The Scented Garden

Introduction 13 This being understood, it may be granted with- out further discussion that the intelligent study of the Bagh-i-muattar will yield deeper knowledge — the husks for the scholar, the wheat for the elect — than any other known poem. Now the revealing of one is the revealing of all : for from Fez to Nikko, there is one mysticism and not two. The fanatic followers of el Senussi can suck the pious honey from the obscene Aphor- isms of Kwaw, and the twelve Buddhist sects of Japan would perfectly understand the inarticulate yells of the fire-eaters of el Maghraby. Not that there is or has ever been a common religious tradi- tion ; but for the very much simpler reason that all the traditions are based on the same set of facts. Just as the festivals of Spring all the world round more or less suggest the story of the Cruci- fixion and Resurrection, simply because the actual phenomena which every man is bound to observe in Nature are essentially the same in every clime : so also is Mysticism One, because the phy- siological constitution of mankind is practically identical the wide world over. We have then the right to buy our pigs in the cheapest market, and the Bagh-i-muattar will cer- tainly give us more reward for our trouble than any other work, the only possible competitors being the Bhagavad-gita, Bhagavad Purana,3 and the Chi- nese Aphorisms of Kwaw. El Haji then earns our gratitude in that he has adopted the principle ‘ One mystic grace one symbol ’ ; and if he have but the wit to interpret this simple cipher, the whole secret of the East is open to our eyes. In the notes (which I have by no means stinted) I have indicated clearly to what each allusion refers ; and it is within the capacity of any reader of ordinary intelligence to erect a complete system of philosophy, practical and transcendental, on these sound if slender foundations. True, Abdullah approaches Calvin