The Supreme Reality - a Comparative Perspective in the Nizarl

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The Supreme Reality - a Comparative Perspective in the Nizarl The Supreme Reality - A Comparative Perspective in the Nizarl Isma'IlI ginans and in the sayings of Kabir Seminarieuppgift i Fdk. i Indologi nyindisk inriktning: Hindi Framlagd den 22 maj 1996 av: Yasmin D. Mandani Institutionen for Orientaliska sprAk Avdelningen for Indologi Stockholms universitet TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract..........................................................................;................................... p. 1. 1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................... ...................... p. 1. 2. THE SUPREME REALITY IN THE HINDU TRADITION.........................................p. 3. 2.1. The Vedic scriptures......................... p. 3. 2. 2. The philosophy and teachings of Sankara............................................................p. 6. 2.3. The Sant tradition...........................................................................................................p. 7. 2. 3.1. Classification of the Devotional Hindi Literature...............................................p. 7. 2. 3. 2. The Background of the Sant tradition.................................................................. p. 9. 2. 3. 3. The Supreme reality in the Sant tradition........................................................... p. 10. 2. 4. The philosophy and poetry of Kabir......................... *..................... p. 11. 3. THE SUPREME REALITY IN ISLAM............................................................................ p. 15. 3.1. The Qur'an................................................................. ..... ............................................... p. 15. 3. 2. Historical and religious background of the Isma'ilis............................ p. 17. 4. THE SUPREME REALITY IN ISMA'lLlSM........................................................................p.18. 4. 1. The Faiimid Ima'ilis................. p. 18. 4. 2. The Isma'Ili missionaries in India............................................. p. 20. 4. 3. The Isma'ili religious literature - the ginans...................................................................p.21. 5. SOURCE MATERIAL- SELECTED VERSES FROM GINAN AND KABIR........... p. 23. 6. COMPARISON AND CONCLUSION...................................................................................p. 32. 7. LIST OF ABBREVATIONS...................................................................................................... p. 36. 8. APPENDIX..................................................................................................................................p. 37. 8.1. The source material on ginans.....................................................................................p. 37. 8.1.1. Original text from Ginans (G:l-28) in Gujarati.....................................................p. 37. 8.1. 2. Reference to own tranlated verses from Ginans (G:l-28)..................................p. 41. 8. 2. The source material on Kabir...................................................................................p. 42. 8. 2.1. The Hindi verses of Kabir............................................................... p. 42. 8. 2. 2. Reference to the Hindi verses of Kabir.................................................................p. 45. 9. BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................... ................................................................... .p. 46. 9.1. Primary sources............................................................................................................. p. 46. 9. 2. Secondary sources................................ p. 46. Abstract Until now the Isma'ili religious literature in India, the ginan, has been studied from an Islamic point of view. The relationship between Isma'ili religious literature and North Indian bhakti has so far been neglected. This paper attempts to illustrate similarities and differences in the notion of the Supreme Reality between the ginan and Kabir, the most famous poet of the nirguni bhakti literature. 1. INTRODUCTION In Indian tradition the poets belonging to the nirguna stream are more commonly known as Sants. The word Sant was mainly used for those devotees (Sk. bhakta) who were active in Maharashtra from 13th to 18th centuries. Barthwal (1978:IX) was the first to define the notion of Sant and the sant mat. Sant mat is taken as an equivalent of nirguni bhakti. These Sants were called nirguna bhaktas since their main object of devotion was a non-qualified (nirguna) aspect of the supreme Brahman, the One non-personal, all pervading, ineffable Reality which only can be spoken of in negative terms. The Sant's notion of the Supreme as nirguna is almost the same as the Upanisadic concept of the Brahman- Atman and the advaita interpretation of the Vedantic tradition. This notion denies any distinction between the self and Brahman and urges man to recognise his true divine nature within himself. According to the Indian literary tradition, the Sants are adepts of the nirguna aspect while the Vaisnavas are adepts of the saguna aspect of the supreme Being (Vaudeville 1987:37). Kabir h the chief exponent of nirguna bhakti, was very much influenced by the Nath panthi form of Yoga. He rejected Nath panthi practices and made fun of their pretension of conquering death and achieving bodily immortality. Yet Kabir incorporated this very idea into his sayings which provided him with a particular esoteric vocabulary. In order to understand the actual words which Kabir uses to express his mystical experience, it is necessary to consider the Nath background. However, this is not within the scope of the present study. 1 It is generally accepted that he was born in 1398 and died in 1448 AD. The problem of Kabir's dates has been discussed by Catuivedi (1964:845-870), Vaudeville (1974:36-39) and Barthwal (1978:252-253). 1 The Isma'ili movement entered the Indian subcontinent when the bhakti religious movement and Sufi preaching swept across northern and central India. The Isma'ili community in India has developed its own religious literature, the ginan (G. ginan, < Sk. jnana). The composition of ginans covers the period between the 13th and 17th centuries. The Isma'ili missionaries had their headquarters first in Sind and later in Gujarat. It is obvious from their ginans that there must have been some contact with their contemporaries, as Brahma prakasa1, a ginan attributed to PIr Shams (post 1300 AD), mentions several poets such as Gorakh, Ramanand, Kabir, Namdev, Guru Nanak and Dadu. To avoid persecution in India, the Isma'ili missionaries disguised themselves as Sufi Shayks and made use of their doctrine which formed a transition between Isma'ilism, Sufism and Hinduism (Ivanow 1952:20). This might be one of the reasons why there is hardly any mention of the Isma'ili missionaries or their activities on the Indian soil in bhakti literature. The vocabulary of ginan is much closer to the vocabulary of the nirguna bhakti than to any other bhakti tradition. A comparison of the ginan with Kabir would therefore be fruitful. Since Kabir, is the major poet of the nirguna bhakti, I will compare a few of his works with those of the Isma'ili missionaries who were active during the same time i. e. Pir Satgur Nur (1094? AD), Pir Shams (post 1300 AD), and Hr Sadruddin (d. 1416? AD). A survey of ginan literature and the sayings of Kabir indicates similarities regarding the notion of Supreme Reality, Guru, Sabda and Meditation. The aim of this paper is to examine one of these topics i. e. the Supreme Reality and to investigate the following: 1. Is the Isma'ili notion of Supreme Reality closer to the notion of Brahman in Hinduism or to the notion of Allah in Islam ? 2. Is there any similarity or difference between the views of the Firs and the views of Kabir on Supreme Reality ? 2 2 Traditionally Brahma prakasa is attributed to Pir Shams and it consists of 150 verses. According to Shackle and Moir (1992:173), it is uncertain who the author is. 2 To achieve the aim, it is necessary : * to examine the Supreme Reality, its development in Hinduism, including the Sant tradition, its development in Islam and in the Isma‘111 tradition. * to compare the notion of Supreme Reality in the ginans and in Kabir. In this study the meaning of Supreme Reality is based on a definition by Radhakrishnan and Moore (1989:38). 'The Supreme in its inner being as the one self-subsistent reality cannot be defined by logical categories or linguistic symbols. It is the incomprehensible nirguna (qualityless) Brahman, the pure Absolute. It is envisaged as saguna (with qualities) Brahman or isvara, a personal god, when It is viewed as the constitutive reality of the many or the cause of the world, as the source, ground, and dwelling-place of selves'. 2. THE SUPREME REALITY IN THE HINDU TRADITION 2.1. The Vedic Scriptures The term for Supreme Reality, Brahman, has been interpreted in different ways in the Hindu tradition. In Vedic literature, at an early stage, the neuter noun Brahman means magical power in the sacred utterance connected with sacrifice. The masculine form of the word Brahman denotes the priest who is imbued with the power of the sacred utterance of the word. The word Brahman in Rgveda is used in the sense of 'sacred knowledge or utterance, a hymn or incantation'. However, Hillebrandt (1909:797) finds it difficult to accept the application of the word Brahman to be limited to these meanings. Any holy, mystic utterance is Brahman. It is applied both to the ritual hymns of Rgveda (RV.) and the magic charms
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