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264
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
SEPTEMBER, 1879.
of the India Office, to pass it through the press, to the wrongs and sufferings of his Highness the with summaries and notes. The book is thus the Imam 'Alt, the vicegerent of the Prophet, and let translation or adaptation of a Persian impressário's your eyes flow with tears, as a river, for the woes rendering of the famous "Mystery" by Messrs. that befel their Highnesses the beloved Imams Edwards and Lucas, illustrated with notes chiefly | Hasan and Husain, the foremost of the bright from Muir's Life of Mahomet, Sale's Koran, Mer- youths of Paradise.' For a while he proceeds rick's Life of Mohammed (1850), Price's Retrospect | amid the deep silence of the eager audience, but of Mahommedan History, and Hughes's Notes on as he goes on they will be observed to be swaying Muhammadaniem; but he urges " that in absence of to and fro, and altogether; at first almost imthe Persian text, it has been difficult to avoid mis- perceptibly, but gradually with a motion that takes which might not otherwise have occurred." becomes more and more marked. Suddenly a
This, we suppose, accounts for such expressions stifled sob is heard, or a cry, followed by more and as "fear not this venerable person ('Izrail—the more sobbing and crying, and rapidly the swaying angel of death) at all" (vol. I. p. 26), and where to and fro becomes a violent agitation of the whole Zainab is addressed (p. 239) as " Venus of the assembly, which rises in a mass, every one smiting station of uncertainty," and the like. From a his breast with open hand, and raising the wild scholarly point of view this is not satisfactory, rhythmical wail of Ya A'li! Ai Hasan, di and we are not told where the Persian text is. Husain, Ai Hasan, Ai Husain, Husain Shah! As Surely Sir Lewis Pelly took it home along with the wailing gathers force, and threatens to become the English adaptation; or did he not think it ungovernable, a choras of mourners, which has worth the carriage ?
formed almost without observation on the arena, An account of the historical basis of the drama begins chanting, in regular Gregorian music, a and of its annual celebration in Bombay by Dr. G. metrical version of the story, which calls back the Birdwood, C.S.I., adds to the value and interest of audience from themselves, and imperceptibly at the work. This the reader should not overlook last soothes and quiets them again. At the same though it is stowed away in the Preface. If to time the celebrants come forward, and take up the this Sir Lewis Pelly had added chromo repro- 'properties' before the tabut, and one represents ductions of the six oil illustrations of the scenes, Husain, another al'Abbas, his brother and stanpainted for him by a Persian artist at Shiraz, it dard-bearer, another Harro, and another Shamer, would bave been well.
all going through their parts (which it seems to As is well known the Shia'ha celebrate in sorrow be the duty of the chorus every now and then the expedition of Husain to Kuf& and the disaster more fully to explain), not after the manner of that befel him on the plain of Karbald, Muharramlet actors, but of earnest men absorbed in some high -10th A.H, 61 (A.D. 680). On each of the ten days sacrament, without consciousness of themselves a new scene of woe is represented on the Plain of An- or their audience." guish (karb) and Vexation (bald) ever sinee famous This mystery begins with the story of " Joseph in the Shia'h and Sunni division of Islam. All over and his Brethren," after the Old Testament, Persia, and wherever, as in India, the Shia'hs are in order to excite pity in the audience, and ends to be found, the martyrdom of Hasan and Husain with the "Resurrection," in which all sinners is observed in the first ten days of the month of are represented as ascribing their new life to Muharram, which, as a lunar feast, changes every the intercession of the martyrs, Hasan and Husain. year. Every great Shia'h has an Imambära hall In the second scene Ibrahim dies-the prophet's or enclosure, built for the spectacle. Against the son by Mariam, his Coptic wife. In the third side which looks to Makka is placed the model Wasain procures the deliverance of a disobedient of the tomb at Karbald, called tabut or tazia. All son from one of the seven storeys of the place of but the poorest have a wickerwork tabut for them. torment. In the fourth 'Ali offers his own life as selves, and the very poorest light a fire in a pot & sacrifice for another's. The fifth scene describes gunk in the ground. The play takes place before Muhammad's death; then, sixth, the seizure of the the richly decorated tomb twice daily. All save Khalffate by Aba Bakr; and the seventh, the their Sunni rivals and co-religionists, even English death of Fatima, 'Ali's wife. The martyrdom of and Hindus, may visit the tomb enclosures. At 'Ali himself is the subject of the eighth. Dying he the signal of a muffled drum silence falls on the thus speaks to the surgeon :crowd, a mulla enters the pulpit extemporised for "'AU.-- What shall I say, O Na'mån P Alas, the occasion, and this is the procedure, as de- when I went to the mosque, and stood up there for scribed by Dr. Birdwood :
prayer, toward the niche of faith, as soon as I fell "O ye Faithful, give ear! and open your hearts prostrate on the ground the cruel sword of the
Ind, Ant. vol. VII. p. 97.
