Yoga and Sanskrit inspired Sufi epics: chakras became “mystical stations,” gods became “angels.”

“Hindu” substrate in a Sufi epic

Medieval society was extremely diverse and extended far beyond the reach of courts and cities. Pastoralists, itinerant traders, mystics, artisans and farmers constituted the vast majority of the population. Dalmau, now a town between the urban centres of Kanpur and Prayagraj, was once controlled by the Ahir pastoralists before its conquest by the Delhi Sultanate.

In the late 14th century, as the Delhi Sultanate gave way to smaller regional sultanates in northern India, astonishing new Muslim texts appeared in the historical record. Many were written by Indians seeking initiation from Sufi masters. One of these texts, perhaps one of the most important ever composed in northern India, was called the Chandayan. It was written by Maulana Daud, an Ahir pastor turned Sufi. “I threw my sins into the Ganges,” Daud writes at the beginning of his new text. “I realized the power of the written word – I sang a Hindu song in Turkish script… by serving Shaikh Zainuddin, evil is destroyed forever.”

These above lines are from a carefully collected new volume of the Chandayan (Marg, 2024). According to the translator, philologist Richard Cohen, the above lines show that he was born in a cultural context that we can consider “Hindu,” above which Sufism had become a major current of elite devotion. ChandayanThe story of Chanda and Lorik, two aristocratic lovers, whose illicit affair brings them into conflict with society and propels them into many adventures. As art historian Naman Ahuja points out in his erudite introduction to this volume, the tribulations of lovers are a central theme of many great Sanskrit epics: think of Dushyanta and Shakuntala, or Nala and Damayanti.

THE Chandayan’The long, winding narrative of this novel is almost certainly borrowed from the wandering bards of Ahir and reflects popular tastes. Battles between dashing heroes, steamy sex scenes, astrologers and prophecies. It contains all the elements of the great South Asian romance novels: cunning servants, wronged wives, heroes disguised as beggars. But it also contains more subtle Sufi ideas, requiring the teaching of a master to be understood. The hero, Lorik, is named after the Sun, while the heroine, Chanda, is named after the Moon. Her servant is named after Jupiter. It is possible to read the text as the meeting of the Sun and the Moon under the auspices of Jupiter. Although Lorik fights many battles throughout the text, they are increasingly selfless, suggesting the soul’s journey to God.

As Professor Ahuja has written, Sufis at the time attracted a wide audience, drawn from communities of both “Hindu” and “Muslim” traditions. Chandayan was intended to tell them a good story while having more esoteric dimensions for those who followed Sufi initiation. Many great Indian epics – Hinduism The Ramayana, Mahabharatathe jain Prabandhachintamaniand Buddhist Jatakas— also began in popular legends. They also later received aesthetic and philosophical treatment by monks, poets and Brahmins. From this point of view, by founding the Chandayan As far as popular ballads are concerned, the Indian Sufis followed to a large extent the Indian Hindu, Buddhist and Jain precedents. This constitutes a milestone in our understanding of popular Islam in the medieval period and opens up many interesting questions.

Read also : How Buddhists Lost to Brahmins at Nalanda. Even Before the Turks Came

Sufis and Yogis: Rivalries and Translations

Just as Indian Hinduism had many streams, Indian Islam also had them. Chandayan Sufiism was popular among the Chishtis, the Sufi order, which was widespread in Delhi and Ajmer. The Chishtis had limited political aspirations. Elsewhere, Sufi masters had political aspirations and did not hesitate to use violence to obtain them.

At the same time as the Chandayan While the poems were being composed in the Gangetic plains, Kashmir saw the rise of an uncompromising lineage of Iranian Sufis. These men were much less interested in local epics and concentrated much of their efforts on converting yogis. Buddhists and Brahmins transformed temples into Sufis and mosques, sometimes violently. But as I pointed out in a previous column, they presented the conversions as the result of magical debates and competitions, which proved the superiority of their tradition over others. At least rhetorically, this recalls the tenor of the debates between Buddhists and Brahmins in the past. After establishing their ancestry, Brahmin texts often presented Buddhists as misguided heretics incorporated into their superior tradition, much as the Sufis did with the yogis.

But other streams of Sufism have sought inspiration and ideas in the yogic tradition. Refractions of Islam in India: Situating Sufism and YogaHistorian Carl W Ernst gives many examples, particularly in Bengal and Punjab. In Bengal, for example, the Tantric yogic view of the body formed the basis of much Sufi literature, with the chakras and the nectar of immortality. In Tantric traditions, the body has seven chakras, each associated with a god. Sufis identified the chakras with mystical stations, replacing gods with angels.

Indeed, Sufis and yogis had much in common: both used breathing exercises and chanting for spiritual experiences; both refused to recognize caste distinctions; and both were buried rather than cremated. Wandering yogis stayed at Sufi dargahsand the two traditions exchanged not only ideas but also stories. Refractions, According to a report collected by Ernst in 1998, the yogis of Gorakhpur claimed that the Prophet Muhammad was a Nath Yogi. Claiming that the founder of another religion is a member of one’s own is a tradition in South Asia. Vishnu worshipers had claimed both the Buddha and the Jain master Rishabha as avatars of their god. For example, the 16th-century Sufi master Muhammad Ghawth Gwaliyari, in his Persian translation of an Arabic translation of a Sanskrit yogic text, claimed that Gorakhnath was the Islamic prophet Khizr.

Read also : Kashmiris brought Buddhism to the West when Mongol rulers imported them to Iran

Indian Islams

The text of Gwaliyari, the Bahr el-Hayatis remarkable in many other ways. At one point he even calls upon the tantric goddess Kamakhya to clarify a particular yogic posture. His work was composed in Gujarat and reached the Deccan, Mecca, North Africa, Turkey and Indonesia. Indian Sufism, itself composed of many distinct traditions, was in turn a distinct and powerful body within the wider Muslim world.

Nor was his engagement with Sanskrit and folk traditions an isolated case. The Many Lives of a Rajput QueenHistorian Ramya Sreenivasan has studied the Padmavata 16th-century Sufi text that served as the basis for a 2018 Bollywood film. Padmavat was, in turn, based on oral legends about the Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khilji. Although Bollywood portrayed him as a half-insane barbarian, Padmavat Originally, Khilji was used as a metaphor for worldly illusion, while Rani Padmavati, the unattainable target of his lust, symbolised wisdom.

Such absurd and misrepresentations of Indian Muslim history have become all too common. Indian liberals tend to gloss over the violence associated with royalty, which has sometimes romanticized the Mughal kings in particular (Think Jodha AkbarOr Mughal-e-Azam). This view has been replaced by a far-right myth that all Indian Muslims were genocidal foreign invaders, based on a handful of polite texts, usually written by fanatical immigrants.

But regional linguistic traditions reveal a vast Indian Muslim world, firmly rooted in Indian myth and tradition. Indian Muslims engaged with folk tradition in the same way that Buddhists, Brahmins, and Jains had once done. In many cases, they even shared the same deities as their Hindu counterparts. Like all Indian religions, Islam has had its quarrels and violent fights with other religions. And when they had the power of a royal court behind them, Indian Muslims could be as iniquitous as Indian Hindus or Indian Buddhists. But medieval rhetoric does not justify modern politics. Whether through open-mindedness or occasional persecution, throughout history Indian Muslims have been as Indian as any of us.

Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of Lords of the Deccan, a new history of medieval South India, and hosts the podcasts Echoes of India and Yuddha. He tweets @AKanisetti. Views are personal.

This article is part of the “Thinking Medieval” series which delves into medieval Indian culture, politics and history.

(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)