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zoon~moon
Kashmir and Kerala by Pandit S. Anand Koul, 1928
Note on the Relation between Kashmir and Kerala
(By Pandit S. Anand Koul. Kerala Society Papers -1928. T. K. Joseph (Ed.) )
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Aside:
I waited a week for the book to arrive. All for a paper that I expected would throw up something interesting. But Koul Saheb’s paper turned out to be a bit disappointing. Much of what he writes her already was presented by him in his book on Kashmir Pandits. Besides reference to Kerala astrology in Kashmir and (in comments) Mankha’s work traveling to Kerala, there isn’t much. The story of white men on Malabar coast could well have been of Parsees or the Jews, but Koul Sabheb mentions in any case and tries to imagine them as Pandits. He seems to have been quite fascinated by the story, mentioning it in his Pandit book too. In an attempt to reach borders of Kerala, his only manages to reach Durbhanga (Bihar, where from returned the Kouls), Ellichpur (Maharashtra, where from returned the Dhars) and then Madras (where from came Ramanuja). It’s a sad attempt. I wish there was more.
Why more was I expecting? Consider this: there is Thiruv’anantha’puram in Kerala and there is Anantnag in Kashmir. Two cities dedicatedly named after a snake. King Solomon’s ships sailed to Kerala coast. Solomon’s throne is supposed to be in Kashmir. Ancient Jews lived in Kerala. And according to some at one time only Jews were allowed to enter Kashmir. (and not to forget, Kashmiri obsession with Jews. Interestingly, first person to broach up persecution of Jews in Germany during world war into a discussion about persecution of Pandits in medieval Kashmir was one Mr. GMD Sufi in his book Kashir (1948) while trying to form a defense for Sikandar Butshikan’s actions in response to popular discourse on the subject, an example of which would be writings by Anand Koul. Weird circular world, like a snake eating it’s own tail). Malayalam, the language that survives today was considerably shaped by westerners (particularly Rev.Benjamin Bailey and Hermann Gundert) who pulled it closer to Sanskrit (even at cost of other variants). The language is alive and kicking. In case of Kashmiri, which is much older than Malayalam, here is the difference, one time opium agent Grierson’s work still divides the people on origins of the language as it pulls it away from Sanskrit. The is no single definitive script. Result: My Christian friend from Kerala, who is great at using programming languages, uses Malayalam in regular life, can sing some Sanskrit prayers as they are quite popular in the land, know sHindi as it was part of school curriculum but is not so great with English. In my case, I am not so great at programming, can barely speak Kashmiri, definitely can’t read or write it in anything besides Roman script, don’t know Sanskrit, can’t truly appreciate Hindi and can just about manage English, using it as a tool to earn my bread and butter.
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Kashmiris and the tales of Sea
A footnote from ‘Folk-Tales of Kashmir’ by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles (1888).
Video: Arabian Sea at Kochi, Kerala. 2013
Audio: From Pushkar Bhan’s radio play ‘Sindbad Machama’ (1960s)
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Lal Vakh, audio
A recording of authentic Kashmiri rendering of Lal Vakhs by Pandit Sarvanand Sagar, produced by Vir House, Jammu.
In all there are three files. First two are the vakhs (almost 1 hour in playtime, around 60 Vakhs) and last one is a Kashmiri Bhajan. The whole setup (starting with Shuklambaradharam and ending with stutis and a Bhajan) gives a feel that there must have been a time when just like Gita Path, a night just for listening to Lal Vakh too must have been organized by Pandit families. Besides more popular vakhs of Lal Ded, I heard some for the first time. Like:
Gita Paraan Paraan kuna mudukh
Gita Paraan Paraan kun gai suur
Gita Paraan Paraan Zind kith ruzukh
Gita Paraan Paraan dodh Mansoor
Why didn’t you die listening to Gita
How many turned to ashes listening to Gita
How did you live listening to Gita
Listening to Gita, Mansoor went ablaze
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Update:
Among Kashmiri Muslims the above mentioned lines are attributed to Nooruddin Rishi and in their rendition ‘Gita’ is replaced with ‘Koran’. The reference to Mansoor here is to Persian Sufi Mansur Al-Hallaj (c. 858 – March 26, 922), who was publicly executed, his body cut and then burnt for claiming, ‘Ana al Haq. I am the truth’. The burning of Mansoor’s body is a common motif in old Kashmiri Sufi poetry.
Folktale: Gagarbai ti Gagur
“My favourite tale was about the tragedy of a mouse. She was
asked by her husband to make khichree, she made it so well, morsel by morsel,
she ate it all up. Home came the mouse, mouth salivating, to find his little
wife resting. He looked everywhere in the kitchen she asked him to look – in the
cooking pot, the frying pan, the mortar and even under the small pestle used
for pounding spices – but found nothing. In anger, he threw the pestle at her
and her ear lobe fell off. Bleeding, the detached piece of flesh in hand, she
went crying to the tailor and asked him to stitch her ear whole.
asked by her husband to make khichree, she made it so well, morsel by morsel,
she ate it all up. Home came the mouse, mouth salivating, to find his little
wife resting. He looked everywhere in the kitchen she asked him to look – in the
cooking pot, the frying pan, the mortar and even under the small pestle used
for pounding spices – but found nothing. In anger, he threw the pestle at her
and her ear lobe fell off. Bleeding, the detached piece of flesh in hand, she
went crying to the tailor and asked him to stitch her ear whole.
The tailor asked her to get him some thread from the
threadmaker woman, who sent her to the cotton-carder man. And thus she went
from one artisan to another, and even to the cotton tree that would yield the
cotton and the bullock that would plough the field for the tree to flower. Finally, she reached
a mound asking it for some earth, which she would take to the potter, who would
make her a charcoal brazier and, step by step, back to the blacksmith who would
provide her with a sickle with which she would cut some grass from a ridge to
feed the bullock, and thus onward. With thread in her hand she would go to the
tailor who would repair her ear. Then she would wear her gold earrings and
leave her cruel husband to go back to her parental home. Alas, that was not to
be. Giving of itself to her, the earth mound fell over her and crushed her to
death. The story, told in a sing-song style, ended with a song of lamentation
by the bereaved mouse. It made me sad but I wanted to hear it again and again,
knowing all along that it was just a tale.”
threadmaker woman, who sent her to the cotton-carder man. And thus she went
from one artisan to another, and even to the cotton tree that would yield the
cotton and the bullock that would plough the field for the tree to flower. Finally, she reached
a mound asking it for some earth, which she would take to the potter, who would
make her a charcoal brazier and, step by step, back to the blacksmith who would
provide her with a sickle with which she would cut some grass from a ridge to
feed the bullock, and thus onward. With thread in her hand she would go to the
tailor who would repair her ear. Then she would wear her gold earrings and
leave her cruel husband to go back to her parental home. Alas, that was not to
be. Giving of itself to her, the earth mound fell over her and crushed her to
death. The story, told in a sing-song style, ended with a song of lamentation
by the bereaved mouse. It made me sad but I wanted to hear it again and again,
knowing all along that it was just a tale.”
From the essay ‘Growing up in a Kashmiri Hindu Household’ by
T.N. Madan (The T.N.Madan Omnibus)
T.N. Madan (The T.N.Madan Omnibus)
Between me and T.N. Madan, our childhood memories are separated by a gap of at least seven decades and yet we share a common favorite in ‘tales our grandmothers told’. After reading the description of story in this essay, I knew he was talking about ‘Gagri-Gagri’. But in my story the wife was hit by mortar not pestle (Kajwot and not Wokhul). I asked my grandmother if she remembers the story and if she would sing it again. She had no idea what I was talking about. She couldn’t remember it. But after nagging her for a couple of days, I was able to get her to recount some of the bits. But not the main song. My Chachi too threw in bits from her childhood memories – an alternative ending in which the wife is reunited with her repentant husband. Yet the main bit eluded me. The favorite part. The tune. It was frustrating. I even came to doubt if the story was ever told to me by my grandmother, maternal, paternal or if was sung to me by some grandaunt, maternal, paternal. How can I forget? It’s the part where the wife asks the husband to look for Khichree all over the kitchen. And then he hit her out of tune.What was that tune?
In the Kashmiri section by Ali Mohammad Lone presented in ‘Children’s literature in Indian languages‘ (1982), I found reference to this story. Indeed, in ‘The Mouse’s Ear’ the wife was hit by mortar. That was about it. No further leads. No actual Kashmiri version of the story.
Then, about a year later while listening to my grandmother sing a Kashmiri ditty for an ancient spring ceremony. I remembered it. The two share almost the same sing-song tune. I remembered not the entire story but just my favorite part. I believe it went something like this:
He Mouse: Gagri, Gagri! Kyet chey Khetch’er
She Mouse: Bohganas tal.
He Mouse: Yet’che na keh
Gagri, Gagri! Kyet chey Khetch’er
Wokhulas tal
Yet’che na keh
Gagri, Gagri! Kyet chey Khetch’er
Kajwatas tal
Narrator: Tyem tul Kaajwot ti la’go’unas Kanas.
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Shashrang
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Original painting by Mortimer M. Menpes
Found the lines and translation in Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature: sasay to zorgot edited by Mohan Lal, from a section by Shafi Shauq on the poet.
A rendition of the lyrics, @Youtube
Every man thinks his own country Kashmir
Har ek admi apne mulk ko Kashmir samajhta hai
Every man thinks his own country Kashmir.
~ A line from a translation exercise in ‘Domestic Hindustani, a simplified and abridged grammar of simple colloquial Hindustani’ by D C Phillott; William George Grey (1907).
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Previously:
Garmiyon may Kashmir jannat hai, 1886
A page in Sharda
A page from 17th century poet Sahib Kaul’s Devi Naam Vilas (archive.org)
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October, 2016
Update: The book was scanned and uploaded by eGangotri, an initiative based in Delhi that provides free scanning of ancient manuscripts and old books.
Untitled Post
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| Self. 20th August. 2012. |
Talle mere phatte de’n, par ghar mere Dilli’n
I’m in rags, but I hail from Delhi
~ A Dogri saying. Came across it in ‘Tales from The Tawi: a collection of Dogri Folk Tales’ by Suman K.Sharma.
Lal Ded’s Shaitan Shiva
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| A wall art I came across in Kochi, Kerala. Artist(right): Jameel February, 2013 |
March, 2013
Chitralekha Zutshi in her book ‘Languages of Belonging: Islam, Regional Identity, and the Making of Kashmir’ (2004) tried to approach the question of Kashmiri identity by interpreting its language. An interesting approach for which she used some hitherto unavailable poem manuscripts.
A particular passage made me curious:
The reason Lal Ded’s poetry is so essential for votaries of Kashmiriyat is self-evident from an examination of her verses. These are suffused with a sense of the fluidity of religious boundaries, and this has been interpreted as a manifestation of the Kashmiri ethos of tolerance. In the following verse, for instance, she seems unable to decide between
being a follower of Allah or of Shiva:
I said la illah il Allah
I destroyed my Self in it
I left my own entity and caught him who is all-encompassing
Lalla then found God
I went to look for Shiva
I saw Shiva and Shaitan (devil) together
Then I saw the devil on the stage
I was surprised at that moment
I adore Shiva and Shiva’s house
When I die, what then?
The book gives the source of the poem as: Hafiz Mohammad Inayatullah, Lalla Arifa barzabane Kashmiri [Lalla Arifa in Kashmiri] (Lahore: Din Mohammad Electric Press, undated), 14-15.
Although the author presents those intriguing lines (albeit without original ) and its alluring imagery as a product of Lal Ded’s inner dilemma at choosing one among Allah or Shiva, the text in fact begs another line of enquiry.
Romila Thapar in her classic work ‘Early India: From the Origins to Ad 1300’ makes a piquant observation: “A fundamental sanity in Indian civilization has been due to an absence of Satan.” Keeping that obvious and basic theological fact in mind, the question is: How could Lal Ded even imagine Shaitan/ Devil/Satan in 14 century A.D. when Islam was only arriving in Kashmir? When its language was still incomprehensible to most people. If she imagined Devil, what did she see? What could be the iconography of Kashmiri Devil? Borrowed from Islamic iconography? Remembering that Kashmiri, as it is now spoken, only bloomed with Lal Ded’s utterings, what word could she have originally used for Shaitan? Somehow, it is all difficult to imagine. Can these be lines be even be attributed to Lal Ded?
There is another way to look at Lal Ded or rather looking at words of Lal Ded: looking at how its listeners consumed them. The saying of Lal Ded come from a oral tradition, they reached to us in written form much later. They were written in an age when the iconography and vocabulary of Shaitan was totally comprehensible for the writer and for the reader. In that age, a lot of oral bits got attributed to either Lal Ded or to Nund Rishi. A lot was appended and a lot deducted based on who was documenting. A time when Ded became Arifa for some readers. And in these evolving texts the reader can now looks for manifestation of the evolving Kashmiri ethos. The reader can observe a synthesis of texts, theologies and cultures, a synthesis spread over centuries and not beginning at a particular icon.
[update: June 2016. As suspected. The lines are of later date.]
The lines “Lal be drayas Shavas garaan, shav ti shiatan wuchum ek hi shay” in fact come from poet Samad Mir (1894-1959) singing “Praraan Praraan Tarawati” which starts with a dialogue from Lal Ded.
Listen the rendition of Tarawati by Ghulam Ahmed Sofi here [1:30]
Lines occur as:
Lal bo draaya Shiv gaar.ney,
Shiv te Shaitan wuchum aksey shai
[subsequent lines vary from Inayatullah lines]
balki shaitain pyeth me yem baras
tan lal chas haeraan
I went to look for Shiva
I saw Shiva and Devil together
I believed in devil
I am still surprised.
Update: 5th Feb 2017
Samad Mir’s grandson clarified using the manuscript of the song that the lines are not by Samad Mir. It’s just that the singer is starting the song, as usual is the case in Kashmir, with a few lines from Lal Ded.
Update: 15th Feb 2017
The lines “Lal be drayas Shavas garaan” are remembered by pandits by too. In the pandit rendition the first two lines are:
Lal bo draaya Shiv gaar.ney,
wuchum Shiv te Shakti akey shai,
Shakti wuchum paeth sahas’raras,
Maa’raan ga’yas ta’mey gra’ye;
Bo paer Shivas te tasen dis garas,
Bo lall ma’ras mye karyam kyah
I went to look for Shiva
I saw Shiva and Shakti together
Shakti seated in matted crown of Shiva’s head
I was surprised at that moment
I adore Shiva and Shiva’s house
If I die, so what?
The lines are given “Voice of Experience: Lall Vaakh of Lal Ded” (1999) by B.N. Sopory. Quoted in “Lal Ded: revisited” (2014) by J. L. Bhat. These lines are closest to the lines quoted in “Lalla Arifa barzabane Kashmiri”
So, it seems there are three variation of this Kashmiri saying.
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Unrelated post: Kashmiriyat in Codex
