1910 · PDF PAGE 9
The Scented Garden
INTRODUCTION
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Page 1 of 11910 · PDF PAGE 13
The Scented Garden
Introduction 5 that first letter of the first ode was Aleph, the second of the second Ba, the third of the third Jim, and so on ! I take great credit to myself for the fact that with only six transpositions my provisional order became that of the poet. THE POEM Abdullah el Haji flourished in circa 1600 A.D., well after the classic era of Persian poetry. But his style is highly praised by competent judges, though the older school regret the way in which he has broken away from tradition in : (a) the introduction of coarse expressions. (b) the un…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 5
The Scented Garden
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 3 Περι τηϛ Παιδεραστειαϛ ......................................... 19 BAGH-I-MUATTAR I. — The Abyss ..................................... 39 II. — The Jinn-Vision ............................ 41 III. — The Ambassadors ......................... 45 IV. — Aflatun ......................................... 47 V. — The Debauch ................................ 48 VI. — The Curtain .................................. 50 VII. — The Duststorm ............................. 52 VIII…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 20
The Scented Garden
12 Introduction Abdullah is blamed. Mildly blamed, for none would dare express downright disapproval of so exalted an adept ; but it is no doubt for this reason that the Bagh-i-muattar is only allowed to circulate in private, even among Persians themselves ; bes- towed rather upon the already accomplished mys- tic than upon the mere inquirer into the ‘ hikmat ’, and denied existence to the question of the infidel. Perhaps owing to some curious trick of my brain, I found myself (one fine day) in the state which, as far as I can gather, Hindu wri…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 26
The Scented Garden
18 Introduction I love when I love my God ; and yet in this love I find light ; an inner voice, a perfume, a savour, an embrace of a kind which does not leave the inmost of myself. There in the depths of the soul glows something which is not in space : there a word is heard which has no syllables : thence there breathes a perfume which no breezes waft away : there food is always savoured and never eaten : there are embraces which never ask to end...” 3. The few who still suppose that Omar Khayyam was a libertine should read the exposition of Bo…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 23
The Scented Garden
Introduction 15 translated literally into Sanskrit, word by word, reads like a mutilated but unmistakable passage from some lost Upanishad. Such follies as Sri Parananda’s lunatic commen- taries on Matthew and John could never have been perpetrated but for the fact that after all his fun- damental theory — that Christ was a Yogi — is cor- rect. And our hymn : “ For ever with the Lord ! Amen ! so let it be ! Life from the dead is in that word : ’Tis immortality.” may be rendered by paraphrase : For ever Timeless : an epithet only used of the Atm…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 126
The Scented Garden
…so simple a precau- tion. It is possible that the ode is incomplete. More reasonable seems the suggestions that el Haji (1) disliked the introduction of his holy word [Persian text] and of his sacred Name in an ode of
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1910 · PDF PAGE 11
The Scented Garden
INTRODUCTION As everybody now-a-days is perfectly well aware, a knowledge of the Persian language is practically a necessity for all sojourners in Mohammedan In- dia. In the North-West, even more than Urdu, it is the lingua franca of the upper classes : it is the tongue spoken in the courts of the Believing Princes : it is the dialect alike of love and of litera- ture : and its possession is a very talisman from Kabul to Yarkand. As a subaltern stationed at R... P..., though in a British regiment, I found it my first duty to acquire a thorough …
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1910 · PDF PAGE 18
The Scented Garden
10 Introduction to me that a large class of scholars might be reached by considerable extension of the notes to cover ethnographical, critical, and other interesting points. We went to work accordingly during my last leave in England, and accomplished (I think) a good deal. (Major Lutiy’s death left this paragraph incom- plete. I need only add that on his departure for the front he sent the MSS., with numerous further ad- ditions, to me. I have retained the paragraph to explain the occasional diversity of opinion in read- ing or interpretation,…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 15
The Scented Garden
Introduction 7 not necessarily the first) must rhyme with the Mat- la’. The concluding couplet is called the Matka’, or “ place of cutting short ” : which we may translate the “ Close ” ; hence the phrase, Az matla’ ta mak- ta’, “ from beginning to end.” In the Makta’, or close, the poet manages to introduce his own name, or rather his assumed or poetic name, called the Takhallus, though few of the older poets paid strict attention to this rule previous to the time of Hakim Sanayi, between A.D. 1150 and 1180. Anwari occasionally introduces his …
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1910 · PDF PAGE 25
The Scented Garden
Introduction 17 even rapturous piety he joins a passionate love for the pleasures of the table and the bed : and the reader will I think grant him both acuteness of in- tellect and elegance of diction. It is instructive : indeed, beyond all comparison better than the laborous and pedantic exposition I had conceived it my duty to attempt : it gives the inside view, and references to the scholars and paederasts who have previously enlarged on this fascinating topic : the style is impassioned and the matter impeccable. I therefore turn my readers …
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1910 · PDF PAGE 22
The Scented Garden
14 Introduction (too closely to please most students of Eastern reli- gion) by his insistence on the doctrines of Sin and Grace, Freewill and Discipline ; but on the other hand, neither St. Francis nor Buddhaghosha can parallel his Devotion and his Phenomenalism. No doubt at times one is puzzled for a while : one picks up a loose word here and there : one doubts : one guesses : one is illumined in a mo- ment. One is rather reminded of the working of a helio- graph under unfavourable conditions. But (as with that instrument) by dint of repetitio…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 16
The Scented Garden
8 Introduction It is the sort of order that acquits a man of the charge of doing nothing for posterity, for assuredly nobody who knows India will try to raise false hopes in me that I may live long enough to see it. I would warn scholars that, unless they are in some way definitely mystics and truly acknowl- edged as such, they will do better to hunt for the lost books of Livy than for the Bagh-i- muattar. There is no copy in any public library here or in the East : not surprising, when one hears Platt in 1874 complain that of so famous a class…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 12
The Scented Garden
4 Introduction Illahi ’and will not jest if I myself bring to him the treasure of Iran. What, I exclaimed, you mean to bring me a boy without asking ? and dissolved in laughter. He stammered, with the shamed smile of the Oriental, that he had a sacred and secret book treating of the ‘ hikmat ’ but that it was never shown to anyone but a Sufi of great and exception- al sanctity — such as “ the Protector of the Poor, my father and mother, who glances at the earth in the hot season, and the fields are immediately tall and green.” Me. The MS., prod…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 21
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 …
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1910 · PDF PAGE 14
The Scented Garden
6 Introduction It would be impertinent and useless for me to enumerate the various metres in which these Ghazals are written ; but concerning the Ghazal itself, the remarks of Dr. Forbes (Persian Gram- mar, p. 144, par. 148.) are so luminous and con- cise that I cannot refrain from giving my readers the pleasure of their perusal. “ This kind of composition corresponds, upon the whole, with the Ode of the Greeks and Romans, or the Sonetta of the Italians. The most common sub- jects of which it treats are, the beauty of a mi- stress, and the suff…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 17
The Scented Garden
Introduction 9 some leaves of it under his dirty sheepskin. It is too sacred even to sell, whatever the extremi- ty : the one copy — a mutilated and incorrect In- dian — which by dint of infinite diplomacy I half cajoled, half forced from a drunken Afghan ele- phant-snarer in Ceylon, where I was shooting on leave, became the prey of the ants which help to make that devil-haunted Eden a House of Little Ease. As, seriously, I expect to get my copy within twelve months or so (a brother officer, now at Q..., where the copyist lives, has promised me…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 19
The Scented Garden
Introduction 11 when we compare them with the nameless bestiali- ties of Kwaw, or the frank paederasty of Abdullah. But, apart from the fact that paederasty : forni- cation : ‘ St-George ’ : ‘ matrimonial ’ in Persia and England respectively, we may at least suspend judgment while we consider this symbolism in de- tail with a view to discovering why (unless from caprice) el Haji chose this particular indulgence to mirror that supreme passion of the human heart, the craving for unity with the All-One. “ Make room for me ” quoth the poet of Salam…
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1910 · PDF PAGE 24
The Scented Garden
16 Introduction To return to the question on phallicism, I will not be so frivolous as to quote ‘ New every morning is the love Our waking and uprising prove ’ as an example of obscene symbolism in the Christian Church ; for there is no lack of serious identi- ty. The cross itself is notoriously the lingam : the vesica piscis — Christ being ιχθυς the fish — the Yoni. Now the vesica piscis is the foundation of all Christian architecture : that is to say, the female member lying open, and awaiting impregnation by the male, is the glyph of the chu…
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