Indian Antiquary Vol 51

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 371

DECEMBER, 1922]
HIR AND RANJHA
The beauty of Hir and her girl friends is detailed in a somewhat high town language, but a good deal of the imagery is interesting and some of it is worth quoting. Hir's beauty slays Khatris and Khojas in the bazaar" like a murderous Kazilbash trooper riding out of the military camp. Wo meet here the word which gave its name to tho Urdu language "urd bazaar." Incidentally this gives us an interesting glimpse of the terror inspired by the Kaziibash horseman and perhaps recalls the sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah. "The eyes of Hir's girl friends were pencilled with the collyrium of Ceylon and Kandahar." "Their eye-brows are like the bows of Lahore." " The ring in Hir's nose shone liko thu polar star." "Her beauty was as mighty as the onset of a storin." "Her featuros woro as lovely as the curves of a manuscript " and "her tooth wore as boautiful as the soods of pomegranate." "Hor locks are like black cobras sitting on the treasuros of the Bar." (The belief is fairly widespread that cobras sit guarding buriod treasuro). "The onset of her beauty was as if armies from Kandahar had swept over thu Punjab." This simile givos us an interesting picture of the recurrent invasions of India by the Muhammadans of Afghanistan and Contral Asia. It is a simile that often recurs in the poem. Hîr thon abuses the boatmon for letting Ranjha sloop on her couch." They-Hir and her girl friends-descended on the boatman like a hailstorm sweeps over a field." Hir then addresses Ranjha and tho intorviuw onds in both falling in love with each other.
The conversation of the two lovers is particularly interesting to English realers as the position of womon in the east and the west is quite different. Hance the love scenes are cast in a different mould and the whole atmosphere of the love-making is quite different from that to which we are accustomed in the romantic literature of Europe. In the west the man is the lover and the woman the beloved. It is the inan who falls in love with the woman and tries to win her affection. Man is the hunter, the pursuer, and woniau the object of his pursuit. In the Panjab, and possibly in the east generally, the situation seems somewhat reversed. In nearly all Panjab literature the woman is the lover. More emphasis is laid on the woman's affection for the man than on the man's for the woman. It is she who makes love to the man. It is the woman who takes the initiative in all the strategeins and escapade incident in the adventure of love. The wivos of Luddan fall in love with Ranjha, not Ranjha with them. They start off making love to him with alacrity long before he has ever noticed thair existence. When Hîr and Ranjha first meet, it is Hir who first falls in love with Rånjha. The affection of course rapidly becomes mutual, but the dialogue clearly shows that Hir is the lover and that the first advances come from her. It is Hir not Ranjha who suggests Ranjha shall become Chuchak's cowherd. In any European story the initiative in this respect would surely have been taken by the man. Then, later op in his story, it is Hir who suggests that Ranjha should turn Jogi and meet her in this disguise. It is the woman who suggests the ruse by which Hir shall feigo snake bite and Ranjha shall be called in as a physician to oure hor. Throughout the story indeed the whole initiative lies with Hîr, and as far as the love story is concerned Ranjha is a very poor spirited creature compared with Hir. The hero of the love story is certainly Hir not Ranjha.
If this is typical of Panjabi love affairs at the present day, it is doubtful whether the framers of the Indian Penal Code were well advised when, on matters of abdygtion and running away with other peoples' wives they decided not to punish the woman. If the woman is the lover and author of all the initiative in such affairs, she certainly ought not to get off scot free. This is I believe and has been for a long time the opinion of the Indian public. But this is a digression and I will return to the story.