
a History of it written about 1870 gives the names of some three
thousand authors, and that Tazkiras or anthologies containing
selections from many poets are very numerous.
The poetry is very varied and of great interest. It includes moral verses
and counsels, sometimes in intermingled verse and prose; heroic poems
telling the old tales of the loves of Khusru and Shirin, of Yusuf and
Zuleika, of Majnun and Leila, and the romances of chivalry; elegies on

the deaths of Hasan and Hussein, and of various monarchs; devotional
poems in praise of Muhammad and the Imams; eulogies of the reigning
Ruler or other patron or protector of the poor; satires upon men and
institutions, sometimes upon Nature herself, specially upon such
phenomena as heat, cold, inundations and pestilence; descriptive verse
relating to the seasons and the months, the flowers and the trees. Above
all there is a great wealth of love poetry, both secular and mystic, where,
in impassioned ghazals or odes, the union of man with God is
celebrated under various allegories, as the bee and the lotus, the
nightingale and the rose, the moth and the flame.
Most of the poets represented in this book write as Sufis, or Muslim
mystics, and scoff at the unenlightened orthodox. For them God is in all
and through all, to be worshipped equally in the Kaaba and in the
Temple of the Idols, or too great to be adored adequately through the
ritual of any creed. He is symbolized as the beautiful and cruel Beloved,
difficult to find, withdrawn behind the veil, inspiring and demanding all
worship and devotion. The Lover is the Madman, derided by the
unsympathetic crowd, but happy in his ecstatic despair. He drinks the
wine of love and is filled with a divine intoxication. For him this world
is Maya--illusion, and the true life is that which is unmanifest. He finds
no abiding place in this mortal caravan-serai, this shifting House of