When a text is put in the bottlethat is, when a text is produced not for a single

addressee but for a community of readers-the author knows that he or she will be
interpreted not according to his or her intentions but according to a complex
strategy of interactions which also involves the readers, along with their
competence in language as a social treasury. I mean by social treasury not only a
given language as a set of grammatical rules, but also the whole encyclopedia
that the performances of that language have implemented, namely, the cultural
conventions that that language has produced and the very history of the previous
interpretations of many texts, comprehending the text that the reader is in the
course of reading.
(Eco 1992:67-8, my ellipsis and emphasis)
My idea of textual interpretation as the discovery of a strategy intended to
produce a model reader conceived as the ideal counterpart of a model author
(which appears only as a textual strategy), makes the notion of an empirical
authors intention radically useless. We have to respect the text, not the author as
person so-and-so.
(Eco 1992:66, my emphasis)
Thus every act of reading is a difficult transaction between the competence of the
reader (the readers world knowledge) and the kind of competence that a given
text postulates in order to be read in an economic way.
(Eco 1992:68; cf Bharata and Mahima on loka)
If interpretation is reconstruction of the intention of the text, then these are
questions that dont lead that way; they ask about what the text does and how:
how it relates to other texts [cf. Faruqi 1994:4:84-5; Faruqi 2004a:292-3] and to
other practices; what it conceals or represses; what it advances or is complicitous
with. Many of the most interesting forms of modern criticism ask not what the
work has in mind but what it forgets, not what it says but what it takes for granted.
(Culler 1992:115 on overstanding; my emphasis)
Its strange that Pierce used such a term as abduction. He formulated it in
analogy with Deduction and Induction (and also in reference to to some
Aristotelian terms). But we cannot forget that in English abduction also means
kidnapping. If I have a strange Result in a field of phenomena not yet studied, I
cannot look for a Rule in that field (if there were and if I did not know it, the
phenomenon would not be strange). I must go and abduct, or borrow, a Rule
from elsewhere. You could say that I must reason by analogy.
(Eco 1990:158, my emphasis)
There are three levels of Abduction. On the first level, the Result is strange and
unexplainable, but the Rule already exists somewhere, perhaps inside the same
field of problems, and one must just find it, and find it to be the most probable.
On the second level, the Rule is difficult to identify. It exists elsewhere [Godels
Incompleteness Theorems], and one must bet that it could be extended to this field
of phenomena (this is the case of Kepler). On the third level, the Rule does not
exist, and one must invent it: this is the case of Copernicus, who decides that the
universe must not be heliocentric for reasons of symmetry and good form.
(Eco 1990:159, my emphasis)
There is something for Peirce that transcends the individual intention of the
interpreter and it is the transcendental idea of a community, or the idea of a
community as a transcendental principle. This principle is not transcendental in
the Kantian sense, because it does not come before but after the semiosic
process; it is not the structure of the human mind that produces the
interpretation but the reality that the semiosis builds up. Anyway, from the
moment in which the community is pulled to agree with a given interpretation,
there is, if not an objective, at least an intersubjective meaning which acquires a
 2

privilege over any other possible interpretation spelled out without the agreement of
the community.
(Eco 1990:40, my emphasis)
a given interpretation of a text involves: (i) its linear text manifestation; (ii) the
reader who reads from the point of view of a given Erwartungshorizon; and (iii) the
cultural encyclopedia comprehending a given language and the series of the
previous interpretations of the same text. This third element-can only be viewed
in terms of responsible and consensual judgement of a community of readers-or of
a culture.
(Eco 1992:143, my emphasis)
C.S. Peirce, who insisted on the conjectural element of interpretation, on the
infinity of semiosis, and on the essential fallibilism of every interpretative
conclusion, tried to establish a minimal paradigm of acceptability of an
interpretation on the grounds of a consensus of the community (which is not so
dissimilar from Gadamers idea of an interpretative tradition). What kind of
guarantee can a community provide? I think it provides a factual guarantee.
(Eco 1992:144)

The text intention is not displayed by the Linear Text Manifestation. Or, if it
is displayed, it is so in the sense of the purloined letter. One has to decide to see
it. Thus it is possible to speak of text intention only as the result of a conjecture
on the part of the reader. The initiative of the reader basically consists in making a
conjecture about the text intention.

A text is a device conceived in order to produce its model Reader. I repeat

that this reader is not the one who makes the only right conjecture. A text can
forsee a Model Reader entitled to try infinite conjectures. The empirical reader is
only an actor who makes conjectures about the kind of Model Reader postulated
by the text. Since the intention of the text is basically to produce a Model Reader
able to make conjectures about it, the initiative of the Model Reader consists in
figuring out a Model Author that is not the empirical one and that, at the end,
coincides with the intention of the text

The logic of interpretation is the Piercean logic of abduction. To make a

conjecture means to figure out a Law that can explain a Result. The secret code of
a text is such a Law

To isolate a fact as a curious Result means to have already obscurely

thought of a Law of which that fact could be the Result. When I start reading a
text I never know, from the beginning, whether I am approaching it from the point
of view of a suitable intention. My initiative starts to become exciting when I
discover that my intention could meet the intention of that text.

How to prove a conjecture about the intentio operis? The only way is to
check it against the text as a coherent whole. This idea, too, is an old one and
comes from Augustine (De doctrina Christiana 2-3): any interpretation given of a
certain portion of a text can be accepted if it is confirmed and must be rejected if
it is challenged by another portion of the same text [cf. Faruqi 1994:4:84-5;
Faruqi 2004a:292-3]. In this sense the internal textual coherence controls the
otherwise uncontrollable drives of the reader.
(Eco 1990:58-9, my ellipsis and emphases)
The text itself tells us which kind of reader it postulates (Eco 1984a:10). The
Model Author (which need not be the empirical author) forsees a Model Reader
 3

who is supposedly able to deal interpretatively with the expressions in the same
way as the author deals generatively with them (Eco 1984a:7).

but if I want to interpret Wordsworths text I must respect his cultural and
linguistic background.
(Eco 1992:69)
I strongly believe that there are certain economical criteria on the grounds of
which certain hypotheses will be more interesting than others. To validate his or
her hypothesis, the addressee probably ought first to make certain conjectures
about the possible sender and the possible historical period in which the text was
produced. This has nothing to do with researching the intentions of the sender,
but it certainly has to do with researching the cultural framework of the original
message.
(Eco 1990:5, my emphasis)
a text magnetizes on it, so to speak, the whole of the readings it has elicited in
the course of history.
(Eco 1990:12, cf magnetizes as mandkapluti anuvrtti)
We can know more of a sign because we accept knowing its object according to a
certain ground, that is, under a certain description, from the point of view of a
given context, in some respect or capacity (2.228). In structuralist terms, one
could say that for Peirce, semiosis is potentially unlimited from the point of view
of the system but is not unlimited from the point of view of the process. In the
course of a semiosic process we want to know only what is relevant according to a
given universe of discourse.
(Eco 1990:28)
Penrod (1993:39) highlights the partisan role of translation and says that since
we are always required when translating to take a position relative to other
cultures and languages, we must as well remain ever vigilant as to the nature of
the position assumed. She interprets in terms of power relations Schliermachers
(1813) philosophical distinction between domesticating and foreignizing strategies
of translation (the domesticating strategy is experience-near/emic/topopophagic/
Averros Effect/translation law of growing standardisation (Toury 1995:268);
the foreignizing experience-distant/etic/topopoemic/Algazel Effect)

The culture of a people is an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles, which the

anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of those to whom they properly
belong.
(Geertz 1973:452)
Geertz argues that the local knowledge of participants should be combined with
that of the social scientist
So as to produce an interpretation of the way a people lives which is neither
imprisoned within their mental horizons, an ethnography of a witchcraft as
written by a witch, nor systematically deaf to the distinctive tonalities of
their existence, an anthropology of a witchcraft as written by a geometer.
(Geertz 1973:57)
Geertz says that
To grasp concepts that, for another people, are experience-near, and to do
so well enough to place them in illuminating connection with experience-
distant concepts theorists have fashioned to capture the general features of
social life, is clearly a task as delicate, if a bit less magical, as putting
oneself into someone elses skin.
(Geertz 1983:58)
 4

When we fail to find innovation in the serial, it is perhaps a result less of the
structures of the text than of our horizon of expectations and our cultural
habits. We know very well that in certain examples of non-Western art, where we
always see the same thing, the natives recognize infinitesimal variations and they
feel the shiver of innovation. Where we see innovation, at least in the serial forms
of the Western past, the original addressees were not at all interested in that
aspect and conversely enjoyed the recurrences of the scheme.
(Eco 1990:93, my emphasis)
But in the case of texts there is at least a proof depending on the isolation of the
relevant semantic isotopy. Greimas defines isotopy as a complex of manifold
semantic categories making possible the uniform reading of a story.The first
movement toward the recognition of a semantic isotopy is a conjecture about the
topic of a given discourse: once this conjecture has been attempted, the
recognition of a possible constant semantic isotopy is the textual proof of the
aboutness of the discourse in question.
(Eco 1992:63, cf. Eco 1984a:195)
In some of my recent writings I have suggested that between the intention of the
author (very difficult to find out and frequently irrelevant for the
interpretation of the text) and the intention of the interpreter who (to quote
Richard Rorty) simply beats the text into a shape which will serve for his
purpose, there is a third possibility. There is an intention of the text.
(Eco 1992:25)
To recognize the intentio operis is to recognize a semiotic strategy. Sometimes the
semiotic strategy is detectable on the grounds of established stylistic
conventions.
(Eco 1992:64-5)
The model author, on the other hand, is a voice that speaks to us affectionately
(or imperiously, or slyly), [cf. Abhinava on the various modes of address of
different genres; some times, the model author whispers, ever so inaudibly, in
another language and from a different culture] that wants us beside it. This voice
is manifested as a narrative strategy, as a set of instructions which is given to us
step by step and which we have to follow when we decide to act as the model
reader.
(Eco 1998c:15)
...only when empirical readers have discovered the model author, and have
understood (or merely begun to understand) what it wanted from them, will they
become full-fledged model readers.
(Eco 1998c:27)
Ill begin (arch, Rhetoric 1393a) by comparing this text (epagog=paradeigma,
Rhetoric 1356b) by analogy (parabol, Rhetoric 1357b) to all other similar texts
(Faruqi 1994:4:84-5; or at least as many that Im aware of, Faruqi 2004a:292-3)
so as to try to assign species (the part, the token, i.e., this text) to a genus (the
whole, the type, i.e., all other similar texts; cf. De doctrina Christiana 2-3; Eco
2000:181) in order to attempt to identify and recognize (genrimteron, Rhetoric
1357b) its topos. However, in order to arraign other texts for comparison, Ive
projected by conjecture (arthpatti, Abhinava, abduction, Eco 1990, 1992) a
general meaning as a whole for this particular text as soon as some initial
meaning emerged in it; which initial meaning emerged only because I read this
text with particular expectations in regard to a general meaning (Gadamer
2004:269); my readings therefore prejudiced (from the Latin prjudicium prior
judgment, from pr- before + judicium judgment, from judex [gen. judicis]
judge; Gadamer 2004: 268-85); Ive read this text with fore-having, fore-sight and
fore-conception (Vorhabe, Vorsicht and Vorgrif; Heidegger 1962:191) by placing
 5

this text in the genre (Faruqi 2004a:293) of rgra kvya (erotic poetry), the sub-
genre of sambhoga rgra (Love-in-Union) and the sub-sub-genre of
Nyikbhed (a major Braj-Persian/Mughal multimedia genre, Busch 2009) in
light of the synistor lychnos/ratipradpa texts; Ive decided to see (Eco 1990:58)
these texts as a Model Reader (Eco 1990; 1992) to recognize the semiotic
strategy of the intentio operis (Eco 1992:64-5) by focusing my gaze on the Linear
Text Manifestation (Eco 1990, 1992), on the things themselves (Gadamer
2004:269) i.e., the padrtha of this text namely Embarrassment, Lovemaking and
a Tremulous Candle (Oil-Lamp) as the narrative strategy/set of instructions of
the Model Author (Eco 1998c:15). Ive made a conjecture by figuring out a
Law/Rule that can explain the Result, i.e., this text (Eco 1990:59; modus ponendo
ponens; Aristotles synagg/anagg; conversio ad phantasmata/reflexio super
phantasmata; Summa Theologiae 1.86.1): Whenever Lovemaking, Embarassment
and a Tremulous Candle (Oil-Lamp) are mentioned, the topos is almost always of
the Mugdh Nyik; this Text also mentions Lovemaking, Embarassment and a
Tremulous Candle, hence, its Topos too must be that of the Mugdh Nyik (cf.
Peirce on the argument from analogy, CP 2.787). My strategys therefore one of
assimilation, adapting the new phenomenon to old schemas (Todorov 1982:27).
This text exhibits the (semiotic) narrative strategy of dhvani (Suggestion); the
variety called avivaksitavcya arthmtarasamkramitadhvani (also called
lakanamldhvani; see Dhvanyloka 1.13 and 2.1 and the Locana commentary
thereon; Todorov [1982:104] terms this, without attribution, as semantic
motivation based on propositional symbolism by adding a second statement to the
first [ibid.]): avivaksita (see Dhvanyloka 3.33 on vivaks) since the mens operis
is the topos of the mugdh which isnt lexically signifiable from the Text Linear
Manifestation; arthmtarasamkramita since the literal meanings of khalwat-e
nms and khr-e kiswat-e fns arent completely discarded and lead (through
the three conditions for lakan) to the meaning of the mugdh nayik.

In identifying the mens operis/topos of this patently Islamicate, Perso-Urdu text

as that of the Brahmanic-Sanskritic (Busch 2010:85) mugdh nyik; its mens
auctoris as that of nyikbheda and its narrative strategy as avivaksitavcya
arthmtarasamkramitadhvani, Im afraid that Ive indulged in overinterpretation
(Eco 1990, 1992) and in the process violated the privileged intersubjective
cultural community meaning (Eco 1990:40) as well as the responsible and
consensual judgement of a community of readers-or of a culture (Eco 1992:143)
and also the cultural encyclopedia comprehending a given language and the
series of the previous interpretations of the same text (ibid) built up by a
tradition of over a century and a decade of traditional commentary on the Mirza
sahibs Urdu dwn.

Rather than community and intersubjective cultural consensus, I think the better
strategy here is dissensus and paralogy (Lyotard 1979). Ecos (and Peirces) notion
of community ( cf. Gadamers [2004] notion of tradition) seems to me to be too
monolithic and homogenous, too striated (Deluze and Guattari 2005:385-86),
too sedentary (Deluze and Guattari 2005:380) and (if I might say so), too
censorious. How does one define community? The notion of community
inevitably implies the dominance and hegemony (ideological, cultural, linguistic,
aesthetic) of one group over others. What if the text under question is the locus of
contestation between multiple communities? What if the dominant communitys
voice stifles, suppresses, muzzles or censors that of the subaltern community?
What if the dominant community terrorizes the subaltern into silence or
 6

consent by threatening exclusion from the language-game (Lyotard 1979:63-4)?

What if the dominant community is deviant (as happens in dictatorial and fascist
regimes)? The century-long tradition of commentators on the Mirza sahibs Urdu
dwn certainly constitutes a dominant community as well as a clearly defined,
well-demarcated reading-position (cf. literary conventions of a specific period
(Vodika 1982:110; 1976:197208); reading formations; Bennett 1987:70f;
interpretative communities, Fish 1980:167-73). This dominant community, by
and large, seems to have ethnocentrically/ideologically (colonially?) adhered to
the Islamicate Perso-Arabic poetic episteme as the sole aesthetic paradigm in so
far as the interpretation of the Mirza sahibs Urdu ghazal poetry is concerned.

If translation is certainly a form of interpretation (Eco 2003:123; for a stronger

version of this hypothesis, see Faruqi 2004a:267) then the traditional
commentators seem to have (ideologically and ethnocentrically) mistranslated and
misinterpreted khalwat, nms and khr-e kiswat-e fns and (especially!) majlis-
faroz (Interpret, from Latin interpretari explain, expound, understand, from
interpres agent, translator, from inter- + second element of uncertain origin,
perhaps related to Skt. prath- to spread abroad. Interpretation is attested from
1292 in Anglo-Fr. Interpreter one who translates spoken languages is from
1382). The ancient Graeco-Roman authors used interpreter for translator
(Horace Ars poetica 133-34; Cicero De finibus 3.4.15; De optimo genere oratorum
5.14; Jerome Epistula 57, Ad Pammachium Optimo genere interpretandi; Preface to
Eusebius; Quintillian Instituto oratoria 9.2; Augustine De civitate dei 14.17; for the
ancients, to interpret was to act as an agent between two languages, two parties,
two texts, two cultures; to be a broker, a negotiator, explainer, expounder and a
translator. The Sanskritic vykhyna (commentary) is
tatsamnrthakapadtarena vistarena tadarthakathanam-stating the meaning
by paraphrasing with synonymous words; i.e., translating; tk, (commentary) is
tatkartur abhipretasya abdtarena vivarnam-explaining the purport by
equivalent words; i.e, translating. Indeed padrthokti, stating the meaning of the
words of the text (i.e., translation) is one of the five defining features of
vykhyna, commentary.

I see commentary as a form of translation, viz. translating the topos of the text
being commented upon and therefore also as a form of interpretation; in terms of
Peircean semiotics, commentary/translation is the interpretant between the sign
(the text) and its signified (i.e., the texts topos); hence, the
commentator/translator is himself an interpretant between the text and its
topos/meaning. The position (Penrod 1993:39) taken by the traditional
commentators is limited to (constricted by!) the local knowledge (Geertz
1973:57) and the small world (Eco 1990:64-82) of the Islamicate/Arabo-Persian
universe of discourse. Schliermacher (1813) enunciated a philosophical
distinction between domesticating and foreignizing strategies of translation-the
domesticating strategy is ethnocentric, experience-near (Geertz 1983:58), emic and
topoemic (after Lvi-Strauss 1961:386): what I like to dub the Averros Effect
(after Borges 1998:235-241), whereas the foreignizing strategy is xenocentric,
experience-distant, etic and topopophagic, illustrative of the Algazel Effect (after
Davids 1911:200-01). The traditional commentators seem to have domesticated
their translation (and consequently their interpretation) of this text, whereas my
translation (interpretation) seems to have foreignized it. This domestication
seems to have led them to focus on certain aspects [the Islamicate/Arabo-
Persian], leaving other aspects [the Indic-Sanskritic] in the background (katan
1999:38; cf. the andhagajanyya). Venuti (1996:93) says that translation is
 7

fundamentally ethnocentric; always ideologicallinked to historical moments

and social positions in the domestic culture (2000:485; my emphases). While
translation need not be always ideological, in this specific instance, it most
definitely is; its also colonial. Lefevere (1992:9) says that translation is the most
obvious recognizable type of rewriting and that rewriters always have some kind
of agenda, hidden or not (1995:10); Hermans (1999:95) writes that translation is
of interest because it offers first-hand evidence of the prejudice of perception and
of the pervasiveness of local concerns (my emphasis); Arrojo (1994:158) claims
that infidelity to the source-text is every translators and every readers inevitable
fate, it is precisely that which cannot be avoided. These strident opinions, from
the manipulation/distortion school of translation squarely apply to the traditional
commentators (mis) translation of this text. Tourys translation law of growing
standardisation which states that textual relations obtaining in the original are
often modified, sometimes to the point of being totally ignored, in favour of habitual
options ofered by a target repertoire (Toury 1995:268, my emphasis) certainly
applies here. The majority of the commentatorial community has (habitually)
translated/commented/interpreted this texts topos as that of the Jalwah-e
Mehbb (The Beloveds Hierophany) from the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic-Sf Ur-
Topos of Tajall (which is therefore the certum, Pollock:2009; cf. the Vivarpa
darana of the Gt), majorly mistranslating majlis-faroz by interpreting it in its
literal meaning, though theyve glossed it in its metaphorical meaning. The lone
commentator who explicitly notes the metaphorical meaning (Wjid 1902:116)
still nevertheless mistranslates this texts topos (cf. Eco 2000:57-8 on Marco Polo
and the rhinoceros). Many of the commentators (Nti q 1968:107, Mihr 1967:149-
50, Cit 2009:360, Fatehpr 1993:47-8 and Faruqi 2006:71) interpretatively
gloss this phrase with jalwah (from whence tajall). Other commentators also
gloss it in a similar but weaker vein: mehfil ko rawnaq dene wl (brightener of
the gathering, Dni n.d.:106); rawnaq afroz (brightner of the assembly;
Malsiyn 2005:109); bazm afroz (brightner of the gathering; Hasrat 2004:50,
Bqir 2000:110, Bekhud Dihlav 2000:77), mehfil ko camknewl (brightner of
the gathering; Jfr 1992:199); all nevertheless interpret uno flatu et uno intuitu
that this texts topos is Jalwah-e Mehbb and its image is the Agitated Flame (a
minority read the image as that of an Agitated Lantern-covering; the
commentators are divided on the aetiology of the agitation; some determine the
cause as embarrassment and others as envy/jealousy, but all agree that these are
reactions at being Outshone by the Hyper-Incandescent Beloved). The
commentators seem quite immune to the anxiety of influence (Bloom
1997[1973]) and cheerfully pass on the same literary meme (Dawkins
1989[1976]), with the exception of Abd al Al Wlah Dakn (1893:28), Merath
(1899:54-5), Hasrat Mohn (2002:50), Sad al-Dn (2007:104-5), Bqir
(2000:110), Fatehpr (1993:47-8, all in the semiotic mode of Suggestion) and
especially Faruqi sahib (2006:71-3, in the mode of Statement). auxilia firma
consensus facit-unanimity gives strength; nimia certitudo certitudinem ipsam
destruit-too great certainty destroys certainty itself; consensus facit legum-
consessus makes law. In support of the first view, it can be said omnis consensus
tollit errorem (2 Inst. 123)-consensus always obviates the effect of error and non
consentit qui errat-he who errs doesnt consent (1 Bouv. Inst. n. 581) . Its also
equally possible to rejoin with Cicero, De natura deorum 1.10 (Dyck 2003:25) that
non enim tam auctoritatis in disputando quam rationis momenta quaerenda sunt-in
every argument, reason commands greater respect than authority.
 8

The delightful thing is that the Mugdh Nyik and the Jalwah-e Mehbb topoi
are similar-yet-different; the former is amatory, Jaml, majz; the latter ascetic,
Jall, haqq; the former about the amatory obstruction of loooking at the au
naturel mugdh; the latter about the theological impossibility of looking upon
the visage of God; the fate of the lamp/candle in the former is to be doused/eyes
to be obstructed; in the latter, the eyes (structural homologues of fire/lamps;
Empedocles, fragment 84b, Plato, Timaeus 45b-c; 58c; Aristotle, De sensu et
sensato 2.437b9-14; the Latin luc, which means eyes also means torches;
Tibullus, Elegies 1.2.38; Keava Mira, Tarkabhs chapter 2) to blackout by
losing consciousness.

In terms of the nyikbheda topos, the Agitated Flame reading is the mens operis
and the Agitated Lantern reading the mens lectoris. Whats extremely enjoyable
(almost indescribably so!) is that though the text speaks ad litteram of an Agitated
Lantern-Covering, the majority of the venerable commentators have transmitted
along with the topos of the Jalwah-e Mehbb, the image of the topos of the
Mugdh Nyik: that of the Agitated Flame! Theres a contaminatio of hypotexts
(Genette:1997a:5) here; the Persian hypotext of the Agitated Flame image is
probably Msavi Khn Fitrats er quoted from the Farhag-e nadarj by the
Lughatnmah (Dihkhoda 1339:18) as an exemplum under khr-e prhan. The
Sanskrit hypotext of Fitrats er is probably Avaghosa, Buddhacarita 1.14 (cf.
Klidsa, Raghuvama 3.15).

This matlah
s (sun-rise) mamn hides in darkness-coincidentia oppositorum;
The synistor lychnos/ratipradpa mamn in Ghalib 39.1 is scopo/scoptophobic
and gymnophobic like the mugdh nyik, preferring to sport in the dark; The
/Suratapradpa mamn in 39.1 is a mugdh nyik covering
the eyes of the commentators/blowing out their lamps/the readers vultum
virile male gaze wants to see the poem nude (cf. Macherey 1978:75,
interpretation as stripping the text of its ornamentation-cf. Bihari on
ornamentation of the nyikbheda; cf. Castiglione in the Courtier on
unaffected/unadorned speech), the poem, a la a mugdh nyik has closed the
eyes of the critics and locks out the critic-lover, the exclusus lector/auditor/will
not let the interpreter strip it of its ornamentation)[re-]cogito interruptus (Eco
1998:221)/the Mirza Sahibs rak will not let even the reader/auditor see his
scripta puella, his kavit-nyik/39.1 is clothed in a ridah over a sr over a
himation/peplos/chiton/39.1 compels the reader-auditor to repeatedly gaze at it,
like a mugdh nyik, but confounds the vultum virile of the reader-auditor sous
rature/the Mirza Sahibs difficult poems are the domina puella, cruel,
unyielding, unattainable, inaccessible-a poetic of karuna; The Mirza Sahibs verse
gets rid of even the voyeur/reader/auditor, which the other Greco-
Roman/Sanskrit-Prakrit verses dont; the exclusus lector-auditor; The Mirza, a
Greco-Roman-Sanskritic stranger in the Arabo-Persian-Urdu city, uses the
suratapradpa topos in the parapurapraveasadra pratikacukam arthaharana
mode; whereas the Sanskrit-Prakrit tradition uses this topos in relation to the
Graeco-Roman synistor lychnos in the parapurapraveasadra tadvirodhin
arthaharana mode; this mamn being silent like a candle, a fns between the
commentators and this texts mamn, the mamn nevertheless glowing softly
from within

Mr Sayyid Manjhan Rjagiri attr (Madhumlat 449.4, Avadhi/Eastern

Hindawi); Abd al-Rahm Khn-e Khn (Barvai Nyikbheda, Avadhi, Bhati
 9

1995:221-250, Mishra-Rajnish 1999:135-144); Ab al-Fazl (in-e Akbar,

Persian, section on shitya; for Fazl, nyikbheda is synecdochic of Sanskrit
literature itself); Abd al-Whid Bilgrms Sf treatise (Haqiq-e Hind, Persian);
Jahgr (Jahgrnmah, Persian, on Tsens Braj Bhs bandi Thackston
1999:93); Keavadsa (Jahgrajascadrik 34, Braj; extols Jahgrs
knowledge of nyikbheda); Nawb Saif Khn alias Faqrullh (Rislah-e
Rgdarpan, Persian; bb-e pajum, section on nyikbheda, Sarmadee 1996:133-
149); Mirz Khn ibn Fakhr al-Dn Muhammad (Tuhfat-al Hind 4.1.2, Foll.163b-
177b, Persian; Mirz Khns nyikbheda chapter is titled ilm-e marifat-e aqsm-
e zan va mard va suhbat dtan va muarat va mubarat b zann/kok,
Science of typifying women and men and cohabitation and intercourse with
women/Erotics); Mr Ghulm Al zd Bilgrm (Ghizln-al Hind; the titles a
chronogram that yields the date of composition of this work, 1178 A.H./1764-5
Persian; Bilgrm renders nyikbheda as asrr-al niswn, mistranslating bheda
as secrets rather than classification or typology.)

Dear Fran,

Assalaamaalaikum!

Im extremely happy, Fran-to hear about your eye-Mashallah! I certainly see my

dream as an auspicious omen, Fran-for the both of us!

Im afraid, Fran, that Im compelled to vex you slightly- by soliciting your expert
and considered opinion on an obscure topic-that of Nayikabheda-do PLEASE
indluge me!

The typology of Nayikabheda has been present, though in a muted form, in the
Islamicate universe of discourse ever since Mir Sayyid Manjhan Rajagiri Shattaris
Madhumalati (Avadhi) and the other Sufi premakhyana texts, coming to full
flower in the Mughal era-Nayikabheda, Fran, was a major multi-media Mughal
genre in music, dance, literature and art-sung as thumri/khayal, performed by
Kathak exponents, theorized in ritigranths as well as composed in anthologies
and lavishly illustrated in miniatures. Abd al-Rahim Khan-e Khanas Barvai
Nayikabheda (Avadhi); Abul Fazls Ain-e Akbari (Persian), and Abd al-Wahid
Bilgramis Sufi treatise Haqaiq-e Hindi (Persian) are the major literary instances.
Jahangir in the Jahangirnamah (Persian) expostulates on an indic image in
Tansens Braj bandish; Keshavadas in the Jahangirjaschandrika (Braj) extols
Jahangirs knowledge of Nayikabheda; Nawab Saif Khan alias Faqirullah in the
Risalah-e Ragdarpan (Persian), a treatise on Musicology, has an entire chapter
(the fifth) on Nayaka-Nayikabheda; Mirza Khan ibn Fakhr al-Din Muhamad in his
magnum opus Tuhfat-al Hind (Persian) has a short section on Nayaka-
Nayikabheda and erotics.

Then theres also Mir Ghulam Ali Azad Bilgramis fascinating and unique treatise,
Ghizlan-al Hind, where Bilgrami (translating into Persian the fourth chapter of his
own earlier Arabic treatise subhat al marjan fi athar Hindustan) disourses on
Nayikabheda, semiotically mapping distichs of famous Persian masters onto the
socio-cultural code of Nayikabheda-thereby theoretically and potentially
enabling any Persian-Urdu ghazal text to be decoded in terms of the typological
and erotological code of (Nayaka)Nayikabheda. This classic, Fran, alas, remains
untranslated and obscure, utterly destitute and homeless, so to speak,
forgotten by both Indian and Iranian intellectuals and scholars.
 10

Given the above socio-cultural literary background, I find it extremely strange

that Ive been unable to come across any work on Nayikabheda in Urdu (by which
I mean Dakhni as well as standard Urdu). Even Shakilur Rehman, one of the
few Urdu theorist whos written on Sanskrit aesthetics is totally silent on
Nayikabheda in his beautiful, ambiguous work Mirza Ghalib aur Hind-Mughal
Jamaliyat.

My query to you, Fran, therefore, is this-have you, perchance, come across any
Urdu work on Nayikabheda-either original or by way of a translation or
commentary or sub-commentary? Do please vex yourself and let me know!

Once again, a thousand apologies-

Lots of love,

satya

1998c Six Walks in the Fictional Woods. Harvard University Press.

Storey, C.A.
1927-1971 Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey. 5 vols.
Luzac: London.

Heidegger, Martin
1962 Being and Time. Wiley-Blackwell.