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JULY, 1875.]
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
219
کا پنجهان چایست بس تاریک و تنک
ت بيرون عالمي بی نور و رنک پیچ در کوش کسي زايشان نرفت این طمع أمد حجابی ژرف زفت
را بندد طمع از استماع کرش
از اطلاع چشم را بندر فرض
چنانکه آن جنین را طمع خون كان غذای اوست در ارطان دون از حديث این جهان مجرب کرد خون تن را برداش محبوب کرد زین همه انواع زعمت ماند فرد فیر خون او نداند چاشت خورد
خوشي این جهان بر توهم طبع شد حجاب آن خوشی جاودان
حیات پر غرور طمع ذوق این
کرد دور راستیت حيات از
کند نیکودان کورت طمع پس
يقين را بيدهان بر تر پوشاند
نماید از طمع ترا باطل حق
فزاید از طمع در تو صد کوری از طمع بیزار شو چون راستان
آن استان پا بر سر تا نهي کاندر آن در چون درای وارهي از غم و شادي قدم بیرون تهی چشم جانت روشن و حق بين شود
ظلام کفر نور دین شود بی
How tried you are in this darkness! Blood you consume in this closet, In dirt and misery confined;" It would deny its state and case, Reject this message with full force As false, deceit, impossible. It has no sense, but understanding blind Its mind cannot conceive the thing,The negative mind hearing scorns. Just such the crowd is in this nether world When AbdAlst moot the world beyond - "This world is but a narrow and dark well; Without, the immaterial world exists." Such words their ears will not accept, A hope like this is thickly veiled; Present enjoyments plug the ear, The eye is dimmed by interests; Just as the embryo's greed for blood, Which was its food in womb's dark cave, Concealed from it the present world, The body's blood to it endeared; Thus, unaware of blessings all, No other nourishment it had but blood. Man's lust for joys of present life Eternal joys has veiled from him. Your greed for this deceitful life From true life has removed you ; Be quite aware that lust is blinding you, Concealing certainty from you. Truth false appears to you from greed, Which hundredfold is blinding you. Oh, free yourself from greed, like all just men, That you your foot on that threshold may place, And saved be on entering the gate From all terrestrial joys and griefs; Your soul's eye bright and true will see, Unsoiled by unbelief, the light of Faith.
The translator does not take it on himself to correct the metre, when it happens to be faulty.]
MR. F. W. ELLIS. My attention has been directed to an interesting description, by Mr. R.C. Caldwell, in the Atheneum of December 5, of a Tamil MS. in the Library of the India Office, in the course of which he refers to me for a confirmation of some of his statements.
I am glad to have an opportunity of expressing the pleasure I have received from perusing the careful analysis of Beschi's work by so competent a Tami) scholar, and of confirming the accuracy of his narrative as far as relates to the portion with which I am connected. Mr. Caldwell is right in correcting my version of the occasion on which the MS. came into the possession of Muttasami Pillei, an error into which I ought not to have fallen, since the sketch of Beschi in the eleventh
Man feeds on blood as embryo, Believers thus by dirt get pure ! Whilst in the womb, man feeds on blood, His warp and woof of blood consists; When weaned of blood he milk consumes; He morsels eats when weaned of milk; But weaned of morsels Lokman he becomes, Investigates things hidden and revealed. Were one to say to embryos in the womb :"Without, there is a well-arranged world, An earth quite joyous, long and broad, Of blessings full, and various food; With mountains, lakes, and prairies green, Parks, gardens, cultivated fields, The firmament so high and bright, The sun, the moon, with hundred winde, Zephyrs from north and south and west, With gardens, banquets, nuptials,Its wonders cannot be described.
• Lokmán, the name of a wage, standa here as the emblem of intellect.
+ The AbdAls are Illuminati.
