Perso Indica

Bahā’ al-Dīn ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Aṭāʼ al-Allāh al-Anṣārī al-Qādirī al-Šaṭṭārī al-Čištī (d. 921/1515-16) was born in the small town of Jind in present-day Haryana, India, where he studied Arabic, jurisprudence and the theory of legal Islamic principles (uṣūl al-fiqh) while simultaneously participating in Sufi gatherings. He was initiated into the Qādirī Sufi order in the sanctuary of Mecca while on pilgrimage. He was one of the earliest Qādirī Sufis who settled in Mandu during the time of Ġiyāṯ al-Dīn Ḫaljī (r. 873/1469 - 906/1500). Next, he travelled to Ahmadabad, where he was initiated into the Šaṭṭāriyya Sufi order and became a disciple of Šayḫ Buḍḍhan sometime during the reign of Sulṭān Sikandar Lodī (r. 894/1489-923/1517); the Sufi biographer ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq Muḥaddiṯ describes him as “a Qādirī, but a Šaṭṭārī in outlook (mašrab)” (see Dihlawī 2005, p. 394; Rizvi 1994, p. 73).

It seems that there had been an atmosphere of interest in Indian culture and literature in the Sufi circle of Šayḫ Buḍḍhan, since besides Anṣārī, the circle included other disciples such as Šayḫ Rizq Allāh Muštāqī “Rajan” (d. 989/1581), the author of several Hindi maṯnavī poems. Anṣārī is mentioned in the Gulzār-i abrār of Muḥammad Ġawṯī Manḍawī (d. 1022/1613), a biography of Sufis, but he is neither included in the account of Šaṭṭārī mašāyiḫ (masters) nor as an adherent of Šayḫ Buḍḍhan; rather, he is considered as a disciple of Šayḫ Muḥammad ‘Ārif (Manḍawī 2006, pp. 284-290, 208, 359). There is scant information available on the outward events of Anṣārī’s life, though he was well known for his expertise in meditation on the Arabic names of God. One Sufi biographer only mentions Anṣārī in a section about his well-known disciple, Mīr Sayyid Ibrāhīm Īrajī (d. 953/ 1546-47), for whom he compiled the Risāla-yi šaṭṭāriyya (Badaḫšī 1997, p. 1146). Unlike other Sufi teachers of this lineage, such as Šāh ‘Abd Allāh Šaṭṭārī (d. 890/1485), who dedicated his Laṭā’if to Sulṭān Ġiyāṯ al-Dīn Ḫaljī, and Šāh Muḥammad Ġawṯ (d. 970/1563), who helped Bābur in his conquest of Gwaliyar (Nizami 1950, pp. 69-70), Anṣārī did not establish any associations with courtly figures of his time. He did, however, earn considerable fame because of his prominent treatise, Risāla-yi šaṭṭāriyya. There are many extant manuscripts of this treatise. Anṣārī is also the author of a treatise on prayers entitled Tuḥfat al-aḏkār (Munzawī 1363 š./1984, vol. 3, p. 1334) and a biography of the founder of the Qādirī order, ‘Abd al-Qādir Jīlānī (d. 561/1166, Baghdad), under the title Anīs al-Qādiriyya (Qasimlu 1385/2006, pp. 68-69). His tomb is just outside the Daulatabad fort.

Risāla-yi šaṭṭāriyya is one of the earliest Sufi works to incorporate practices from the Indian yoga tradition. This was accomplished by adopting Indic verbal formulas (mantras) used in meditation, such as the Sanskrit syllables aum and hūm, and assimilating them to the Sufi category of ḏikr (literally, “recollection,” plural aḏkār), the recitation or invocation of Arabic prayers and names of God. The text may have been written in Anṣārī’s old age at the beginning of the sixteenth century while he was attending Šayḫ Buḍḍhan’s Sufi gatherings. According to its author, the treatise contains certain secrets for the benefit of both elite and common seekers, and for both the truthful and the liar. Additionally, it is also designed for aspirants who have been unable to find a real spiritual teacher and instead aim to achieve spiritual advancement without the personal guidance of a master (Risāla-yi šaṭṭāriyya, Ms. Lahore, Punjab University Library, Sherani 4901/1889, f. 130a). Richly illustrated with detailed techniques for Sufi seekers, the treatise consists of four chapters (faṣl): (i) on the quality of spiritual wayfaring (sulūk); (ii) on the conditions, genealogy and different types of recollection (ḏikr); (iii) on contemplation (murāqaba) and the lights that appear to the seeker during recollection; and (iv) on miscellaneous ḏikr formulas in different languages, including materials drawn from yoga (for chapter iv, see Ms. Lahore, Punjab University Library, Sherani 4901/1889, ff. 148b-152a). Several existing manuscripts of Risāla-yi šaṭṭāriyya lack the fourth chapter, but it can also be found as a separate treatise entitled Risāla dar sulūk-i jogiyān (Ms. Tonk, Abul Kalam Azad Library, 3724/12). The following remarks deal only with chapter iv, which has three sections: first, Arabic, Persian, and Hindi recollections (aḏkār); second, yoga methods; and third, occult practices of name magic (sīmīyā) containing quasi-Syriac formulas attributed to ancient prophets.

Anṣārī begins the fourth chapter with two Arabic ḏikr formulas, consisting of symmetrical pairs of pronouns projected onto the heart and the heavens: anā anta anta anā (you – I, I – you), anā huwa huwa anā (I – he, he - I). These are followed by more commonly used Arabic phrases, starting with lā ilāha illā anā (“there is no god but I,” see Qur’an 16:2, 20:14, 21:25), first striking lā ilāha (“there is no god”) toward the right side and then striking illā anā (“but I”) toward the heart. In the same manner, Persian equivalents of lā ilāha illā anā such as bī čūn (“without quality”), bī čigūna (“without how”), bī šubah (“without likeness”), bī namūna (“without example”), are to be recited toward the sky, heart, and right and left sides of the performer (Ms. Lahore, Punjab University Library, Sherani 4901/1889, f. 148b).

Then the text shifts to Hindi ḏikr formulas, where the first example provided is one that elsewhere is commonly ascribed to the Čištī master Bābā Farīd (d. 666/1265). This formula, which is widely known in Sufi texts, consists of repeating wuhī hī upwards, hī hī to the left side of the breast, and hīn hī toward the heart (Ernst - Lawrence 2002, p. 33). It has also been recorded that Šayḫ Aḥmad ‘Abd al- Ḥaqq Rudawlī (d. 838/1434), a well-known Sufi of the Ṣābirī Čištī branch and the master of ‘Abd al-Quddūs Gangohī (d. 945/1537), used to recite a similar meditative formula, yahī hū, (Kugle 2007, p. 240).

Following the same 4-beat or 6-beat ḏikr procedure used by Farīd al-Dīn and Rudawlī, Anṣārī then suggested that practitioners recite similar Hindi words (inwardly and without moving the tongue), projecting them in different directions, including the qibla (the Muslim direction of prayer) as well as the heart, the right and left sides of the performer, and the sky. He mentions three different variations of such recollections (Ms. Lahore, Punjab University Library, Sherani 4901/1889, ff. 148b-149a). While these formulas resemble common Hindi words, Anṣārī provides no explicit translation. Nevertheless, the structure and sequence of the presentation suggests that the Hindi phrases are not just parallels to the Arabic formulas, but actually function as translations; thus, semantically in Arabic anā anta anta anā is equivalent to hun tun tun hun in Hindi, both meaning “I am you, you are I.” The notion of translation is therefore an aspect of Anṣārī’s comparative approach to these mantras, though it is secondary to the practical and functional notion of equivalence.

Anṣārī goes on to describe the bodily discipline that accompanies these formulas. In the case of wuhī hī, he emphasizes a certain number of repetitions and a specific posture: “like the position of the yogis, the seeker must sit cross-legged, turn the head and eyes toward heaven and repeat wuhī hī one thousand times or even more” (Ms. Lahore, Punjab University Library, Sherani 4901/1889, f. 149a). In the next section, on the wayfaring or spiritual practice of the yogis (sulūk-i jogiyya), Ansārī focuses attention on their postures (jalsa), emphasizing that these are called by the Indian word baysak, which is a Dakhani dialectical variation on the common Hindi term for sitting, bayṫhak (Shakespeare 1849, p. 443). Otherwise, except when providing mantras as equivalent to ḏikr formulas, he avoids mentioning Hindi technical terms at all. He suggests a practice of imagination (wahm) that should be done along with a certain posture that, in his point of view, confers the benefit and quality of all the eighty-four postures of yoga, a process with four stages: “(1) One sits cross-legged, placing the sole of the left foot beneath the genitals and holding the right foot near the seat. (2) One constricts the seat, collects the navel and presses it toward the back. (3) One closes the mouth and holds the tongue firmly on the palate. (4) Then one performs the imagination” (Ms. Lahore, Punjab University Library, Sherani 4901/1889, f. 149a). The selection of a single posture to represent the proverbial eighty-four is evidently a familiar rhetorical gesture. Like Risāla-yi šaṭṭāriyya, the well-known yoga treatise Gorakṣa śataka, (a fifteenth-century Sanskrit treatise also known as Vivekamārtānḍa, attributed to the famous yogi Gorakh; see Mallinson – Singleton 2017, pp. xxii-xxiii, xxxvii note 47) selects the two postures of padmāsana and siddhāsana as representative of the eighty-four different āsanas (Briggs 1973, pp. 286-287); the same two postures are also referred to in the Ḥawż al-ḥayāt, an early Persian translation of the Amṛtakuṇḍa, a treatise on yoga (Anonymous, f. 4b).

Anṣārī’s adaptation of yogic practices was widely accepted in Indian Sufi circles. Around two centuries after the composition of Risāla-yi šaṭṭāriyya, the two āsanas (posture) and the Hindi recollections propounded by Anṣārī were recorded, with slight changes, by Niẓām al-Dīn Awrangābādī (d. 1142/1729) in his comprehensive treatises on Sufi ḏikr techniques, Niẓām al-qulūb (The Order of Hearts). The latter, according to Kugle, was likewise the source for Ḥājjī Imdād Allāh’s (d. 1317/1899) Żiyā’ al-qulūb (The Brilliance of Hearts) (Kugle 2007, p. 311, footnote 39 of chapter 5; for details of ḏikr formulas and postures in Niẓām al-qulūb, see Ernst - Lawrence 2002, p. 33; also see Ernst 2016, p. 29). According to both Niẓām al-qulūb and Risāla-yi šaṭṭāriyya, if one remains hungry, avoids sleep, and keeps occupied with the words of recollection while seated in the prescribed position (that is, the siddhāsana-related posture), he will attain such spiritual achievements as the unveiling of hidden things (Ernst - Lawrence 2002, p. 32) and internal purity, miracles, meeting the world of spirits, and fatḥ or spiritual opening (Ms. Hyderabad, Telangana Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, fārsī taṣawwuf 745, p. 42).

The other major presentation of yoga material in the text introduces the key subjects of subtle centers in the body (cakras), and the sacred syllables or mantras associated with them. Laying emphasis on the selected posture (evidently the siddhāsana), Anṣārī recommends that the practitioner contemplate certain places (maḥall or mawża`) in the body and visualise specific words (kalima). In this explanation, maḥall (place) or mawża` (location) are evidently used as equivalents for the term cakra, and kalima (word) for mantra, although these Sanskrit terms are not explicitly mentioned. Each visualisation, Anṣārī affirms, has its own effects that manifest to the practitioner during the practice. He mentions the seven different words to be visualised and recited (inwardly without moving the tongue), and in some cases explains their effects, as follows: (i) hūm, with the locus of concentration being the seat (maq‘ad); (ii) aum, with the focus directed in between the testicles (bayn al-ḫaṣyatayn), with the effect being the materializing or actualization of the seeker’s thought, be it good or evil; (iii) hriṃ (usually written in Persian script as rhīn), with one’s concentration on the navel (nāf), the effect of which is traversing the earth and the achievement of divinely inspired knowledge (‘ilm-i ladunnī); (iv) šrin (for śriṃ), located beneath the left breast, which results in the practitioner becoming one of the “people of the heart” (ahl-i dil) who can listen to the thoughts of other people and for whom the unseen becomes like the seen; (v) āʼī (for aiṃ), with the point of concentration in the throat (ḥulqūm) and which results in all higher and lower worlds becoming obedient to one’s command; (vi) prim or trim, with the focus being on the forehead, above and between the eyebrows, and which causes the virtues and qualities of the reality of things to appear without the need for learning; and (vii) hansā (haṁsa and its reversal so’haṁ), which is located above the brain and which allows one to attain everlasting life like Ḫiżr, the immortal prophet revered in Muslim tradition as the teacher of Moses and many eminent Sufis (for the role of Ḫiżr in the adaptation of yogic physical immortality by Muslims, see Khodamoradi 2017).

Most importantly, the Risāla-i šaṭṭāriyya proposes Arabic ḏikr formulas as the translations of Hindi (or Sanskrit) mantras, for instance yā rabb (oh Lord!) is offered as the translation of hūm (Ms. Hyderabad, Telangana Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, fārsī taṣawwuf 745, pp. 43-45). With very slight differences, the seven mantras quoted in Risāla-i šaṭṭāriyya can also be found in the seventh chapter of the Arabic version of the Amṛtakuṇḍa (known as Mir’āt al-ma`ānī), and its Persian translation, the Ḥawż al-ḥayāt. When correlated with the cakras, the seven Sanskrit formulas and their Arabic translations in both texts are as follows: 1) seat: hūm = yā rabb; 2) genitals: aum = yā qādīr; 3) navel: rhīn = yā ḫāliq; 4) breast: nasrīn brīn = yā karīm ya raḥīm; 5) throat: aʼī or ayī = yā musaḫḫir; 6) between and above the eyebrows: prim = yā ‘alīm; 7) brain: hansā = yā muḥyī. The main difference between the two texts is the greater detail found in the Ḥawż al-ḥayāt, which also describes colors and shapes for visualization as well as more information about the effects of each practice. The two texts are obviously connected, and no internal evidence indicates which of the two might have been the original source of the other. It may be that Anṣārī’s simpler description represents an adaptation of the more complicated descriptions of yoga practices from the Ḥawż al-ḥayāt. In any case, the significant point is the use of the Arabic names of God as the basic framework into which Sanskrit mantras are made to fit. The mantras are appropriated as movable words of power that do not have any intrinsic theological qualities. Their translation as prayers in the vocative grammatical case turns them into Sufi ḏikr formulas.

Anṣārī promises that those who succeed in attaining the imagination of hansā will gain eight powers that evidently refer to the eight major siddhis or occult powers of the Yoga tradition: (i) The aspirant will achieve the ability to transform himself into sun or air and can appear and disappear whenever he likes; (ii) he can enlarge himself so that the whole world becomes like a pearl in his eyes; (iii) for him, far and near, hidden and apparent become the same; (iv) whatever he wishes be it water, food, or fruit of different seasons will be instantly provided for him; (v) whatever he asks from people they will provide it for him, and if someone tries to disobey him they will perish; (vi) whoever sees him confirms that he is unique in the entire world; (vii) he never experiences sexual ejaculation; and (viii) he achieves long life, becomes aware of the signs of death and knows at what time and in which hour he will die (Ms. Lahore, Punjab University Library, Sherani 4901/1889, ff. 151a-151b).

Anṣārī also recommends the practice of breath control in terms of (i) different types of breath; (ii) the result of a breathing exercise that he calls the “water of life (āb-i ḥayāt);” which is intended to bring health and longevity, preventing old age and weakness; as well as (iii) a specific diet for the breathing exercise. All of this resembles content found in both the Persian and Arabic versions of the fifth chapter of the Amṛtakuṇḍa (Anonymous, Ḥawż al-ḥayāt, f. 7a-b; Ernst n.d., pp. 36-37). He then affirms common yogic practice, which also occurs in the second chapter of the Ḥawż al-ḥayāt: “as this breathing exercise leads to visual beholding (mu`āyana) of many things, there is another method for a man who wants to see the world of the unseen, that is to gaze with both eyes towards the tip of nose while imagining the word Allah in the heart” (Ms. Hyderabad, Telangana Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, fārsī taṣawwuf 745, p. 43). Indeed, the Ḥawż al-ḥayāt makes it clear (Anonymous, f. 4b) that allāh is to be regarded as the translation of the yogic mantra alakh (“unconditioned”).

Anṣārī focuses on appropriating the practices he describes, and then he situates them within a Sufi discourse. He is aware of “the technical terminology of the philosophers of India” (iṣṭilāḥ-i ḥukamā-i Hind, Ms. Tehran, Majlis 18130/209295, f. 26b, a phrase not found in all manuscripts), but he is not interested in presenting their worldview. He uses positive theological language to describe the ḏikr formulas of the yogis as containing “absolute unity” (muṭlaq tawḥīd) on the spiritual path (sulūk, Ms. Hyderabad, Telangana Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, fārsī taṣawwuf 745, p. 38). He uses the characteristic Sufi term for mystical experience, “opening” (fatḥ), to describe the revelations found in the sixth cakra, as well as for the application of the mantra hansā to obtain miraculous power (Ms. Hyderabad, Telangana Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, fārsī taṣawwuf 745, pp. 44, 46). Rarely in the section on yogic practices does he reveal any anxiety about potential conflicts with Islamic teachings. But after summarizing the seven mantras, Anṣārī admits, “Some idiots reject this science of unity; none but the perfect man (insān-i kāmil) can understand these words” (Ms. Tehran, Majlis 18962/210217, p. 84; in a variation, “none but the intelligent man and the understanding mind,” Ms. Tehran, Majlis 18130/209295, f. 28b). In this respect, he sees a parallel between the Indic mantras in chapter iv, and the quasi-Syriac formulas of name magic (sīmīyā) described in the concluding section of the same chapter. While both of these non-Arabic sources of meditative practice were controversial, Anṣārī defended them as important additions to the šaṭṭārī repertoire, derived from “ancient sages” (ḥukumā’-i mutaqaddimīn, MS Tehran, Majlis 18130/209295, fol. 30a). In short, Anṣārī employs a translation strategy that generally subordinates semantic and theological meaning to the performative power of the sacred syllables or mantras used by yogis, all of which are assimilated to the Sufi category of ḏikr chants. In this way, yogic practices are not viewed as a separate field for investigation but as another resource that may be appropriated and added to the Sufi repertoire.