Indian Antiquary Vol 55

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 68

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MARCH, 1926
separation between me and thee: but I will first declare unto thee the signification of that which thou couldest not bear with patience. The vessel belonged to certain poor men, who did their business in the sea: and I was minded to render it unserviceable because there was a king behind them who took every sound ship by force.'”
Following this Legend on to Surah, xviii, Sale has three notes pertinent to the present enquiry in the Chandos Edition of his great work. (1) At p. 222, he notes: "To explain this long passage the commentators tell the following story. They say that Moses, once preaching to the people, they admired his knowledge and eloquence so much that they asked him whether he knew any man in the world wiser than himself ; to which he answered in the negative. Whereupon God in a revelation, having reprehended him for his vanity (though some pretend that Moses asked God the question of his own accord), acquainted him that his servant Al-Khedr was more knowing than he, and at Moses' request told him he might find the person at a certain rock where two seas met; directing him to take a fish with him in
basket, and that where he missed the fish that was the place. Accordingly Moses set out with his servant, Joshua, in search of Al-Khodr; which expedition is here described. AlBeid&wi (ob. c. 1286], Al-Zamakhshari [ob. c. 1142), Al-Bokhari (ob. 870), in Sonna [c. 7th cent. A.D.), etc." (2) Sale goes on (p. 222): "It is said that when they came to the rock, Moses falling asleep, the fish which was wasted, leaped out of the basket into the sea. Some add that Joshua, making the ablution at the Fountain of Life, some of the water happened to be sprinkled on the fish, which immediately restored it to life. Al-Beidawi [ob. c. 1286)." And (3) on p. 222 Sale notes: "This person according to the general opinion was the Prophet Al-Khedr, whom the Mohammedans usually confound with Phineas, Elias and St. George, saying that his soul passed by a metem psychosis successfully into all three. Some, however, say that his true name was Balya ebn Malcán, and that he lived in the time of Afridon, one of the ancient kings of Persia, and that he preceded Dhu'lkarnein [Alexander of the Two Horns, the Great] and lived to the time of Moses. They suppose that Al-Khedr, having found out the Fountain of Life and drank thereof, became immortal and that he had therefore this name (the Green One) from his flourishing continually. Part of these fictions they took from the Jews, some of whom fancy that Phineas was Elias."
Part of the Legend is no doubt Semitic in origin, but the connection of Al-Khigr with the Fountain of Life would seem to go to Persian sources. We have just seen him connected with Afrid ûn, one of the very early semi-mythical Peshdadian kings of Persia known to the Muhammadan writers through Firdusi's Shahndma (941-1020 A.D.). We shall now see him connected with another, Kaikubad. In Shea and Troyer's Dabistan, 1843, (vol. I, p. 67n.) occurs the following passage: "Khizr is confounded by many with the Prophet Elias, who is supposed to dwell in the Terrestrial Paradise in the enjoyment of immortality. According to the Tarikh Muntakhab [c. 1610 A.D.) this Prophet was Abraham's nephew and served as a guide to Moses and the children of Isracl in their passage of the Red Sea and the desert. The same author tells us that Khiềr lived in the time of Kai-Kobad, at which he discovered the Fountain of Life (Her belot)." The text, dated c. 1650, to which the above is a note, runs as follows: "They [the Sipasian, a Persian pre-Muhammadan sect] also assert that whatever modern writers have declared relative to Khizr and Iskander (Alexander) having penetrated into the regions of darkness, where the former discovered the Fountain of Life Immortal, means that the Iskandar or the intelligent soul, through the energy of the Khizr or reason, discovered, whilst in a state of human darkness, the Water of Life. In some passages they interpret the tradition after this manner : by Khizr is meant the intellectual soul or rational faculty, and by Iskander the animal soul or natural instinct. The Khizr of the intellectual soul, associated with the Iskander of the animal soul and the host (of perceptions) arrived at the fountain-head of understanding and obtained immortality, whilst the Iskander of the animal soul returned back empty-handed."