Universal Dimensions of Islam Part 12

The things are not obstructed by the guises,

and humans are not burdened by desire.

The subtle meaning of each is disclosed

and thereby the Root Suchness is seen.

In the beginning was the True Principle

and now is the True Guise.

When the True Being is seen as Guise,

the seed and fruit are complete.6

Footnotes

1 On the Huiru, see the study by Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005).

2 Sachiko Murata, William C. Chittick, and Tu Weiming, The Sage Learning of Liu Zhi: Islamic Thought in Confucian Terms (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009), p. 94.

3 Ibid., p. 93.

4 For a detailed response to this objection, see Chapter 2 of the introduction to Sage Learning.

5 Sage Learning, p. 108.

6 Ibid., pp. 150-52.

Images of Divine Unity and Religious Diversity:

A Selection from Mir Findiriski's Commentary

on the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha

Shankar Nair Mir Findiriski's Prefatory Verses He is G.o.d most high, whose nature is exalted.

Selections from the Yoga-Vasiha, which the master of the wise, Mir Abu alQasim Findiriski (may G.o.d's mercy be upon him), has translated from the Indian language1 into simple Persian and in the description of which he has written: This discourse in the world is like water,

Like the Quran, pure and increasing knowledge.

Since, after2 the Quran and Hadith,

No one has sayings of this kind,

An ignorant one who has heard these discourses

Or has seen this subtle cypress-grove,

Attaches only to its apparent form;3

Thus he makes a fool of himself.4

Translation of a Sample Pa.s.sage from the Text The whole world is the manifestation of that Being and Reality and is found in It, which has no beginning, end, or middle, which is not born nor dies, into which change and transformation have no access. Having given s.p.a.ce in your heart for this belief concerning It, repose at peace!

Know that all these variegated creations and determined forms which come into sight, innumerable and without limit, are all [just] occasions for the appearance of the Essence and manifestations of Absolute Being. The root of all of these appearances is the one Essence of Brahman, just as with ornaments and gold-pieces, such as5 bracelets, earrings, anklets, and rings, etc., each of which has [its own] distinct determination and form: the root of all of those ornaments is the one essence of gold, which remains the very same gold even after those forms are shattered. Or just as, upon the rising of the exalted sun, thousands upon thousands of scattering beams, radiance, and rays can be seen: [still] the root of all those limitless and endless beams and lights is the one essence of the exalted sun.

When someone attains Brahma-jnana ("knowledge of Brahman") and arrives at complete knowledge of the Essence, his vision becomes effaced and he becomes annihilated in the Essence, like a drop which falls into the sea and becomes the sea.

Shaykh Aar:

The eye which is not fixed upon the source6-the ocean-

Is fixed upon the drop; how can [such a man] be Muslim?

So long as the drop and the ocean do not become one,

How can the stone of your unbelief become the gem of faith?

I see everything as the one sun,

But I don't know how it will s.h.i.+ne upon you!

At some point during his extensive travels through India, the Muslim philosopher-mystic Mir Abu al-Qasim Findiriski (d. 1640/41 CE)-considered to be one of the three great philosophical masters of the "School of Ifahan" in his day7-came across Niam al-Din Panipati's recent Persian translation of Gaua Abhinanda's Hindu Sanskrit work, the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha.8 Perhaps spurred on by the considerable interest in this Sanskrit text exhibited by numerous members of the Mughal court,9 Findiriski decided to read and compose a sort of "commentary" on it: extracting and editing several prose portions from Panipati's translation, Findiriski then aligned with them various selections from the corpus of cla.s.sical Persian Sufi poetry without penning a single word of his own, thus leaving his juxtapositions to speak for themselves.10 The only words in this text-ent.i.tled Muntakhab-i Jug Basisht or "Selections from the Yoga-Vasiha"-that Findiriski himself wrote are four prefatory verses in which, as we shall see, he affirms the esoteric concordance between Islamic and Hindu Vasihan11 wisdom, despite their very real differences on the level of formal exoteric reality. Though the history, indeed the very existence, of such a text as this could shed considerable light upon the political and social conditions of pre-modern South Asia, for the purposes of this essay we shall focus on deciphering its content: what exactly is the worldview that Findiriski expresses in this commentary, leading him to manifest such high praise for this "non-Islamic" text of the Hindus, composed by a man, Abhinanda, who has no temporal link whatsoever with the Prophet Muammad or to the Islamic revelation? To this end, we shall examine Findiriski's prefatory verses, and then bring our findings to bear upon a sample juxtaposition from the main body of the Muntakhab.

To begin with Findiriski's prefatory verses, since these are the only explicit words of his own that we have in the entire text, it is worthwhile to dwell on them at length and to derive from them as much information as possible. Findiriski's praise for the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha is immediately apparent from his characterization of it as "pure" and "increasing knowledge"; the fact that he compares its purity and wisdom to the Quran, however, is particularly noteworthy. As a venerated Muslim scholar for whom the Quran is the revealed word of G.o.d and, presumably, the supreme source of spiritual knowledge, Findiriski certainly would not declare any similarity between it and any other text unless he held that text in very high regard. But Findiriski's praise does not end there: "after the Quran and Hadith, no one has sayings of this kind." Here the philosopher boldly a.s.serts that, among all the words spoken in all the world, the Quran, Hadith, and Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha should be grouped together in the highest category and a.s.sociated with nothing else-granted, one should allow a certain leeway for poetic hyperbole, but the considerable approbation is patent nevertheless.12 Thus, simply stated, in the opinion of Mir Findiriski, the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha is quite special in that it reveals and permits the spiritual aspirant to plumb the profound depths of Truth as no other text can, save the revered Quran and Hadith.

In the latter half of the prefatory verses, Findiriski sets up a distinction between exoteric and esoteric knowledge. The "ignorant one" is characterized as one who adheres only to the "apparent form," which, in this context, most immediately refers to words and ideas read at a more literal or superficial level. The "ignorant one" sees and hears the words, but, since they are "subtle," he gets caught up in their apparent meaning while missing the more essential, esoteric import that underlies these external forms. By neglecting this esoteric dimension thus, the ignorant exoterists "make fools of themselves," for they think they understand the meaning when, really, they have missed the deeper point.13 Accordingly, when one examines the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha alongside the Quran and Hadith, the apparent differences are too numerous to mention: the images, language, formulations, teachings, injunctions, rhetoric, etc., are evidently disparate. But Findiriski here posits a distinction between exoteric and esoteric knowledge, according to which he can a.s.sert that the Quran/Hadith and Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha are similar precisely because they correspond in their esoteric dimensions, despite the fact that the apparent content is so different between them. The caveat, of course, is that the "ignorant exoterists" will not be able to discern this esoteric correspondence.14 We must take care to note, however, that the ignorant ones are fools not because they adhere to the external form, but rather, because they adhere only to the external form-that is, while ignoring the esoteric dimension. I would argue that the word "only"15 is highly significant in this context, for its inclusion suggests that, for Findiriski, the apparent, external form may yet have some role to play: someone may be a fool for regarding and following the external form only, but this does not mean that the wise man throws out the external form entirely. Rather, Findiriski seems to want to say that one should take both the esoteric and exoteric meanings into consideration simultaneously, else he would simply have equated ignorance with adherence to external form pure and simple-without the word "only"-and thus shunned external form entirely.16 If this interpretation is correct, then, for Findiriski, the apparent differences between the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha and the Quran/Hadith (which, presumably, encompa.s.ses Sufi wisdom as well) are not insignificant, and, accordingly, should be taken seriously at some level. Thus, in these prefatory verses, a two-part vision emerges: Findiriski suggests that there exist certain esoteric principles hidden amidst these divergent external forms, and that it is in the realm of these esoteric principles that the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha and the Quran/Hadith coincide; at the same time, however, we are not to ignore these apparent divergences. Rather, Findiriski wants us to recognize these distinctions on their own formal level of reality.17 This notion of the simultaneous existence of exoteric forms (urat) and esoteric meaning (mana) may help us to interpret Findiriski's image of the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha being a "discourse in the world like water." According to common Persian mystical-literary convention, water is often used as a symbol for truth, reality, or essence (haqiqat, dhat), which, like water, can adopt many different appearances and forms. Thus, the particular shapes that the water adopts refers to the external forms of the world, while the essentially formless water itself refers to the esoteric truth that lies hidden within those external forms.18 Other Persian works identify the external forms of the world with the debris that covers and hides the underlying ocean (i.e., formless, esoteric reality).19 In the same manner, it is possible that Findiriski's phrase "in the world" might correspond to the idea of "exoteric form," while the phrase "like water" suggests the idea that these apparent forms contain hidden esoteric realities, though those esoteric realities, necessarily, must adopt particular forms in order to exist in the world. In this fas.h.i.+on, the water imagery of these prefatory verses may serve to emphasize Findiriski's notion of the distinction between the exoteric and esoteric dimensions of Islamic and Vasihan wisdom: esoteric principles (i.e., the water) are always essentially the same, though those principles may be expressed by different words and forms in different places and contexts, just as water sometimes appears as ice, sometimes as snow, and sometimes as a river; Islamic and Vasihan literature will inevitably differ in language, sound, appearance, injunctions, rhetoric, and even apparent content, but there exist common esoteric realities to which such divergent elements mutually point.

An example from Rumi's Mathnavi may help us to ill.u.s.trate this preceding theme (bearing in mind that the water-imagery employed in this poem is different from that described above): Consider the creatures as pure and limpid water,