Kathākautukam
In this tale, the beautiful princess Zuleikha has nightly visions of Yusuf, a handsome young stranger. Captivated by his beauty, her waking hours are filled with heartaches, each to the anxiety of her near ones. But Zuleikha resolves to unite with Yusuf. Her dreams also reveal the obstacles that she had to overcome. What ensues is a captivating account of longing and love, a parable of the soul’s journey in its search for the divine.
As explained in its first chapter, Kathākautukam is derived from the Persian Masnavi, or poem, Yusuf wa Zuleikha, or Yusuf and Zuleikha, written by Maulana Nuruddin Abdul Rahman Jami (1414–92), a well-known savant of the time.
The story has fifteen ‘Kautuka’-s or fifteen chapters. In its barest outlines, the plot consists of how Zuleikha and Yusuf finally overcome various obstacles and become united.
Zuleikha, a royal princess par excellence in beauty and character, dreams of a young man every night and sets her heart to find him and unite with him. Her servants worry about her “pallor and emaciation and the fear-filled intensity of her mind.” Her father’s solution, at first, is to bind her and confine her. Later, as she stands “lonely in the loved one’s land” on the banks of the Nile, her mind dwelt upon her beloved, and her eyes sought to see him. Without him all action was agony.
Śrīvara keeps the reader in as much suspense as Zuleikha in her journeys far and wide to seek the physical presence of her dream-lover. We, like her, do not get to meet him until half-way through the work, when the narrative voice, leaving Zuleikha pining away on the banks of the river Nile, fills us in on Yusuf’s background. Like his biblical namesake Joseph, he has jealous brothers and is tossed into a well and then sold into slavery, finally to be purchased by the king of Mesra (perhaps Misr, the name for Egypt) for his daughter Zuleikha. Zuleikha, however, is not the only girl who wishes to become acquainted with Yusuf. A girl from the Deya clan, “youthful, slender and large-eyed,” wants to buy him from the princess, and hopes that her immense wealth will succeed in doing so.
She is in for a shock; Yusuf tells her that he is not a godlike creature, that his body is made of “just the five basic elements,” and that he himself has only the mind of the mindful, who always meditate on Śambhu- the endless and the universal.
He advises her to do the same; “what pleasure will be lost,” he says, “if you look in your heart only at that charming god, even in madness or death?” Tellingly, he adds “And, fair one, you will see there an auspicious form that is also my own.” The girl’s “delusions vanished as she heard those words,” after giving up her possessions, off she goes into the forest and puts on “the saffron ascetic garb”.
Śrīvara is here illustrating how the physical can mirror the spiritual, even if, as in the case with the Deya girl, we sometimes do not know what we are really looking for until we find it. She does not realise that what she needs is not the physical Yusuf, but Śambhu, whose spiritual qualities may be found manifested in the physical Yusuf. It might be that Zuleikha, who initially sees Yusuf only as a dream-vision, not a physical person, is already further ahead in her spiritual quest than the worldlier Deya girl, who sees Yusuf in the flesh quite soon after hearing about him and needs to be enlightened.
Śrīvara is, then, more concerned with the spiritual and the physical. However, when he describes the physical beauty of Zuleikha or Yusuf (and Deya, too), he does it with great skill and sensuality. Readers can feel the emotions of Zuleikha, too, as she progresses from physical longing to spiritual fulfilment.
Śrīvara skilfully mixes, using simple but poetic language, the two aspects of love in the narrative to the extent that the reader may occasionally get them confused, but that may have been done purposely, in order to better highlight the emotions involved, which are indeed confusing to those experiencing them.
Zuleikha appears to be the more active figure in the works of both Jami and Śrīvara. It is she who longs for Yusuf and repeatedly suffers in her attempts to attain him. This mystic undertone of the soul seeking God appears fully in the poem of Jami and is also clear in Kathākautukam. Srivara, by giving Zuleikha a more prominent part in the story than Yusuf, can mirror through her the soul’s progress towards perfection whilst at the same time narrating an engaging and imaginative story. It is Zuleikha who does all the longing and undergoes severe emotional stress. After several false starts, including Yusuf’s enslavement, in the end the two find ideal happiness, their hearts drenched in this new-found love.
The contemporary king of Kāśmīr, who is praised and described in Kathākautukam, is Muhammad Śāh (1484–86). He was the third in line from the celebrated Zainul Abedin (1420–70), the royal patron of Jonarāja, whose long reign ushered in an era of stability, prosperity, and cultural interaction in Kashmir, which are also mentioned by Śrīvara.
The story has fifteen ‘Kautuka’-s or fifteen chapters. In its barest outlines, the plot consists of how Zuleikha and Yusuf finally overcome various obstacles and become united.
Zuleikha, a royal princess par excellence in beauty and character, dreams of a young man every night and sets her heart to find him and unite with him. Her servants worry about her “pallor and emaciation and the fear-filled intensity of her mind.” Her father’s solution, at first, is to bind her and confine her. Later, as she stands “lonely in the loved one’s land” on the banks of the Nile, her mind dwelt upon her beloved, and her eyes sought to see him. Without him all action was agony.
Śrīvara keeps the reader in as much suspense as Zuleikha in her journeys far and wide to seek the physical presence of her dream-lover. We, like her, do not get to meet him until half-way through the work, when the narrative voice, leaving Zuleikha pining away on the banks of the river Nile, fills us in on Yusuf’s background. Like his biblical namesake Joseph, he has jealous brothers and is tossed into a well and then sold into slavery, finally to be purchased by the king of Mesra (perhaps Misr, the name for Egypt) for his daughter Zuleikha. Zuleikha, however, is not the only girl who wishes to become acquainted with Yusuf. A girl from the Deya clan, “youthful, slender and large-eyed,” wants to buy him from the princess, and hopes that her immense wealth will succeed in doing so.
She is in for a shock; Yusuf tells her that he is not a godlike creature, that his body is made of “just the five basic elements,” and that he himself has only the mind of the mindful, who always meditate on Śambhu- the endless and the universal.
He advises her to do the same; “what pleasure will be lost,” he says, “if you look in your heart only at that charming god, even in madness or death?” Tellingly, he adds “And, fair one, you will see there an auspicious form that is also my own.” The girl’s “delusions vanished as she heard those words,” after giving up her possessions, off she goes into the forest and puts on “the saffron ascetic garb”.
Śrīvara is here illustrating how the physical can mirror the spiritual, even if, as in the case with the Deya girl, we sometimes do not know what we are really looking for until we find it. She does not realise that what she needs is not the physical Yusuf, but Śambhu, whose spiritual qualities may be found manifested in the physical Yusuf. It might be that Zuleikha, who initially sees Yusuf only as a dream-vision, not a physical person, is already further ahead in her spiritual quest than the worldlier Deya girl, who sees Yusuf in the flesh quite soon after hearing about him and needs to be enlightened.
Śrīvara is, then, more concerned with the spiritual and the physical. However, when he describes the physical beauty of Zuleikha or Yusuf (and Deya, too), he does it with great skill and sensuality. Readers can feel the emotions of Zuleikha, too, as she progresses from physical longing to spiritual fulfilment.
Śrīvara skilfully mixes, using simple but poetic language, the two aspects of love in the narrative to the extent that the reader may occasionally get them confused, but that may have been done purposely, in order to better highlight the emotions involved, which are indeed confusing to those experiencing them.
Zuleikha appears to be the more active figure in the works of both Jami and Śrīvara. It is she who longs for Yusuf and repeatedly suffers in her attempts to attain him. This mystic undertone of the soul seeking God appears fully in the poem of Jami and is also clear in Kathākautukam. Srivara, by giving Zuleikha a more prominent part in the story than Yusuf, can mirror through her the soul’s progress towards perfection whilst at the same time narrating an engaging and imaginative story. It is Zuleikha who does all the longing and undergoes severe emotional stress. After several false starts, including Yusuf’s enslavement, in the end the two find ideal happiness, their hearts drenched in this new-found love.
The contemporary king of Kāśmīr, who is praised and described in Kathākautukam, is Muhammad Śāh (1484–86). He was the third in line from the celebrated Zainul Abedin (1420–70), the royal patron of Jonarāja, whose long reign ushered in an era of stability, prosperity, and cultural interaction in Kashmir, which are also mentioned by Śrīvara.
This poetic account provides a fine example of the cultural confluence not often noticed in Sanskrit literature. Written with sophistication in the classical style of that ancient language, it begins with the acknowledgement of its origin from a yavana source, which is clearly Persian in this context.
Apart from prayers to the god Śiva in its prologue and epilogue, this Sanskrit epic also contains an opening invocation to the holy Prophet Muhammad, who is addressed in it as Paigambar Śiromani, or the “crown jewel of prophets,” to whom its story was revealed by a divine messenger.
Separately, the work also mentions the prophets assembled in paradise, and the subsequent creation of Adam, the progenitor of humans, as recounted in Hebrew, Christian and Islamic scriptures. In his poem Śrīvara has also listed prominent descendants of Adam in the line that preceded Yusuf.
This plot contains a great deal of religious symbolism, which gives it unexpected depth and seriousness. Zuleikha appears to represent the soul, and as such her quest is to seek out god; she is represented as the seeker who suffers emotional pain and longs for unity with the divine aspect of Yusuf; thus Śrīvara has created a physical love-story as well as a spiritual one, ending with the lost soul being united with “the best of delights,” and the observation that both union and separation are caused by the highest God.
By mixing references to different religions, Śrīvara suggests that there are multiple ways to enlightenment, and that all religions contain certain spiritual truths, and that the way to find them is to look within. In the end, the physical will reconcile with the spiritual; at the end of the book a voice comes from the sky and says, “Be happy in pleasure with your favourite but keep the soul at peace, in meditation on the great god.”
Apart from prayers to the god Śiva in its prologue and epilogue, this Sanskrit epic also contains an opening invocation to the holy Prophet Muhammad, who is addressed in it as Paigambar Śiromani, or the “crown jewel of prophets,” to whom its story was revealed by a divine messenger.
Separately, the work also mentions the prophets assembled in paradise, and the subsequent creation of Adam, the progenitor of humans, as recounted in Hebrew, Christian and Islamic scriptures. In his poem Śrīvara has also listed prominent descendants of Adam in the line that preceded Yusuf.
This plot contains a great deal of religious symbolism, which gives it unexpected depth and seriousness. Zuleikha appears to represent the soul, and as such her quest is to seek out god; she is represented as the seeker who suffers emotional pain and longs for unity with the divine aspect of Yusuf; thus Śrīvara has created a physical love-story as well as a spiritual one, ending with the lost soul being united with “the best of delights,” and the observation that both union and separation are caused by the highest God.
By mixing references to different religions, Śrīvara suggests that there are multiple ways to enlightenment, and that all religions contain certain spiritual truths, and that the way to find them is to look within. In the end, the physical will reconcile with the spiritual; at the end of the book a voice comes from the sky and says, “Be happy in pleasure with your favourite but keep the soul at peace, in meditation on the great god.”
According to the respected Kashmiri scholar PNK Bamzai, Śrīvara was well versed in Persian language, and his Kathākautukam “is probably the earliest instance of that literature’s utilisation in Sanskrit poetry.” Dr. Nagarajan comments that Śrīvara shows how to bring about a synthesis of the best of Persian and Sanskrit traditions.
Apart from its literary quality, and the need to make such forgotten works available in the mainstream of modern reading, there are also some other worthwhile considerations. These include a background of historical change and cultural intermingling reflected in its composition and theme that is comparatively unusual in Sanskrit literature and the manner of its presentation.
Secondly, the cultural mingling in it is not limited to narrative details but is also drawn from theology, mythology, and mystic philosophy. Finally, the contents are derived both from existing Indian concepts and those later acquired from external sources. They also include specific information about the work’s dating, details of its author and his mentor and of the then reigning ruler and conditions of Kāśmīr.
Apart from its literary quality, and the need to make such forgotten works available in the mainstream of modern reading, there are also some other worthwhile considerations. These include a background of historical change and cultural intermingling reflected in its composition and theme that is comparatively unusual in Sanskrit literature and the manner of its presentation.
Secondly, the cultural mingling in it is not limited to narrative details but is also drawn from theology, mythology, and mystic philosophy. Finally, the contents are derived both from existing Indian concepts and those later acquired from external sources. They also include specific information about the work’s dating, details of its author and his mentor and of the then reigning ruler and conditions of Kāśmīr.
No quotations available.