Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 211

OCTOBER, 1929]
A LIFE OF NAND RISHI
195
rubies and diamonds of great lustre arc to the eye. They are generally characterized by an ambiguity of language suggesting both a terrestrial and a celestial meaning. They are so objective, concise, complete and ad hoc, that they have become almost canonical and are stamped on the memory of the people. In Kashmir they have, indeed, shaped and moulded the people's character. The Kashmîrî repeats such aphoristic lines again and again in his every-day life as current coins of quotation.
But, the pity is that the philosophers did not reduce them to writing. What they had to say they taught orally to their disciples, and their sayings were written after their dates in the Persian character, without punctuation or diacritical marks. Thus defectively recorded, they have become inextricably confused and full of interpolations by disciples, imitators and rhapsodists. Whatever wasnoted by any one person in the margin of his treasured private copy by way of interpretation, was regarded by the next owner or copyist as part of the text: there was no means of distinguishing addenda from mere marginalia, for they knew not that it was impossible to alter a word in such sayings without altering it for the worse. The correct reading of an old manuscript has, therefore, become a very intricate task.
I obtained two copies of the Nur-nama, and both of them had shared the fate described above. I was, however, able to decipher seme of the sayings in them with the help of bards of Tsrår village, and the result will be set forth below.
Nand Rishi or Sahajânanda (or Shaikh Nuru'd-dîn, as he was afterwards named by Mir Muhammad of Hamadan), was born at Kaimuh, a village two miles to the west of Bijbihara, on the 'idu'z-zuha day of 779 A.H. (1377 A.D.). His father's name was Sâlâr Sanz, whose ancestors were descended from the Rajas of Kishtwâr and had immigrated into Kashmîr. They had been granted a jágir by the then king of Kashmir, at Rupawan, a village five miles to the north-west of Tsrår, where they had settled. Drupada Sanz was a descendant of this family and was a respectable man, held in high esteem by the Kashmir Darbûr. His son's name was Sul Sanz, who lived at Guda Suth village, and became a disciple of a hermit named Yasman Rishi, being converted by him to Islâm under the name of Sâlâr Din. He used to take bis preceptor's cows to the fields for grazing, and after some time Yasman Rishi arranged his marriage with Sadr Majî at Kaimub village.
Sadr Majî had previously lived at village Khayah in the Adven Pargana. She was a descendant of a Rajpût family and, as her parents had died when she was yet a child, she had been adopted by a Muhammadan. When grown up, she had been married to a Dûm at Kaimuh, by whom she had two sons, named Shishu and Gandharv. After a while ber husband died.
It is said that one day Sâlâr Dîn together with his bride went to his religious preceptor, Yasman Rishi, who was at the time sitting by a spring. Lalla Ded happened to arrive there, carrying a bouquet in her hand. Yasman Rishi took it from her and gave it to Sadr Mâji to smell, and the same night she conceived. After the due period had elapsed, she gave birth to a son, whom she named Nand Kishi. Another version is that one night a Brahman at Kaimuh village told his wife that if she rose up very early the following morning and went to the stream passing by the village, she would observe two bouquets, one of hi (white jasmine) and the second of arni (yellow jasmine) floating down, and if she caught and smelt the former, she would conceive and give birth, in due course, to a boy who would become a very holy man; but if she picked up the latter, she would conceive and give birth to a boy, who would also become a holy man, though not equal to the boy born of the woman who might smell the white jasmine. Sul Sanz, who was going on his night round at the time, overheard this conversation. On his return he spoke about it to his wife Sadr, and enjoined on her to checkmate the Brahman's wife by going very early in the morning to the stream and catching the bouquet of white jasmine that would float down first and smelling it. She did so and succeeded in picking up the first