Amir Khusrau Website: Hindvi poetry

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Home Khusrau's Hindvi Poetry

Basant
An Academic Riddle?
Bibliography
Chronology
Yousuf Saeed
Dohay
Dosukhnay Whether Khusrau composed any poetry in
Farsi poetry Hindi or not, and whether the riddles and
Hindi poetry other dohas ascribed to him are his or not, is
Keh a debate that may have begun in nineteenth
mukarni century when scholars started collecting and
Legends compiling Khusrau​s poetry. So far no
links authentic document containing Khusrau​s
Qawwalis Hindvi poetry has been found which would
Resources date back to earlier than 18th century AD,
Riddles unlike those containing his Persian works
Your which are as old as 500 years or even older.
feedback Though Khusrau himself has mentioned at
Guestbook many places in his Persian books that he
loves writing in Hindvi and has dispensed
with such works (of Hindvi poetry) amongst
his friends, he himself probably didn​t bother
to preserve them in any written form.

So where did this huge body of Hindvi verse

come to us from? Khusrau's pahelis (riddles),
dohas (couplets) and geets (songs) seem to
have been orally transferred from
generation to generation by Qawwals,
mirasees (professional singers), bhands
(stage performers), women-folk who were
employed by aristocratic families to look
after children and perform other daily
chores, and of course the family members
themselves. These verses have gone through
much alterations and additions over the
years - in many cases transformed entirely
from the original in language and content.
But the original spirit of playfulness,
celebration, and surprise still remains.

Ek thaal motiyon se bhara, sab ke sir par

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 ondha dhara,
Chaaron oar woh thaali phiray, moti us say
ek na girey.

One of the most prolific genres that Amir

Khusrau is ascribed to have composed is
Paheli (riddle). Pahelis are short pieces of
verse with usually two or four lines in rhyme,
using an array of similes, analogies and
other symbols in a clever, tongue-and-cheek
play of words to conceal their meanings or
answer.

Pahelis used to be, and still are a part of

grandma​s story telling sessions and many
games played by children. Apart from the
challenge they put to human mind, what
makes Pahelis popular is their element of
interpersonal communication, and flexibility
of poetic form. Though many Urdu / Hindi
children​s magazines still publish them, the
interactive fun-sessions of Paheli-solving may
be a thing of the past now.

In Sanskrit they were called Prahelika.

Classical Sanskrit scholars have argued
whether Paheli could be considered a
serious literary form - Amar Kosh praises it,
while Bhama in his Kaavya Alankar argues
whether it should be given any place in
Literature. Dandi describes sixteen types of
Pahelis, and suggests that it should not have
more than two to four lines each. He also
cautions that romantic themes should be
avoided in this genre, since it is fit only as a
mental exercise. Another scholar Vishwanath,
while mentioning Paheli in the list of literary
genres, talks of its poetical limitations. This
elitist attitude in Sanskrit was probably
responsible for a general decline of Paheli
tradition in classical literature. Though these
must have existed in other folk languages
such as Pali or Prakrits of India in 12th/13th
century, but very little evidence of the same
is available.

Amir Khusrau who had a special attachment

with the common folk and their language of
expression, may have started using this
genre in his playful interaction with the
people. In the present version of his riddles
he seems to have toyed with words of Braj,
Haryanvi and Khadi boli, blended a few
phrases of Persian with some expressions of
Sanskrit. The result was an endless number
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of playful riddles (some known as Keh
Mukarnis, Dosukhnay and chaubolay etc.) in
what he called Hindvi. Here are some
examples:

Keh mukarni (literally meaning say-and-

deny)

Jab woh moray mandir aaway, sotay mujhko

aan jagaway;
Padhat phirat woh birah ke achchar, Aye
sakhi sajan? Na sakhi machchar!
(Whenever he visits my place, wakes me up
from the sleep,
he sings the song of separation; is it the
beloved, oh friend? No, its mosquito.)

Another Paheli:

Ek kahani main kahun,

Tu sunlay meray poot;
Bina paron ke ud gayee,
Woh baandh galay mein soot.
(Let me ask a riddle,
Listen, oh my son;
She flew without wings,
with a thread in her neck.)

Though the idea in Khusrau​s riddles is not

just brain-teasing or fun and games. These
Pahelis were first of all, fine examples of
poetry in a newly emerging language, and
furthermore, they contained messages of
mystical love, and a history of peoples​
lifestyle and culture. Very often, the imagery
he uses in his Pahelis seem laden with
symbolism. Some scholars have tried to
trace his imagery to the contemporary
traditions of Nath Panthis, Jogis and other
mystic sects. One author, Mujib Rizvi, has
even pointed out that through these Hindvi
couplets, Khusrau may have tried to
interpret to the common people the
complex mystical teachings of his guru
Nizamuddin Aulia. Rizvi's Urdu book
Khusrau Nama discusses this hypothesis by
giving many examples.

The supporters of his Hindvi poetry have

also argued that Khusrau himself mentioned
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his love and pride of Hindvi language in
preface to one of his Persian divans Ghurrat-
ul-Kamal. Interestingly one may find in his
authentic books, many Persian couplets that
have Hindvi words in them ​ not just simple
nouns, but actual phrases ​ most of them very
cleverly having meanings both in Persian
and Hindvi. Here is a famous example :

Raftam ba tamaasha-e kanar-e ju-e,

Deedam balab-e aab zan-e hindoo-e;
Guftam sanama baha-e zulfat chi bu-ad?
Faryaad bar aavurd ke dur dur muye.

(I went to enjoy the beauty of the river-side

and saw an Indian lady at the ghat. ​Oh, idol
of mine,​ said I, ​what is the price of your
tresses?​ and she replied, dur dur muye- ​go
away you wretch​ (so in Hindi) or ​every single
hair of mine has pearls in it​ (so in Persian).
(dur dur muye is a popular abusive word still
found in much of north India)

There are many similar examples which

show that Khusrau knew Hindvi to the extent
of composing in it. Some less reliable
sources claim that his Hindvi Kalaam was
numbered between four and five lakh
couplets. Unfortunately, none of it could be
preserved in original manuscripts. Only
lately - towards the end of 19th century -
some of his Hindvi Pahelis, Mukarnis and
Dohas etc. were collected from oral
traditions and published in Urdu and Hindi.
But even these, the scholars claim, contain
an extremely modern form of Hindi.

In a recent development, a set of

manuscripts belonging to the 18th century
royal library of Awadh (Topkhana library),
containing about 150 of his Pahelis has been
made available in the Berlin State Library
(Staatsbibliothek), Germany. In this case,
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Alois Sprenger, the German scholar, who
carried the manuscript from Lucknow in
1752, claims that ​nine-tenths of these
riddles ascribed to Khusrau could be of very
recent origin​ (Gopi Chand Narang, 1992).
This may illustrate as to how much had
Khusrau's heritage been magnified over the
years. The reason why people could use his
poetry as a cultural mode, may be an
interactive, open-ended structure of these
forms. One can always put new words and
imagery into the previously existing
structures or skeletons of these couplets, as
has happened over the years. Bhartendu
Harish Chandra (19th century) composed
some modern Keh-mukarnis on Khusrau
formulae:

Teen bulaye terah aaway,

Nij nij bipta roye sunaway;
Aankhon phootay bhara na payt,
Kyon sakhi sajan? Nahin, Graduate!

(Invite three, will come thirteen;

Each telling his tale.
Sunken eyes, underfed. (Guess who?)
Well, is it the beloved, oh friend? No, a
graduate.)

It is true that the poetry of most classical

Hindi poets such as Kabir, Mirabai, Surdas,
Dadu, Rahim and others has come to us
through the oral tradition. There are almost
no written documents available except
maybe some circumstantial evidences. While
Khusrau​s Persian divans may be preserved
in museums and libraries, his Hindvi Lorees
(lullabies), Pahelis, Dohas and geets have
been retained by the common folk and orally
transferred from one generation to another,
of course with the possibility of some of the
contents being lost, transformed or even
enriched by these people from time to time,
and place to place.

But more than seven hundred years after,

Khusrau​s Hindvi heritage still requires
proper documentation, greater appreciation
and wider popularity. It is a mine of
information that could - with a better
analysis and interpretation - provide clues to
our complex cultural and historical
processes.

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The riddle at the beginning of this article
means: "Its a giant saucer full of pearls, kept
upside down on everyone's head; In all four
corners the saucer moves - not a single pearl
ever falling down".
Could you guess it? Yes, the sky full of stars.
Try some more of Khusrau's fascinating
Hindvi Pahelis and Dosukhnay?

Poetry in Devanagri scriptEvolution of

Hindvi: Turkish Influence

Yousuf Saeed, 2001-2003

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