RISING KASHMIR.....MEHMOOD GAMI

Mehmood Gaami’s naat found in Princeton Library US

Monday, 21 Nov 2011 at 11:20

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Rising Kashmir News
Srinagar, Nov 21: A Persian “Na’at” by Kashmir’s distinguished poet Mehmood Gaami has been found on the pages of highly

acclaimed “Sehrul Bayan” in the library of Princeton University in New Jersey USA.
This opens a fresh debate about the caliber of the poet and his connection with the Urdu language. The fascinating finding came up when prominent poet and writer Ayaz Rasool Nazki was looking at the collection in the library. He came across the section- Islamic manuscripts. This section is home to a plethora of documents written over hundreds of years in Arabia, Iran and Hindustan. These manuscripts cover a wide range of subjects and pertain to languages and literature, ethics, logic, material sciences, astronomy and other areas of intellectual pursuits that our ancestors were interested in.
“There in the rare books and manuscripts lies a manuscript acquired by the library in 1942 which originally belonged to one Abraham Yehuda. This manuscript spread over 220 pages of illuminated text with finest calligraphy and also having within its text 16 hand made paintings is the famous Urdu mathnavi by Mir Hassan and known all over the world to Urdu lovers as a classic, the mathnavi Sehrul Bayan” Nazki told Rising Kashmir.
Mir Hassan lived between 1736 and 1786 AD and spent his life between Delhi and Lukhnow.He is supposed to have composed his celebrated work towards the end of his life.
The manuscript of mathnavi Sehrul Bayan in the collection of Princeton University Library has many blank sheets in the beginning and at the end of the manuscript. It is on these blank pages that many informal entries can be seen and one of such entries is a Persian naat composed by one of the most prominent poets of Kashmiri, the epoch making trend setter for Kashmiri poetry, Mehmood Gaami.”Our brilliant poet who composed a number of mathnavis and wrote scores of gazals in Kashmiri also composed few works in Persian. He was also the first to venture in to Urdu poetry which is listed under Hindavi kalam in his kuliyat” he added. Mehmood Gaami lived a long life and is believed to have died in 1855 at the ripe age of about 90 years.
The finding throws up few interesting questions. One that what was Mehmood Gaami doing on the pages of the manuscript of Sehrul Bayan?
One possibility, according to Nazki could be that this particular manuscript of Sehrul Bayan was calligraphed by Mehmood Gaami himself as we all know that Gami had a fine hand and was an accomplished calligrapher as is evident from some samples of his writings published in his Kuliyaat (collection of poems). “This theory if accepted also throws open the possibility that Gaami was also well versed in painting the miniatures which are a part of the book? Another explanation that can be offered is that this manuscript was in the possession of Mehmood Gaami and he began composing the Persian naat on these pages and later on added few more verses, deleted one verse and also changed few words on subsequent revision of the naat. There is yet one more naat and one Persian gazal written on these pages in addition to some other matter of religious nature” he adds.
However, the fact is that Gaami’s entry in the pages of this manuscript throws a fresh light on his literary sources . It now appears that Gami had a fair exposure to the literature available in Urdu and his sources were not limited to Persian and Arabic only. Due to these types of literary encounters he began composing poems in hindavi ,the samples of which are recorded and are available in his collection.
Nazki got the copies of these hand written samples from the University with the permission to use them.