Universal Dimensions of Islam Part 13

within which s.h.i.+ne the Attributes of the Almighty.

Their knowledge, their justice, their kindness-

All are stars of heaven reflected in flowing water.

Kings are a locus of manifestation for G.o.d's Kingliness,

The learned a locus for His Knowledge. . . .

Generation upon generation has pa.s.sed, oh friend,

But these Meanings are constant and everlasting.

The water in the stream has changed many times,

But the reflection of the moon and the stars remains the same.20

Whatever we see, for example, of generosity, mercy, or justice among the objects and events of the phenomenal world, is a limited manifestation or pale reflection of G.o.d's celestial, eternal names and attributes "the Generous" (al-karim), "the Merciful" (al-raim), and "the Just" (al-adl). This doctrine of "names and attributes" clearly echoes the above-mentioned notion of multiple forms expressing common esoteric spiritual realities: just as a flower and a gazelle, we might say, though drastically different in appearance, are both partial manifestations of the divine name "the Beautiful" (al-jamil), similarly, Findiriski a.s.serts, Islamic wisdom and the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha, though disparate in form and language, may possess as their content the same celestial "meanings" or spiritual realities.

The last remaining element of the prefatory verses to be discussed is Findiriski's referring to the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha as a "cypress-grove." One use of the cypress tree in cla.s.sical Persian poetry is to "praise without tongue the grace of the water which quickens them," even making of this or that water-body a symbol for the "sweet water of [the Paradisal river] kowthar."21 To call the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha a cypress, then, is to affirm that it draws its life and existence from celestial waters which, as we have already seen, represent the absolute Reality that is the Essence. In this fas.h.i.+on, Findiriski seems to be affirming the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha as an authentically inspired text, a product of nourishment from pure, ineffable Truth. In the world of cla.s.sical Persian poetry, furthermore, "the cypress, sarv . . . is the generally accepted symbol for the slender, elegant stature of the beloved"22; in the more specific case of Sufi poetry, in turn, this cypress-beloved is effortlessly correlated with the Prophet Muammad, as in Rumi's verse, "[the Prophet is the] cypress of the garden of prophethood,"23 or in Sadi's Bustan, "[t]he cypress is not as well shaped as Muammad."24 With Findiriski, in particular-working in an intellectual milieu pervaded by Sufi thinkers and Akbari poets such as Ibn al-Arabi, Jami, Shabistari, Nimat Allah Vali, and Qasim-i Anvar-praise for the Prophet Muammad is closely a.s.sociated with the notion of "the Perfect Man" (al-insan al-kamil). Thus, through mentioning the cypress tree, Findiriski invokes the conception of the Prophet as, among other things, a realized sage and gnostic who has realized in his own being a synthesis of all of G.o.d's names and attributes.25 In light of this, for him to call the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha a cypress and thus a.s.sociate it with the Perfect Man, Muammad, is for him to declare this text a repository of total Truth. Findiriski, however, introduces a peculiar twist into the image by describing, not a single cypress, but rather a cypress-grove, while, according to poetic convention, the cypress "is often called azad, 'free,' because it stands majestically alone."26 Usually there can only be one beloved, who must be unique, but Findiriski, by distinguis.h.i.+ng the one Truth from its multiple manifestations, can make of the solitary cypress a spinney of such trees; the Reality that the soul of the Prophet discloses may have equally profound and complete expression elsewhere27-as, for example, in the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha-without compromising the oneness of the Essence thereby.

To turn now to a sample "application" of the worldview presented in these prefatory verses within the main body of the text, we shall turn to a pa.s.sage towards the end of the Muntakhab-translated at the beginning of this essay28-in which Findiriski aligns a Vasihan pa.s.sage with a ghazal from the Divan of Farid al-Din Aar (d. 1220 CE). Our pa.s.sage begins with a standard Vasihan description of the Absolute: 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. . . . 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.

Ultimate Reality, in short, is beyond all description and transcends all conceptual categories, mysteriously abiding completely and immutably unchanged even through the process of the manifestation of Itself as the phenomenal world. Here we immediately see an echo of the pervasive Sufi conception of creation as G.o.d's self-disclosure of His divine names and attributes, though G.o.d's Essence remains transcendent and entirely unchanged for all eternity. We have already encountered such notions in our discussion of Findiriski's prefatory verses, wherein the formless, transcendent, single Absolute appears in the world in multiple limited forms-forms which simultaneously reveal the Absolute but also veil It, since no temporal, formal ent.i.ty can ever express the ineffable Truth in anything more than a partial, fragmentary manner.

The Vasihan pa.s.sage continues, introducing the image of golden ornaments to help explain the doctrine: The root of all of these appearances is the one Essence of Brahman, just as with ornaments and gold-pieces, such as 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.

The a.n.a.logy in this pa.s.sage emphasizes the fact that the gold of which any given ornament is made is far more enduring than the particular form which the gold adopts in order to appear and exist as that given ornament: insofar as the fact of being, e.g., a "bracelet," refers merely to the physical form of the object, a little heat or hammering could alter the bracelet's shape and thus destroy it; the gold, however, still remains gold throughout the whole process, no matter whether it is made into shattered shards, melted into liquid, recast as an earring or anklet, or whatever else may occur. In the same way, no matter which forms the Absolute may a.s.sume in order to be manifest in the phenomenal world, and whatever may be the fate of those myriad transient forms-whether they be produced, altered, or destroyed-the single Absolute in Itself will remain transcendent and wholly unaffected. Accordingly, while any given phenomenal ent.i.ty in the world is transient and ultimately unreal insofar as it is just a fleeting external form, that ent.i.ty is also essentially identified with the Absolute insofar as its basic being and substance derive from the immutable, imperishable Absolute Being.29 The Vasihan pa.s.sage then continues through invoking another a.n.a.logy, that of the sun and its rays: 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.

As with the image of the golden ornaments, this a.n.a.logy expresses the doctrine of the essential identification of the phenomenal universe with absolute Reality. If the innumerable rays of the sun be likened to the countless ent.i.ties of the phenomenal world, one can see that, as was the case with the golden ornaments, the essential substance and reality of each fleeting individual ray of light (the phenomenal object) is really no different from the sun itself (Absolute Being). No matter what may happen to a given ray during the course of its trajectory-it may be reflected off of a lake, a.s.sume the color of a stained-gla.s.s window, etc.-the sun, the source of that ray, stands aloof in the sky, detached and transcendent, completely unaltered by any apparent transformations. In the same way, the Essence is the source of the whole manifest order, though It never suffers any modification Itself;30 still, the Absolute and Its manifestations are ultimately not distinct, just as every beam of sunlight is essentially no different from the sun.

The Vasihan pa.s.sage then continues with the third a.n.a.logy of the drop and the ocean: when one attains this realization 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." How this a.n.a.logy expresses the same philosophical doctrine as the preceding two is apparent enough: the ocean represents the Absolute, while the drop-a sort of individuation of the ocean-represents the myriad forms of the phenomenal world. The appearance or disappearance of a drop inflicts (virtually) no modification upon the ocean as the whole-a.n.a.logically referring to the immutability of the Absolute despite Its self-disclosures-while the drop, being inescapably made of the same water as the ocean, is essentially non-different from it, despite its fleeting apparent existence in the transient form of a drop-just as any phenomenal form is identified with the Absolute in its essential reality.31 The unique contribution of this a.n.a.logy, however, is that, more so than the previous two, it emphasizes the subjective condition of the realized individual, rather than merely the objective metaphysical state of things. The realized spiritual aspirant is thus himself annihilated in the Absolute Being, having attained true knowledge of the Essence. No doubt Findiriski had in mind at this point of the pa.s.sage the aforementioned Sufi notion of al-insan al-kamil. We shall see why this is significant as we now turn to the Sufi poem that Findiriski chose to align with this Vasihan pa.s.sage.

The ghazal from the Divan-i Aar that Findiriski inserts as his commentary upon this pa.s.sage is as follows32: The eye which is not fixed upon the source-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!

These verses from Aar utilize several of the same images as the Vasihan pa.s.sage-namely, the sun and the ocean-which provides the most immediate justification for Findiriski's inserting it here. To begin with the ocean and the drop, the questionable Muslim of uncertain faith regards them as separate ent.i.ties, which is, of course, the incorrect view; the man of true understanding, on the other hand, sees the ocean and the drop as identified, being one and the same ent.i.ty. Some of Aar's other writings corroborate this message of non-duality as expressed by these images: The man of G.o.d here sees nothing besides G.o.d. . . . He at no time sees anyone other than Him . . . the whole world is the Wors.h.i.+pped One (G.o.d).33 Everything is G.o.d! . . . See this world and the other world in such a way that they are He! Nothing exists besides Him, and if something does exist, then it too is He.34 h.e.l.lmut Ritter explains how Aar uses the image of the drop and the ocean specifically to describe the non-dual vision of Reality, in which the transient, unreal aspect of worldly objects disappears as they become indistinguishable from the Absolute: "In Aar there is also found a cosmic extinction which consists of all things except G.o.d disappearing in G.o.d . . . [as] the world . . . disappears like a drop in the ocean."35 We can also find numerous expressions of this doctrine elsewhere in the Sufi tradition. Annemarie Schimmel lists a few of them: The poets . . . like to speak of the ocean, the billows, the foam, and the drop, which in each instance look different and yet are the same water. Niffari seems to have been the first to use the symbolism of the divine ocean. Ibn Arabi had visualized the divine essence as a large green ocean out of which the fleeting forms emerge like waves, to fall again and disappear in the fathomless depths. Rumi emulated him in many of his poems, which speak of the ocean and G.o.d. But the image is found much earlier: everyone who meditated upon the similarities and differences between G.o.d and the world and wanted to ill.u.s.trate their basic unity and temporal differentiation, would use the image of the ocean.36 Thus, according to Aar (and all of these Sufi authors), the phenomenal universe essentially is G.o.d, the absolute Reality; the transient drop essentially is the abiding ocean. This image of the drop and the ocean in Aar's poem, then, expresses the same doctrine that we observed in the Vasihan pa.s.sage. Similarly, when Aar speaks in this poem of seeing everything as the "one sun," he again echoes this notion: when the poet looks upon anything in the universe, he only sees the sun (i.e., G.o.d, the Absolute). Once again, his true vision perceives that the phenomenal world essentially is the absolute Reality.

A notable difference emerges, however, with the image of the stone and the gem, which is absent in the Vasihan material but present in Aar's ghazal. In the ghazal, disbelief-a state in which one mistakenly views the drop and the ocean as distinct-is likened to a stone, while correct faith-a state in which the drop and the ocean are seen as one-is likened to a gem. Schimmel writes that many Sufi authors, influenced by "an old Oriental belief that stones can be changed by the light of the sun into rubies,"37 depict in their poetry a process in which a "ruby is created from coa.r.s.e rock by the transforming rays of the sun, as the heart . . . after much suffering and patience, may be transformed . . . into a valuable and beautiful material."38 The sunlight, of course, represents the "the activity of the Beloved," the transformative grace and power of G.o.d that remolds the spiritual seeker.39 Thus, in Aar's poem, the "one sun" s.h.i.+nes upon the stone and changes it into a gem, i.e., G.o.d extends His grace to the aspirant and transforms his heart for the better, in this case, teaching him to see the universe as it truly is.

Thus, with the inclusion of this theme of the transformation of the heart toward faith, Aar expresses a theme that can only vaguely be seen in this Vasihan pa.s.sage through the notion of Brahma-jnana ("knowledge of Brahman/the Absolute"). The difference only becomes sharper with the explicit mentioning of the word "Muslim," which, of course, has more universal meanings even in the Quran-various pre-Muammadan prophets, for example, are called "Muslims"-but inevitably carries along with it, at the very least, overtones of the more usual definitions, e.g., one who prays the canonical prayers (alah), pays the alms-tax (zakah), believes Muammad is the messenger of G.o.d, etc. In the context of this poem especially, where the word "Muslim" is a.s.sociated with he who has a correct recognition of the divine unity that pervades the universe, one immediately thinks of the distinctive, characteristic Islamic notion of tawid (oneness of G.o.d) and the condemnation of s.h.i.+rk (a.s.sociation of partners with G.o.d).40 We have already seen above, however, that Findiriski does not mean to shy away from religious particularity: to his mind, tawid and the Vasihan perspective are fully reconcilable in the transcendent realm of esoteric principles, despite their undeniably disparate articulations and formulations in the here-below. The mere fact that the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha does not mention "stone," "gem," and "Muslim" does not at all compromise Findiriski's vision; what is significant is that, to his mind, these disparate forms all point to common esoteric realities.

It is possible, furthermore, that the image of the stone and the gem may be a reference to the Prophet Muammad, who, in much of Islamic literature, is said to be like a gem among the stones that are regular human beings.41 If Aar did intend this reference, then this poem takes on another level of meaning: to be transformed and attain to the gem of faith is to emulate the particular soul of Muammad, the Prophet of the Islamic faith. Such an interpretation provides an even stronger connection between this Sufi selection and the religion of Islam specifically, as opposed to the "Hindu" or "Vasihan" tradition of which the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha is a part. While there is evidently much in the person of Muammad that would seem, apparently, foreign to the Vasihan universe, we have already seen Findiriski's a.s.sertion in his preface-by way of the cypress-grove-that al-insan al-kamil, being a single principial reality, can take multiple manifestations which, at the level of the here-below, will surely appear disparate in numerous respects. Once again, I would argue, Findiriski's metaphysical vision allows him to embrace religious particularity in this world in light of correspondence and unity in the realm of transcendent, esoteric principles. Even though the Prophet Muammad and the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha are two "beings" with more disparate characteristics and qualities than could ever be listed, it is nevertheless fully possible that they may both be sound repositories for the total Truth.

While a more "foolish" or "exoteric" individual might demand that Findiriski, to demonstrate his point, should find a Sufi pa.s.sage to line up with every single sentence and image of the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha, Findiriski is not interested in convincing such individuals. Rather, he is content to indicate the universal esoteric principles to which, in his mind, all of these images and expressions mutually point. Findiriski seems to believe, furthermore, that a person of esoteric insight too would be satisfied with just that much.

Footnotes

1 That is, Sanskrit.

2 "Gudhasht" can also have the meaning of "other than" or "besides." This reading would leave open the possibility that Findiriski intends to affirm an absolute equality of status between the Quran/Hadith and the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha, rather than retaining the former as somehow superior (as one would more commonly expect from a Muslim author). In either case, Findiriski's considerable appreciation for the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha is quite evident. On this and other points, I am guided by the critical edition and study of the text by Fatullah Mojtaba'i in his Muntakhab-i Jug Basasht (Tehran: Mu'a.s.sa.s.sah-i Pizhuhis.h.i.+-i ikmat va Falsafah-i ran, 2006).

3 Literally, "does not attach [to anything] except to the apparent form in it," which effectively means "attaches only to its apparent form."

4 Literally, "he laughs at his own beard."

5 Literally, "of the type of." Since Findiriski was primarily trained as a philosopher, the mention of the term "jins" ("type" or "genus") is probably deliberate, the idea being that the genus or "philosophical category" itself is fleeting, while the "categorized Object"-which ultimately transcends all categories-endures eternally. See, for example, Abd al-Raman al-Jami's (d. 1492) multifaceted and subtle exploration of this theme in his Lawa'i (Flashes of Light).

6 The word is "al," the same term that I have translated as "root" in the prose section above. The translation of al as "root" expresses the idea of origin or source while simultaneously implying that the product is somehow continuous with, of the same essence as, and principially contained in that source, which is Findiriski's main point here. As for the poem, however, the translation of "root" would sound somewhat odd in the context of a drop springing from the ocean, so I have opted for "source" instead.

7 Along with Mir Damad and Shaykh Baha'i. Findiriski was most renowned for his knowledge and teaching of the Peripatetic (mashsha'i) philosophy of Ibn Sina.

8 The Yoga-Vasiha takes the form of a dialogue between the Hindu epic hero Rama and the famous Indian sage, Vasiha. In over 29,000 Sanskrit verses, Vasiha instructs Rama, through stories and didactic discussion, on the nature of reality, realization, and enlightened life in the world. The date of composition of the Yoga-Vasiha-as well as its abridged version, the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha-has been the locus of much debate among scholars, who place the text from anywhere between the sixth and fourteenth centuries CE.

9 In this period alone, Muslim intellectuals in India had produced no fewer than ten works relating to the Yoga-Vasiha. Even Prince Salim, the soon-to-be emperor Jahangir, once remarked that the Yoga-Vasiha "contains Sufism (taawwuf) and provides commentary on realities, diverse morals, and remarkable advice" (Carl W. Ernst, "Muslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconsideration of Persian and Arabic Translations from Sanskrit", IranianStudies 36 (2003): p. 185).

10 Findiriski cites, among others, Farid al-Din Aar (d. 1220), Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), Mamud Shabistari (d. 1320), Rukn al-Din Awadi (d. 1337), Muammad Shams al-Din afi (d. 1389), Nimat Allah Vali (d. 1431), and Qasim-i Anvar (d. 1433).

11 Though philosophically very akin to the perspective of Advaita-Vedanta, the Yoga-Vasiha belongs to its own text-tradition and is thus historically distinct from the former. Nevertheless, it is clear that the two traditions were in close contact historically, exerting influence over one another at various levels.

12 See note 2 above, and note Findiriski's comments in another of his works, the Risalah-i anaiyyah: "all the Greek philosophers before Aristotle were saying the same thing in different languages . . . if one is instructed in the secrets (rumuz) of ikmat, Hindu wisdom, and the Theology of Aristotle (i.e., the Arabic edition of Plotinus' Enneads), all the different expressions will have the same meaning for him" (Seyyed Hossein Nasr "The School of Ipahan", A History of Muslim Philosophy, edited by M.M. Sharif [Wiesbaden: Otto Harra.s.sowitz, 1966], vol. 2, p. 925).

13 No doubt included among these "ignorant fools" were the dogmatic s.h.i.+ jurists who, back west in Findiriski's homeland of afavid Persia, were repressing and persecuting philosophers and mystics like himself. Such conditions may help explain why Findiriski chose to be so allusive in this "commentary," rather than plainly expressing his views.

14 These notions of exoteric forms manifesting or expressing the higher, universal esoteric principles to which they are ontologically connected, as well as the "fools" of limited vision who mistake those forms for the essence, are echoed in various of Findiriski's other compositions, particularly in his famous qaidah (translated by Nasr): "Whatever is there above has below it a form. The form below, if by the ladder of gnosis, is trodden upward, becomes the same as its principle. No outward apprehension can understand this saying . . . whatever is an accident must first have a substance. . . . Only he who is wise can discover the meaning of these mysteries. . . . In this world and the next, with the world and without it, we can say all these of Him, yet He is above all that. . . . The jewel is hidden in the mysteries of the ancient sages...Pa.s.s beyond these words...How good it would be if the sages before us had said everything completely, so that the opposition of those who are not complete would be removed" (Nasr, "The School of Ipahan", p. 923). Such a.s.sertions also recall, for example, Rumi's rendition of the famous story of the elephant in the dark room in the Mathnavi.

15 See note 3 above.

16 Again, Findiriski was a trained philosopher who did not use words lightly. To provide a more simple example, we can compare the sentence "he is a fool because he eats apples" with the sentence "he is a fool because he eats only apples." In the first sentence, the very act of eating apples is deemed foolish, which implies that apples are bad. In the second sentence, in contrast, it is the act of eating only apples that is shunned, which does not vilify apples per se, but rather, simply suggests that a person should eat other things along with apples.

17 Looking back at a line from Findiriski's aforementioned qaidah-"the form below, if by the ladder of gnosis, is trodden upward, becomes the same as the principle"-we see that, in Findiriski's view, the external form is necessary as the basis and starting point from which the aspirant may "climb" to gain access to the corresponding esoteric principles. Thus, even if apparent forms cannot fully describe absolute Truth, a person nevertheless needs them in order ultimately to know the Truth.

18 See, for example, the various works of Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), who, Annemarie Schimmel writes, often discusses "'the ocean of inner meaning' and the external world . . . Rumi uses the image of the foam on the sea to express this very idea . . . [as] the ocean is hidden behind this veil of foam" (The Triumphal Sun: A Study of theWorks of Jalaloddin Rumi [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993], p. 77). Elsewhere, Rumi, as well as other Sufi poets such as Ibn al-Arabi, speak of water which has been frozen in the form of ice or snow, requiring the warmth of the sun (i.e., the transformative grace of G.o.d) to escape from the limiting cage of its frozen form (see Schimmel, Triumphal Sun, pp. 80-81).

19 "[In Rumi's poetry,] outward manifestations and all forms visible to the eyes are nothing but straw and chaff which cover the surface of this divine sea . . . the outward material forms are always conceived as something . . . which hides the fathomless depths of this ocean" (Schimmel, Triumphal Sun, p.77).

20 Mathnavi, VI:3172-78, quoted in William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), p. 43.

21 Schimmel, Triumphal Sun, pp. 83, 89.

22 Annemarie Schimmel, A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), p. 164.

23 Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), p. 203.

24 Annemarie Schimmel, As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 286 (Bustan, p. 5). Here Sadi is utilizing a trope in which, when the true beloved "enters the garden, the real cypress becomes crooked and bends from envy," for it cannot compare with the real beloved, Muammad (Schimmel, Two-Colored Brocade, p. 164).

25 "Ibn al-Arabi makes the clearest connection between the full manifestation of wujud [Being] and the human role in the cosmos in his famous doctrine of the 'perfect man' (al-insan al-kamil), the complete and total human being who has actualized all the potentialities latent in the form of G.o.d. . . . They act as the Real's representatives in society, leading people to supreme happiness in the next world. In their human manifestations they are found as the prophets and the great friends of G.o.d . . . only through them does He manifest the totality of His attributes-in them alone doeswujud reach its full unfoldment. No creature other than a perfect human being possesses the requisite preparedness to display all G.o.d's attributes" (William C. Chittick, Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-'Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994], p. 23).

26 Schimmel, Two-Colored Brocade, p. 164.

27 In the thought of Ibn al-Arabi, at least, not all "perfect beings" are created equal, as some are more perfect than others in respect of being a more balanced, harmonious synthesis (see Chittick, Imaginal Worlds, pp. 8-9, 23). Given the paucity of Findiriski's words in the Muntakhab, however, we simply cannot be certain whether he perceives a hierarchy, or rather a stricter equality, between Islamic and Vasihan wisdom.

28 This Persian pa.s.sage corresponds to a section about halfway through the Nirvaa-prakaraa ("Book of Extinction"), the sixth and final book of the original Sanskrit Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha (see Gaua Abhinanda, Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha [Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1937]). It is unfortunately beyond the scope of this essay to discuss the nature and quality of the Persian translation from the original Sanskrit.

29 As is stated elsewhere in the larger Sanskrit Yoga-Vasiha (III, 61: 3-5): "only the infinite consciousness or Brahman exists. Just as there is no division between a bracelet and gold . . . [so] there is no division between the universe and the infinite consciousness. The latter alone is the universe; the universe as such is not the infinite consciousness, just as the bracelet is made of gold but gold is not made of bracelet" (quoted in Swami Venkatesananda (tr.), Vasiha's Yoga [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993], p. 87) [more literally: "just as the quality of being a bracelet is not distinct from the gold (itself) . . . in the same way, the universe is not distinct from G.o.d. G.o.d is the universe, though the universe is not (inherent) in G.o.d; the gold is the bracelet-state, though the bracelet-state is not (inherent) in the gold"]. The Absolute is the only reality; It alone exists. Therefore, the universe, insofar as it actually exists, is Brahman and, insofar as it merely consists of fleeting forms, is transient and unreal.

30 The wider Indian intellectual tradition makes frequent use of this image to ill.u.s.trate this point. akaracarya, for example, writing in the Advaita-Vedanta tradition, a.s.serts that "Brahman [the Absolute], like the sun, appears to be affected when the nature of the reflecting medium changes-when, for example, it becomes dirty and the light becomes pallid-but neither Brahman nor the sun are really affected" (Potter's paraphrase of akara'sBrahmasutrabhaya, III.2.11 21, in Karl H. Potter (ed.), Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Advaita Vedanta up to akara and His Pupils [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981], vol. 3, p. 85). The following line from Findiriski's qaidah is also interesting in this regard: "The sun is itself light and s.h.i.+nes upon all things while keeping its unity" (Nasr, "The School of Ipahan", p. 923).

31 This notion directly echoes the "in the world like water" imagery of Findiriski's prefatory verses. B. L. Atreya summarizes the c.u.mulative message of the a.n.a.logies in this pa.s.sage of the Laghu-Yoga-Vasiha: "One form may be separate from another form as such, but they can never be separate and distinct from the Reality of which it is a form. An ornament of gold is never separate from gold with which it is ever one and identical. Bubbles, ripples, waves, etc., are never different from water of which they are forms, and abstracted from which they will cease to be anything at all. Everything, in the same way, in this universe . . . is identical with the Reality. . . . Everything in this universe, thus, isBrahman" (Yogavasistha and Its Philosophy [Moradabad: Darshana Printers, 1966], p. 45).

32 This poem is part of a larger ghazal ent.i.tled Har gada'i mard-i sulan kay shavad.

33 Maniq al-ayr (The Conference of the Birds), p. 147, verses 3690-93, quoted in h.e.l.lmut Ritter, The Ocean of the Soul: Man, the World and G.o.d in the Stories of Farid al-Din Aar, translated by John O'Kane, edited by Bernd Radtke (Boston: Brill, 2003), p. 591.

34 Maniq al-ayr, p. 3, verses 52-54, quoted in Ritter, Ocean of the Soul, p. 625.

35 Ritter, Ocean of the Soul, p. 631.