Abstract
In 1796, Claude Martin (1735–1800), a wealthy French officer of the East India Company living in Lucknow, commissioned the Brahman Delārām to translate into Persian two classical texts from the Digambara Jain philosophical tradition. Using the Braj Bhāṣā commentaries composed by the seventeenth-century Jain author Hemrāj Pāṇḍe, Delārām was able to access the original Prakrit texts of the eighth- and tenth-century philosophers Kundakunda and Nemicandra via an updated vernacularized version. His translations are as an exceptional document showing the hermeneutic tools that a Persian-speaking Brahman could use to parse the doctrinal system of Jainism. Delārām’s language was markedly shaped by his familiarity with Advaita Vedānta and the “unity of being (vahdat al-vojud)” school of Sufism, focused on ontological unity. More specifically, the Sufi-Advaita idiom that developed in Persian from the early Mughal period onward functioned for Delārām as a lens through which he could engage with the doctrinal diversity of India’s religious landscape. His efforts to translate the unfamiliar and sometimes perplexing elements of Jainism reveal the complex modalities of crossing linguistic and religious boundaries through Persian in South Asia and their partial incommensurabilities.
1 Lucknow’s Persianate Cosmopolis
By the turn of the nineteenth century, the northern Indian city of Lucknow had become a vibrant cosmopolitan metropolis where the Iranian Nawab dynasty (r. 1722–1858) ruled over a multicultural and diverse society. With the decline of the Mughal empire, the Nawabs had asserted their independence from their imperial overlords, establishing Awadh as one of the most formidable states in the north (Alam 2013). However, during the last decades of the eighteenth century, Awadh found itself under mounting military and financial pressure from the British East India Company. Following their victory at Buxar in 1764 against the combined forces of the Nawab of Bengal, the Nawab of Awadh, and the Mughal emperor, the British embarked on a campaign of expansion from Bengal, swiftly asserting dominance over vast stretches of the fertile and densely populated Gangetic plain. The influence of the British resident in Lucknow steadily increased, culminating in the annexation of Awadh by the East India Company in 1801. If the Nawabs remained in place, politics and dynastic succession were from then on closely monitored by the British (Fisher).
Despite the prevailing political uncertainties, Lucknow’s cultural and religious prestige continued to ascend, owing to the Nawabs’ lavish patronage, and positioned itself as a rival of Delhi, the traditional seat of power and culture in northern India (Markel). Lucknow also developed into an important Shiʿi center with the construction of emāmbāras and taʿziya-khānas, buildings intended for the commemoration of the martyrdom of the Shiʿi imam Hosayn b. ʿAli (d. 680). Lucknow was also home to numerous poetical circles (moshāʿera) where poets recited their latest verses in Persian and Urdu. The famed rivalry between the poets Mirzā Ghāleb (1797–1869) from Delhi and Qatil (Mirzā Mohammad Hasan, 1758–c. 1817), a Shiʿi convert from Lucknow, epitomizes the rivalry between the two cities. Through meticulous research, Pellò has offered a fresh perspective on the original Persian literary output of Lucknow, highlighting its remarkable quantity and creativity. This reassessment challenges the long-held notion that Persian literature in Lucknow was insignificant, especially when compared to Urdu literature. Pellò’s detailed analysis of Persian tazkeras (literary biographies) composed between 1770 and 1856 also reveals the significant presence of Hindu poets in Lucknow literary circles, primarily from the Kāyastha and Khatri castes, as well as the Brahman caste (Pellò 2012). Furthermore, as often became the case in the Mughal and regional administrations since the seventeenth century, a considerable portion of the administration of the Awadh state, especially the finance department, was staffed by Persian-speaking Hindu secretaries and officers.
From the seventeenth century onwards, Hindu literati left their mark on the development of Persian literature of South Asia and amplified the assimilation of Indic culture within Persian that began during the period of the Delhi Sultanate. In Lucknow, the Hindus’ “linguistic conversion” to Persian reflected their intimate connection with Islam and Sufism. Notably, individuals such as the renowned poet Qatil, who belonged to the Khatri scribal caste, embraced Shiʿism.1 Hindus actively participated in Moharram ceremonies, composing Urdu and Persian marsiyas, a popular poetical genre in the form of elegies mourning the death of Hosayn at the Battle of Karbalā.2 Despite the apparent inclusivity of this environment, some Muslim scholars were hostile to Hindus, whom they perceived as corrupting Muslims. Sayyed Deldār ʿAli Nasirābādi (1753–1820), Lucknow’s main Shiʿi jurist (mojtahed) even proposed the exclusion of Hindus from protected communities (ahl al-zemma), an extreme stance compared to prevailing jurisprudence in India (Cole, 226). Some Shiʿi scholars even maintained that Hindus were ritually impure and that any interaction with them was defiling.
2 Jains and Jainism in Persian
From the late sixteenth century onward, the Jain doctrine and its adherents became regular subjects in Persian literature produced in India. Persian-speaking authors of various religious backgrounds—Muslim, Zoroastrian, or Hindu—were evidently intrigued by the distinct presence of Jainism within the religious landscape of northern India.3 These authors often described the practices of a close-knit community composed of monks and laymen. The most comprehensive account of Jain beliefs and doctrines can be found in the doxographic sections of the Āʾin-e Akbari (Administration of Akbar, 1596) by Abu’l-Fazl ʿAllāmi (1551–1602), the noted vizier of Akbar (r. 1556–1605), who appended it to his monumental Akbar-nāma (Book of Akbar), a highly sophisticated historical account of Akbar’s reign (see ʿAbu’l-Fazl 1872–77, II, 97–111; 1948–49, III, 199–222). The Āʾin-e Akbari describes meticulously India’s geography, nature, society, and culture. Its remarkably detailed depiction of Jainism likely draws from information provided by Jain Śvetāmbara scholars who frequented the imperial court.4 It gives extensive information on Jain cosmology, philosophical system, and religious regulations, and elucidates numerous technical terms and concepts.
Despite a sustained interest in the Jain community among Persian-speaking literati, doctrinal aspects of Jainism were largely neglected in subsequent works. Later accounts, such as the mid-seventeenth-century Dabestān-e mazāheb (School of Religious Doctrines) attributed to Mowbad (Mīrzā Zu’l-feqār Āzar Sāsāni, c. 1616–70) (185–87) and the Merʾāt-e Ahmadi (Mirror of Ahmad, 1756–57) by ʿAli-Mohammad Khān (1700–?) (135–39, 163–65) included new firsthand materials on the Jain community and its practices. However, these authors did not delve further into the study of the Jain doctrinal system. Notably, none of the Jain canonical and philosophical texts were translated into Persian until Delārām’s translations in Lucknow in 1796. This absence is striking when compared to the numerous Persian translations of Sanskrit and vernacular philosophical works, particularly from the Advaita Vedānta corpus.5 Delārām’s translation of two classic Jain philosophical works thus stands out as a remarkable endeavor in this context.
The historical presence of the Jains in Lucknow is poorly documented. During the reign of Akbar, a significant number of Jain temples were built in Lucknow. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Shantinathji and Rishabhnathji Digambar temples were constructed in the Mina Bazar neighborhood (Mohan, 66). During the reign of Āsaf al-Dawla (r. 1775–97), the Jains built other temples in Saadatganj, Tatpatti, and Raja Bazar. Another temple was built in Charbagh within the Dharamshala of Munne Lal Kazi. It is now known as “Shikarband Digambar.” Another temple during the same period hosted numerous religious festivals and gatherings at Jain Bagh in the Daliganj neighborhood (Mohan, 85). This construction activity demonstrates a significant presence of the Jain community in Lucknow. It likely included many merchants and bankers, professions traditionally practiced by Jains in northern India.
3 Delārām’s Translations: The London and Oxford Manuscripts
The British Library in London and the Bodleian Library in Oxford hold the sole known copies of Delārām’s translations.6 The Oxford manuscripts were acquired from Horace Hayman Wilson (1786–1860), the first Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, who knew Persian from his service in India. The content of these manuscripts evidently puzzled readers and cataloguers, with one describing the London manuscript on its front page as “a curious book” (Delārām 1796c/1210c). The manuscripts, written alternately in Perso-Arabic and Devanāgarī scripts, posed a formidable challenge to most readers. Alongside the Persian commentary, they include the original verses (Sanskrit gāthā) in Jain Śaurasenī and their Sanskrit “shadow (chāyā)” transcription. The Persian text itself is interspersed with Sanskrit terms and, in many instances, entire Sanskrit sentences are transliterated using the Persian script.
According to the colophons, Delārām completed the translation of the commentary on the Pañcāstikāyasāra (Essence of the Five Fundamental Entities) on 27 May 1796. Subsequently, he started the translation of the commentary on the Karmaprakr̥ti (Nature of Karma), completing it on 21 July 1796. In one text, Delārām identifies (1796b/1210b, fols. 2a–b) himself as “Masthām Delārām, son of Mansārām, a Brahman, residing in the qasba of Bijnor in the district (sarkār) of Sambhal in the province (suba) of Shāhjahānābād (Delhi), in the abode of the caliphate, on Friday, the twelfth of the month of Zu’l-Qaʿda, 1210 of the Hejri calendar, the fifth day of the dark fortnight of the month of Jyeṣṭha ( jyeṣṭhavadyapancamī) of the year (saṃvat) 1853 of Raja Vikramaditya, equivalent to the twenty-seventh of the English month of May in the year 1796 of Jesus.”
The name Delārām itself is likely a pen name, meaning “pleasant to the heart, charming” in Persian. The date, provided in three different calendars, indicates that the text is rooted in colonial, Indian, and Islamic contexts, a common feature in many Persian texts from the colonial period. In another passage, Delārām presents himself as doubly qualified for this translation work, first, through his access to traditional Brahmanic culture and Sanskrit, and second, through his mastery of Persian:
By the grace of God (shokr izad rā), the Brahman Masthām Delārām, who possesses a proficiency in Sanskrit science (ʿelm-e sanskrit) and the art of Persian (honar-e Pārsi), has completed the translation (tarjoma) of this book (puthi) on Jain doctrine ( jayn mati), called Karmakāṇḍa, upon the command (ershād) of the servants of His Excellency … General Claude Martin ( jarnil Klud Mārtin).
Delārām 1796a/1210a, fols. 1a–b7
Delārām’s proficiency in Persian suggests that he may have worked as a secretary (monshi). The significance of monshis and their written production in Persian during the colonial period has long been overlooked. Yet, texts composed by monshis for their British patrons served as invaluable windows into the societies, religions, and cultures of India and contributed to a profound renewal of Persian literature in India (Ernst 2003).
In addition to scribal castes, Brahmans also played a notable role among the monshis. Their superior ritual status within Hinduism was in no way incompatible with learning Persian. Chandar Bhān “Brahman” (d. c. 1666–70) stands as an earlier example of these Persian-speaking Brahman scholars who flourished in the heart of the Mughal empire. He served as a poet and secretary to prominent officials in the Mughal administration, earning recognition as one of the eminent prose writers of his time. Chandar Bhān was educated by his father in traditional Sanskrit culture and Persian literature and chose “Brahman” as his Persian pen name, perhaps reflecting his pride in his Brahman identity, which he associated with intellectual excellence and the preservation of traditions (Kinra, 162).
In this passage, Delārām names Claude Martin as the person who commissioned the two translations. Martin (1735–1800) was a well-known figure in eighteenth-century Lucknow. Born in Lyon, he worked as an apprentice for a silk-weaver before enrolling at the age of sixteen in the Compagnie des Indes, the French counterpart of the East India Company.8 After serving eight years in India in the ranks of the French army, Claude Martin defected to the British side. In 1776, he was appointed as the superintendent of the Nawab’s arsenal in Lucknow. Using this lucrative position, he established various enterprises, including silkworm breeding, and amassed immense wealth, becoming one of the wealthiest Europeans in India. An amateur engineer and architect, he also designed several luxurious mansions hosting extensive collections of European and Indian artifacts. In many regards, Claude Martin was the archetypal eighteenth-century polymath (Llewellyn-Jones 1992, 119–54), and his fascination with Indian culture, religions, and scripts was evident throughout his life. Despite joining the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1799 and engaging with fellow Orientalists, he never published his findings. The inventory of printed works from his library after his death demonstrates his strong interest in Indian, Arabic, and Persian languages and cultures and includes copies of the latest Orientalist works published in Kolkata and London (British Library IOR/AG/34/27/28, 1803, vol. 1, no. 75). To acquire European publications, Claude Martin was in contact with Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1763–1824), an administrator of the recently founded École spéciale des langues orientales in Paris and a curator at the Bibliothèque nationale (Martin, 370). Unfortunately, the inventory does not list manuscripts in Asian languages and only mentions that there were 505 Persian manuscripts.9 So far, I have been able to identify about forty manuscripts that belonged to Claude Martin in several British and Indian libraries, among them, an important number of Vedic manuscripts now found at the British Library, which belonged previously to the British Orientalists Richard Johnson (1753–1807) and Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765–1837). His friend Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier (1741–95), himself a collector, noted that these texts were particularly difficult to obtain. In a letter to the naturalist Joseph Banks (1743–1820) dated 20 May 1789, Polier mentioned that his searches along the Coromandel Coast, in Bengal, Benares, Awadh, Lucknow, Agra, and Delhi were “perfectly useless.” He only managed to obtain a few volumes with the permission of the Raja of Jaipur, Pratap Singh (r. 1778–1803), and chose to entrust them to the British Museum (Bendall, 1–2). The methods Martin employed collect these manuscripts were not always honorable. Louis Laurent de Féderbe (1725–77), the count of Modave, described the “pillage” carried out by Martin in Bhutan:
Captain Martin showed me several rarities that he had appropriated through the pillaging of some temples in these Bhutans. He even gave me several manuscripts that he had taken from the hollows of these statues. I sent them to the Academy of Inscriptions.
de Féderbe, 106
In addition to books and manuscripts, Martin was an avid collector, importing the finest European products, regardless of their cost. He also supported artists, particularly Johann Zoffany (1733–1810), and owned paintings by Claude Lorrain (1600–82), as well (Besson, 620).10 Records of auctions held after his death in 1800 confirm this passion for collecting. Tens of thousands of items from his collection were auctioned in Lucknow over five months, spanning twenty-six sessions. The auctions drew notable attendees, including the Nawab and the future Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley (1769–1852) (British Library IOR/AG/34/27/28, 1803, vol. 1, no. 75).
During Martin’s lifetime, British Orientalists had limited knowledge of Jainism. The European study of Jainism as a distinct religious tradition was only established in 1807 with the publication of Colebrooke’s Observations on the Sect of Jains. An administrator with the East India Company and a leading Sanskrit scholar, Colebrooke based his article on the study of previously unknown original sources (Orr). Therefore, Martin’s interest in the Jain tradition, a decade prior to Colebrooke’s seminal work, is even more remarkable.
Due to the limited number of documents on Martin’s scholarly activities, we can only speculate regarding the reasons that may have led him to commission specifically Delārām for the Persian translation of the Karmaprakr̥ti and the Pañcāstikāyasāra. It is likely that he had at least partial mastery of Persian, like many officials of the East India Company. His correspondence concerning his affairs with Indian dignitaries and his employees was conducted in Persian, most probably by his personal monshi.11
4 Delārām’s Multicultural and Multilingual Digressions
Delārām’s Persian can be characterized as idiosyncratic and occasionally erratic and its language and syntax strongly resembles Hindustani.12 Though Delārām probably did not complete an advanced Persian curriculum, his translations demonstrate his cultural versatility. They contain passages on Sanskrit grammar, Ayurvedic medicine, and Persian and northern Indian vernacular poetry.
In his translation of the Pañcāstikāyasāra, Delārām cites the same couplet from the divan of Sāʾeb Tabrizi (c. 1592–1676) in two different passages.13 In his translation of the Karmaprakr̥ti, he quotes a vernacular couplet (dohā) by Tulsīdās (c. 1532–1623), a major Hindu devotional poet (Delārām 1796a/1210a, fols. 52b–53a), and a verse by Guru Nānak (1469–1539), the founder of Sikhism (ibid., fol. 19b). While a reader only proficient in Persian would have not understood these citations, one can very well imagine that a reader versed in bhakti poetry would have been able to appreciate them.14
Although it is difficult to gauge Delārām’s proficiency in Sanskrit, this breadth of cultural and linguistic abilities is attested in similar cases among some of his contemporaries. Śukla Mathurānāth, for example, who served as a librarian at the Hindu College in Benares from 1813 to 1818, authored two Persian handbooks on Sanskrit grammar (Ghani n.d. [a]; n.d. [b]), with one composed in 1814 at the behest of an unnamed British officer. In 1812, at the request of the English judicial officer Robert Glyn (1788–1836), Mathurānāth composed the Reyāz al-mazāheb (Garden of Religions), an illustrated classification and description of Hindu religious groups in Persian. In the preface to this work, Mathurānāth declared that he had studied Sanskrit grammar (vyākaraṇa) in Benares and had written several treatises on Sanskrit poetics (sāhityaśāstra). In addition to his extensive readings in Persian literature, he also received training in various Sanskrit disciplines, including mathematics, law (dharmaśāstra), Vedānta, logic (nyāya) and mythology (purāṇa) (Mathurānāth, fols. 1a–b).
One passage in his translation of the commentary on the Karmaprakr̥ti illustrates Delārām’s familiarity with the Sanskrit and Arabic technical grammatical terminology (Delārām 1796a/1210a, fols. 36b–37a). Delārām exposes in a nutshell the principles of Sanskrit declension (vibhakti) and concludes that “through these [terms], one can know the meaning of Sanskrit, Prakrit, and other languages as a whole. These vibhakti, avyaya [“indeclinable particles”], etc., are expounded in the vyākaraṇa works among others” (ibid.). In the rest of the paragraph, Delārām also lists some of the texts used in his time for studying Sanskrit grammar, mostly pedagogical grammars of relatively recent composition.15 In another digression, focusing on karma, Delārām briefly introduces a few principles of Ayurvedic medicine (ibid., fols. 55a–b).16 He is prompted by the mention in Hemrāj’s commentary of the seven “bodily tissues (dhātu).” What makes this passage particularly interesting is Delārām’s amalgamation of terms and concepts from both Ayurvedic and Greco-Arabic medicine. Here, Delārām demonstrates his knowledge of the fundamental principles of each of the two systems. He elucidates, term by term, the three humors of Indian medicine by drawing comparisons to the Greco-Arabic theory. He mentions the three humors (tridoṣa): bile, phlegm, wind, to which is added blood, normally counted among the dhātu: rudhira (blood) is glossed by Arabic dam and Persian khun; pitta (bile) by Arabic safrā and Persian talkhā (yellow bile); kapha (phlegm) by balgham (phlegm). Vāta (wind) is translated as sowdā (black bile), but also glossed later as ruh (soul, spirit) and rih (wind). Interestingly, blood, which is added to the three Ayurvedic humors (doṣa) is one of the four humors in the Greco-Arabic humoral theory, alongside phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. The equivalences Delārām adopts to address the difficulties of transposing the three Ayurvedic humors into the framework of Arabic medicine are strikingly reminiscent of the model devised by the late fourteenth-century Indian Muslim scholar, Shehāb al-Din Nāgawri.17
5 Delārām and the Seventeenth-Century Jain Vernacularization Project
The British Library’s holdings also preserve a Jain manuscript from Claude Martin’s collection (IO San. 2909), which is evidently the same copy that Delārām was commissioned to translate.18 Sometime before Martin’s collection was dispersed, an Indian cataloguer inscribed on its last folio the Persian title, “Puthi Panchāstakā va Karm kānd Jayn mati (The Books Pañcāstikāyasāra and the Karmakāṇḍa, on the Jain Religion).” The same cataloguer inscribed very similar titles in Persian at the beginning of all four copies of Delārām’s Persian translations. This is an exceptional case which makes possible a comparative study between the original text and its translation. Precise source manuscripts are very rarely available in cases of pre-nineteenth-century translations from Indic languages to Persian. Such comparative analysis can offer valuable insights into Delārām’s translation process, his fidelity to the original text, and any interpretive or linguistic nuances present in his Persian rendition.
The IO San. 2909 manuscript contains two vernacular commentaries authored by the seventeenth-century Jain Digambara author Hemrāj Pāṇḍe (Balbir, III, 335, 345). The manuscripts also contain the two original verse treatises commented upon by Hemrāj Pāṇḍe. The first treatise, titled Pañcāstikāyasāra, is attributed to the famous Jain philosopher Kundakunda, who lived between the fourth and eighth centuries (idem 1906). His works are written in Jain Śaurasenī, a Middle-Indo-Aryan language regularly used by Digambara authors. Kundakunda extensively develops the distinction between two positions (naya): the “external standpoint (vyavahāra-naya)” and the “definite or unconventional standpoint (niścaya-naya).” According to him, the soul ( jīva) is the only true category of existence and provides the starting point for the “definite or unconventional standpoint,” as well as other more advanced viewpoints that allow judgment on all other entities, beliefs, and practices. According to Kundakunda, ritual and the reading of sacred texts are effective only if the devotee directs their focus inward, towards their inner experience. Kundakunda’s works were extensively commented upon in Sanskrit and served as inspiration for a lineage of mystical thinkers within the Digambara tradition, such as Yogīndu, who likely lived in the sixth century. The Pañcāstikāyasāra explores the capacities of the soul ( jīva) and its relationship with karma. The final section of the Pañcāstikāyasāra exposes the path to liberation from karma and spiritual enlightenment through self-knowledge.
The second text, the Karmaprakr̥ti, is attributed to the South Indian philosopher Nemicandra, who was active around the tenth century. His magnum opus, the Gommaṭasāra (Essence of [the Teachings of] Gommaṭa), was written in Jain Śaurasenī verse and divided into two parts: Jīvakāṇḍa (Chapter on the Soul) and Karmakāṇḍa (Chapter on Karma). With over 1700 stanzas (gāthā), the Gommaṭasāra is a monumental work, refined both technically and doctrinally. Its major contribution lies in describing precisely the scales of spiritual progression (guṇasthāna) accessible not only to monks but also to laypeople, enabling the latter to progress towards liberation. The Karmaprakr̥ti translated by Delārām appears to have been intended to present in a more pedagogical manner the highly condensed content of the Karmakāṇḍa, hence causing a recurrent confusion in the manuscripts between the titles Karmaprakr̥ti and Karmakāṇḍa. This compilation also incorporates verses from the Jīvakāṇḍa and from Devasena’s Bhāvasaṃgraha (Collection on Existence), as well as other verses of unknown origin. The Karmaprakr̥ti deals with the main aspects of the doctrine of karma: the union of the soul and karma, the distinctions between types of karma, and the relationships between karma and rebirth, between karma and innate qualities of the soul, and so forth. Unlike other Indian religious and philosophical schools, Jainism conceptualizes karma as a physically omnipresent force in the universe. These karmic particles are classified based on their interaction with individual souls.19 The main objective of Jain devotees is to progressively shed the karmas that obstruct the attainment of the “Three Jewels”: right faith (darśana), knowledge ( jñāna), and conduct (caritra).
Hemrāj, the author of vernacular commentaries translated by Delārām, lived in seventeenth-century Jaipur.20 Born in the Agravāl Garga merchant caste, Hemrāj was a Digambara pāṇḍe, a class of scholars employed by temples to perform rituals and give public discourses (Cort 2002).21 Hemrāj is known for his association with the Adhyātmika (“spiritualist”) circles that were active in Jaipur and Agra: he chose Rūpchand, a reputed scholar of Jain scriptures, as his master and was also a close friend of Kauṅr̥pāl, a leader of the Adhyātmika circle in Agra, who encouraged him to compose a commentary on Kundakunda’s Pravacanasāra (The Essence of Teaching), an important work on spiritual practice,22 and a polemical work titled Caurāsī bol (Eighty-Four Disputes, 1653).23 Animated by Jain laymen, Adhyātmika circles stood outside of strict sectarian lines and criticized the Jain community’s reliance on rituals and advocated for individual spiritual practice, drawing inspiration from ancient Digambara Jain philosophers, such as Kundakunda and Nemicandra (Cort 2002; 2015), particularly on the relation between the pure soul and its relation with karmic matter.24 These works, composed in Prakrit, were largely inaccessible to most Jain scholars, whether monks or laymen. Cort has argued (2002, 43–44) that in order to access them, most Jain scholars relied on later Sanskrit commentaries, particularly those authored by Amr̥tacandra Sūri, who lived sometime between the ninth and thirteenth centuries.25 Cort (2015) and Petit (2013, 2014) have studied the relationship between these vernacular commentaries and the original text and their commentarial tradition, with a focus on the works of the Jain reformer Banārsīdās (1586–1643). Hemrāj’s textual production belongs to this vernacularization movement and consists mainly of commentaries of Digambara canonical works.26 Although most did not know Prakrit (Cort 2015, 83), Adhyātmika authors made significant contributions to the genre of the vernacular Bālabodha or Bālāvabodha (Instruction for the Youth/Ignorant), easy commentaries intended for a less advanced audience who may not have had access to the original texts. Hemrāj’s two commentaries that Delārām translated are available in two editions; however, the edited text differs from the manuscripts. According to its colophon, the Bālāvabhodha commentary on Kundakunda’s Pañcāstikāyasāra was written in 1664 at the request of his guru Rūpchand based on the commentary (ṭīkā) by Amr̥tacandra (Kāslīvāl, 216).27 His commentary on the Karmaprakr̥ti, which Hemrāj titled Karmakāṇḍa, dates from around 1659.28
To this day, Hemrāj’s most widely-known work is his verse translation of the extremely popular Sanskrit Bhaktāmarastotra (Hymn to the Devoted Gods), attributed to the sixth-century poet Mānatuṃga, which is included in most Hindi prayer books (Cort 2005).29 According to Petit, “by translating the Bhaktāmarastotra, a devotional hymn learned by laypeople from a young age, almost mechanically chanted during rituals, Hemrāj shows the importance that the meaning of this text must have had for society, which not only wants to recite a text but also understand its significance” (Petit 2013, 235).
Hemrāj’s language is very similar to Braj Bhāṣā, a popular literary language based on the vernacular language of the Braj region, which was widely used in Indian devotional literature. Additionally, his language exhibits a significant degree of Sanskritization, incorporating numerous Sanskrit technical terms and compounds, which would have been very challenging for the average reader. The significance of vernacular Indian intellectual tradition has long been underappreciated, and only recently have researchers begun to recognize the impact of the Braj Bhāṣā tradition as an intermediary between Sanskrit and Persian (Cappello).
A significant example comes from Lucknow a few decades prior to Delārām’s translations. The Rāfeʿ al-khelāf (The Eliminator of Differences) was composed around 1766 by Rāy Sītā Rām Lakhnavī.30 As its title suggests, this work explains that the differences between the beliefs of Hindus and Muslims are superficial and caused by a lack of understanding. In reality, “all paths—Zoroastrian, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Magian, Hindu—seek God, the glorious and exalted” (Chand, 7). Rāy Sītā Rām aimed to complement and perfect the Majmaʿ al-baḥrayn (The Confluence of the Two Seas), a Sufi text by the Mughal prince Mohammad Dārā Shokuh (1615–59), through a Persian commentary on the Jñānasāra (The Essence of Knowledge) of Śrī Kavīndrācārya, a Mahārāṣṭri pandit from the late seventeenth century. The Jñānasāra itself is a Braj Bhāṣā version of the Yogavāsiṣṭha, one of the most popular medieval Sanskrit texts expounding the non-dualist doctrine of Advaita Vedānta. Each Braj Bhāṣā couplet (dohā) is followed by a Persian commentary. One of the most interesting aspects is Sītā Rām’s citation of Arabic and Persian texts, which are compared with the text of the Jñānasāra.
Hemrāj’s translations thus provided Delārām with an “updated” vernacular version, granting access to texts that would have otherwise been inaccessible in their original form. Hemrāj’s work played a crucial role in disseminating Digambara philosophy to a wider cultural sphere shared by North Indian literati. Delārām’s translations, though they do not mention Hemrāj, represent a continuation of this commentarial tradition, achieving a twofold actualization: linguistic, through the medium of Persian, and cultural, through Delārām’s religious and literary lens.
In his translations, Delārām adheres meticulously to Hemrāj’s original structure, which contains every original Prakrit stanza, its Sanskrit paraphrase, and a vernacular translation of each word. This method enables the reader to decipher the complete meaning and structure of the original Prakrit and requires only a basic knowledge of Sanskrit. This first parsing phase is followed by an explanation of the meaning of the stanza. In his first dated work (1653), Hemrāj credits this particular method of commentary to Rājamalla, a Jain vernacular author from the sixteenth century Jain (Petit 2013, 374).31
An examination of both the original and translated texts reveals Delārām’s precise rendering of Hemrāj’s, often word-for-word, although he regularly omits certain sentences or entire paragraphs. Delārām’s strict reliance on the original vernacular text, where the word order differs from Persian, results in syntactic irregularities in the Persian text. For instance, the frequent positioning of relative propositions at the beginning of sentences reflects the syntax of the original vernacular text. Like many other Persian translations from Indic works, Delārām initially presents original Indic words in transliteration, followed by a Persian gloss introduced by the Arabic verbal form yaʿni (“it means”). These lexical glosses provide Delārām with significant latitude for interpretation. Delārām also frequently incorporates common Sanskrit words into his text without translation or gloss—such as ātman (soul), pudgala (atomic particle), śloka (verse), gyān/jñāna (knowledge), gāthā (stanza). When complex Sanskrit compounds are translated, Delārām often uses obscure calque translations. Notably, he chooses not to translate the original Sanskrit sentences from Hemrāj’s commentary, but instead transcribes them using the Persian script, which makes them difficult to decipher.
6 Is Jainism Vedic?
In Delārām’s Persian translations, Jainism is identified as a distinct religious tradition, designated alternately with the phrases “Jain doctrine ( jayn mat, jayn mati)” and “Jain religion (mazhab-e jayn).” The word mat, from Hindustani, is not commonly used in Persian texts from South Asia, whereas mazhab frequently designates a “religious group.” Delārām demonstrates only a vague awareness of the distinctive features of Jainism. He knows that Jain laymen are called sarāvaki (from the Sanskrit śrāvaka, “disciple”), a term widely used in Persian descriptions of Jains (Delārām 1796b/1210b, fol. 133a). He also rightly identifies dayā (compassion) and ahiṃsā (non-violence) as cardinal tenets in Jainism, reporting the Jains’ scrupulous attention to not harming any living being (idem, 1796a/1210a, fols. 1b–2a). Unusually for a Hindu Persian writer, Delārām praises Jainism as “the most excellent of religions (ahsantarin-e mazāheb).”
However, Delārām mistakenly identifies the Jain canon (siddhānta) alluded to by Hemrāj as the four Vedas (idem 1796b/1210b, fol. 126a). In his translations, “Vedas (Pers. bid)” often replace the original siddhānta and āgama, Sanskrit words which designate Jain canonical scriptures. Delārām seems to include Jainism within the Brahmanical spectrum despite the widespread reputation of Jains as “deniers” of the Vedas. In Sanskrit, vernacular, and Persian doxographic texts, Jains were often derogatorily described as nāstika (“deniers”). Contrary to most Indic religions, Jains indeed deny the divine nature of the Vedas and proclaim that “there is no (nāsti)” Supreme deity. Ironically, considering this longstanding enmity, Delārām described the Jain prophets, the Jinas, as “knowing the Vedas and the Puranas.”
Like most Persian-speaking writers before him, Delārām appears not to have fully assimilated Abu al-Fazl’s detailed explanation of the Jain doctrinal system and might even have ignored its existence. In Delārām’s translations, many technical terms accurately explained by Abu al-Fazl are misunderstood. For instance, the Sanskrit word dharma for example, which in Jainism designates the physical medium allowing the movement of matter and soul in the universe (Dundas, 95), is interpreted by Delārām in its more common meaning of “order, law, religious and moral rule.” Similarly, adharma, which refers to the physical medium allowing stillness, is translated by “illicit.” This misunderstanding exemplified by addition of the gloss halāl-o harām (“licit and illicit”) for dharma and adharma (Delārām 1796b/1210b, fol. 208a).
7 Advaita Readings of Jain Philosophy
While Delārām was only relatively familiar with Jainism, his affinity with Advaita Vedānta philosophy is evident in his translations. In his translation of the Pañcāstikāyasāra, Delārām refers to Vedānta as a “spiritual path (tariqat),” a word generally used to designate Sufi orders.
According to the spiritual path, which is called Vedānta in Sanskrit, there is nothing except God ( joz khodā digari nist).
Delārām 1796b/1210b, fol. 186b32
Similar statements on the nature of God and Creation are omnipresent in Delārām’s translations and suggest a strong Advaita Vedānta influence. His perception of a proximity between Kundakunda’s philosophy and Advaita doctrine probably encouraged him to interpret Jain teachings through the framework of Advaita non-dualism. However, the exact source of Delārām’s Advaita Vedānta remains uncertain. It is unclear whether he had direct access to Sanskrit treatises or relied on later vernacular or Persian adaptations and translations of Advaita Vedānta texts. The lack of references in Delārām’s translations to specific texts or authors makes it difficult to identify the origin of the non-dualist concepts and imagery that he evokes.
While Delārām’s Advaita reinterpretation of Kundakunda’s philosophy was relatively successful, his application of the same lens to Hemrāj’s commentary on Nemicandra’s Karmaprakr̥ti proved less productive and muddled even more Nemicandra’s arguably abstruse work. Delārām implicitly confesses this himself when he abruptly interrupts his translation at verse 87, in the midst of a particularly challenging exposition. His work begins to show signs of fatigue from verse 55 onwards, where he significantly shortens the commentary and merely transcribes lists of Sanskrit words without explaining them. This second translation contains a higher number of digressions, which may betray Delārām’s confusion in the face of a difficult text.
7.1 Creating a Non-dualist Idiom in Persian Across Religious Boundaries
A recent collective volume of the Journal of Indian Philosophy has highlighted the multilingual nature of Advaita traditions between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, offering new perspectives on Advaita Vedānta research in vernacular languages and in Persian (Peterson).33 Nair has also explored recently the rich and layered philosophical tradition that Persian-speaking literati drew upon in their understanding of Indic philosophies, with the particular influence of later Advaitin philosophers like Madhusūdan Sarasvatī ( fl. c. 1600) (Nair, 56–84, 142–67). Like Jainism, Vedānta was described from a theoretical point of view by Abu al-Fazl in his exposé on the Indian philosophical schools (ibid., 153). Emperor Jahāngir’s (1569–1627) exposure to Vedānta during his encounters with the mystic saint Gosain Jadrup prompted him to draw the parallel between the “science of the Vedānta (ʿelm-e bidānt)” and the “science of Sufism (ʿelm-e tasavvof).” The Laghuyogavāsiṣṭha, the short recension of the Yogavāsiṣṭha, incorporated into the Advaita Vedānta corpus by Brahman orthodoxy, had by then become a very popular text throughout northern India. Composed by the Kashmir pandit Gauḍa Abhinanda, active sometime between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, it relates the spiritual teachings of the Vedic sage Vasiṣṭha to Rāmacandra, the future king and hero of the Hindu epic Rāmāyaṇa. Several Persian translations of this text were commissioned by Mughal emperors and princes and were widely read not only in South Asia, but also in Iran, such as the version by the late sixteenth-century writer Nezām Pānipati.
The equivalence between Vedānta and Sufism was deeply felt by Jahāngir’s grandson Dārā Shokuh, who commissioned the Serr-e akbar (The Greatest Mystery, c. 1657), an influential Persian translation of several Sanskrit Upanishads. In his Majmaʿ al-bahrayn, Dārā Shokuh had also explored the commonalities between Islamic and Indic philosophies. The Serr-e akbar, requiring collaboration between Muslim scholars and Hindu pandits, illustrates the intersection of Islamic and Indic philosophical traditions. Hindu pandits utilized the Vedic scholar Śaṅkarācārya’s commentary on the Upanishads, dated traditionally to the eighth century, infusing the original text with an Advaita perspective (Göbel-Gross). The text dictated by the pandits was then Islamicized by Muslim editors and probably Dārā Shokuh himself. D’Onofrio characterized (535) the Serr-e akbar as “a Persian-language Advaitic bhāṣya (i.e., commentary) by Hindu paṇḍits, though definitely shorter in size than an average Sanskrit commentary, glossed in turn by a sporadic ṭīkā (i.e., sub-commentary) of Sufi tendencies by Dārā Šikōh himself.” For Gandhi (86), “these textual expansions and adaptations imply a mutual equivalence between Indic and Persianate vocabularies of non-dualism.” Nair observed (2) that Muslim and Hindu scholars devised “a shared language with which to communicate and to render one another’s religious and philosophical views comprehensible, not only to each other, but to any educated Persian-reader (Muslim, Hindu, or otherwise).”
This fusion of Vedānta and Sufi Islam is apparent in numerous later Persian texts. Active outside the Mughal court, the poet Banvālidās (d. 1674), known as “Vali,” stands out as one of the most prominent Persian authors on Advaita Vedānta. Banvālidās was a Kāyastha by caste and served under Dārā Shokuh in his youth and accompanied Sufi dervishes. In seventeenth-century biographies, he is portrayed as transcending conventional religious categorizations of Islam and Hinduism. As noted by Gandhi (97), during the reign of Awrangzib ʿĀlamgir I (r. 1658–1707), interest in Persian works on Hindu religions expanded beyond the court. She also suggests that given the multilingual proficiency of most Persian-speaking literati, there must have been a specific rationale for opting to write in Persian rather than Hindavi. Persian was indeed perceived by élite Persianized Hindus “as a medium for articulating profound insights into the unity of existence.” By Persianizing Vedānta texts, “they reshaped their source texts, by molding them in the literary registers of Persian mystical prose and poetry and thus universalizing them. At the same time, they also inscribed Indic ‘truths’ into a growing corpus of Persian literary productions in India” (ibid.).34 Simultaneously, Persian emerged as a vehicle for expressing and consuming Hindu devotional poetry. Pellò has highlighted (2018, 100) the existence of “a Vaiṣṇava-Kṛṣṇaite35 current within Persian literature of South Asia, whose main producers, broadcasters, and consumers were apparently the Persian-educated members of Hindu scribal groups.”
7.2 Delārām’s Advaita Vision of the Soul
Compared to Hemrāj’s vernacular commentaries, Vedānta and Sufi metaphysics are pervasive in Delārām’s translations and are particularly evident in his portrayal of the soul’s peregrination in this world. Delārām often describes these tribulations in lengthy digressions. For example, he describes as follows the ensnaring of the soul ( jān) in the ignorance of the world’s reality:
Citation: Journal of Persianate Studies 17, 1-2 (2024) ; 10.1163/18747167-bja10043
The soul’s journey through the world, as it appears throughout Delārām’s translations, can be summarized as follows: The ignorant soul succumbs to worldly pleasures (lazzāt) and attachments (taʿalloqāt) offered by a deceitful (ghorur) world. Lost in “the well of wandering” (chāh-e zalālat), it endures endless torment (ʿazāb). Salvation (najāt) beckons only through gnosis (maʿrefat-e haqq). The perfect mystic (ʿārefān-e haqq) will unravel all the secrets (asrār) of gnosis. He surrenders himself with unwavering conviction (yaqin) to the contemplation (moshāhada) and meditation (yād) on the essence (zāt) of God. He will obtain salvation (najāt) in self-forgetfulness and annihilation in God ( fāni).
The following example is also typical of the heavy layer of Vedānta doctrine and imagery woven into Delārām’s interpretation of Kundakunda’s and Nemicandra’s texts.
Citation: Journal of Persianate Studies 17, 1-2 (2024) ; 10.1163/18747167-bja10043
In his works, Kundakunda distinguishes between different categories of soul and differentiates the soul ( jīva) from the spiritual principle (ātman), two concepts which echo back to a rich philosophical history. According to Zheleznova (203–6), Kundakunda uses ātman to designate “the true essence of the spiritual substance and the delivered soul.” Conversely, jīva denotes “the existence of a multitude of living souls in the world or, when it comes to the Jain system of ontological categories, the living soul characterized by consciousness and opposed to non-living matter” (ibid.). The term “Supreme Soul (paramātman)” is “one of the most common terms used in Jainism to describe the self in its purest, unconditioned and karmicly free state as sole object of contemplation” (Dundas, 110). Dundas adds that “while Jainism is atheistic in the narrow sense of rejecting both the existence of a creator God and the possibility of his intervention in human affairs, it must nevertheless be regarded as a theistic religion in a deeper sense, in that it accepts the existence of a divine principle, the paramātman.”38 The transmission of Kundakunda’s work through Amr̥tacandra’s Sanskrit commentaries used in Adhyātmika circles accentuated this non-dualistic aspect.
Despite the affinity of Jain philosophy with other non-dualist traditions, Delārām’s interpretation, influenced by Advaita Vedānta, often leads to significant alterations of the original Jain texts. In the opening stanza of the Karmaprakr̥ti, where the word prakr̥ti traditionally conveys the idea of “natural, primitive form; natural state,” Delārām glosses it (1796a/1210a, fol. 85a) as “qodrat-e haqq ke māyā ast (the power of the Lord that is māyā [‘illusion’]).” Delārām adopts a metaphysical standpoint vastly different from Nemicandra’s doctrine and equates the word prakr̥ti with śakti (power), which represents the creative power, usually personified, of the Supreme Lord in Sāṃkhya and Vedānta philosophies.39 In other instances, Delārām employs the phrase “power of God (qodrat-e haqq)” to elucidate the words prakr̥ti and śakti. Moreover, Delārām equates prakr̥ti and māyā, closely aligning with Advaita Vedānta doctrine, as echoed in this passage from Śaṅkarācārya: “Understand material nature (prakr̥ti) as illusion (māyā) and the Great Lord as Illusionist” (Hulin, 144).
For Advaitin thinkers, māyā as the divine power finds its counterpart in avidyā, the ignorance of the true Self present in every individual soul. This alignment is visible in another passage by Delārām:
Citation: Journal of Persianate Studies 17, 1-2 (2024) ; 10.1163/18747167-bja10043
7.3 Sufi Advaita or Advaita Sufism?
Throughout Delārām’s translations, his vocabulary shows distinct Sufi inflections. In many Persian texts originating from South Asia, Sufi terminology, inspired by the philosophy of vahdat al-vojud (“unity of being”), served as a privileged channel for expressing non-dualism, whether within Islamic or Hindu contexts. According to Alam (2004, 91), this Sufi belief in unity in multiplicity laid the doctrinal foundation for religious synthesis and cultural amalgamation. This doctrine, attributed to the Andalusian scholar Ebn al-ʿArabi (1165–1240), posits the essential unity of God and His creation. Widely embraced in the Indian subcontinent, particularly within the Sufi Chishti order, the vahdat al-vojud shares striking similarities with Advaita Vedānta. Despite the significant influence of vojudi philosophy in the Indian subcontinent, scholarly attention towards the vast majority of vojudi works remains limited, with the philosophical and theological debates surrounding them largely unexplored.40 Delārām employs the term vahdat (“unity”) on several occasions. For instance, he writes:
Citation: Journal of Persianate Studies 17, 1-2 (2024) ; 10.1163/18747167-bja10043
Interestingly, Hemrāj’s commentary does not mention this “ocean of oneness,” but instead discusses crossing the “ocean of reincarnation (saṃsārasamudra)” to achieve liberation on the other side (Nemicandra, 119). In the remainder of the paragraph, Delārām’s vivid prose offers moralistic vignettes, such as the imagery of “wiping the pleasures (lazzāt) from the tablet of the heart (lowh-e del).”
Despite its absence in Jainism and in the original texts, Delārām portrays a Supreme Being imbued with the attributes of the Islamic God. He primarily refers to it as haqq (truth), one of the ninety-nine names of God. Additionally, it is occasionally denoted as khodā (Lord) or Allāh and described in vojudi terms as the “absolute Creator (kār-sāz-e motlaq, khāleq-e motlaq),” under whose authority the world operates, and the “absolute nourisher (razzāq-e motlaq).”41 Delārām frequently equates God with the ātman, the Supreme Being according to Advaita Vedānta. In the Karmaprakr̥ti, it is referred to twice as Nārāyaṇa, one of the names of Viṣṇu.
Furthermore, Delārām utilizes the concept of “jelva-ye haqq (splendor of God)” on several occasions. The term jelva is commonly found in Sufi poetry to describe the created world as manifestation or epiphany of God (Pellò 2018, 75 n. 8). Its close equivalent, tajalli, is often found to refer to the worldly manifestations of the Supreme Being in an Indian context. Nair suggests (103–6) that Persian translators of Indian texts drew upon the same intellectual framework as contemporary Indian vojudi philosophers such as Mohebbollāh.42 The latter, in his interpretation of Ebn al-ʿArabi’s Fosus al-hekam (The Seals of Wisdom), regarded the created world as “manifestations (tajalliyāt)” of God’s “existence (vojud)” (ibid., 134).
Several Qurʾanic expressions employed in Delārām’s translations suggest that he possessed at least a second-hand familiarity with the Qurʾan. However, it remains doubtful that Delārām had attained sufficient proficiency in Arabic to comprehend it fully. Overall, very little is known about Hindus’ relationship with the Qurʾan. In addition to the famous Shiʿi convert Qatil, it is known that a significant number of Hindu monshis in Lucknow had close ties to Shiʿi Islam (Pellò 2012, 149–50).
In Delārām’s commentary on stanza 29 of the Pañcāstikāyasāra, which delineates the soul’s attainment of omniscience and boundless joy, his translation concludes with a depiction of the ignorant soul:
Due to the impurity of his karmas, man perceives God as even more distant. He forgets the “one God (hova Allāh),” the foundation of all existence. This forgetfulness of his own essence leads him to perceive separateness among things and view them in isolation. He perceives everything through his external and internal senses, succumbing to external influences. However, upon shedding the fruits of his karmas, he finds deliverance from suffering and various afflictions. He then acts according to his own will and comprehends all things.
Delārām 1796b/1210b, fol. 157a–b
In this paragraph, which is absent in Hemrāj’s original commentary, Delārām uses the fundamental Islamic concept of absolute monotheism (towhid) to express God’s omnipresence in the created world. The Arabic expression “hova Allāh (He is God)” is quoted from Qurʾanic sura 112, which reads: “Say, ‘He is God the One, God the eternal. He begot no one nor was He begotten. No one is comparable to Him’” (Qurʾan, 444).
8 Conclusion
Delārām’s engagement with Jain philosophical texts reflects the circulation of religious literature beyond apparent sectarian confines in northern India at the onset of British colonialism. Despite Persian’s perceived gradual decline in the first half of the nineteenth century and the preference of European Orientalists for Sanskrit and modern languages, Delārām’s translations highlight the enduring relevance of Persian among Indian and European audiences during this period. Situated within a Persianate cultural milieu, Delārām operated in an environment where diverse religious traditions such as Jainism, non-dualist Vedānta, and Sufi Islam could converge through a shared Persian medium. Through a comparison between Delārām’s translations and the original vernacular texts, one can discern his consistent intervention through glosses, digressions, and a vocabulary blending Persian with vernacular and Sanskrit terms. This active adaptation reflects the longstanding tradition of employing Persian as a trans-sectarian vehicle for the exploration of Indian philosophical and devotional traditions and the search for unity amidst religious diversity. In his reinterpretation of two Jain texts, already vernacularized in the seventeenth century, Delārām used a hybrid Sufi-Advaita framework in Persian, rendering their heterodoxy and radical difference accessible and comprehensible to his audience.
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R. Kinra, Writing Self, Writing Empire: Chandar Bhan Brahman and the Cultural World of the Indo-Persian State Secretary, South Asia Across the Disciplines, Oakland, 2015, DOI 10.1525/luminos.3.
Kundakunda, Pañcāstikāyasamayasāraḥ, Rāyacandrajainaśāstramālā 3, ed. P. Bakalīvāla, Bombay, 1906.
Kundakunda, Pravacanasāraḥ: Tattvadīpikā-tātparyavr̥tti-Hindībālabodhinībhāshā-cetiṭīkātrayopetaḥ, ed. and tr. A. N. Upadhye, Śrīmad Rājacandra Jaina Śāstramālā, Agas, 1964.
G. A. Lipton, “The Equivalence” (al-Taswiya) of Muhibb Allah Ilahabadi: Avicennan Neoplatonism and the School of Ibn ʿArabi in South Asia, Saarbrucken, 2009.
R. Llewellyn-Jones, A Very Ingenious Man: Claude Martin in Early Colonial India, Delhi, 1992.
R. Llewellyn-Jones, “Painting in Lucknow: 1775–1800,” in W. Dalrymple, ed., Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company, London, 2019, pp. 26–33.
Francis Falconer Madan, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, vol. 4, Collections Received During the First Half of the 19th Century: Nos. 16670–24330, Oxford, 1897.
St. Markel, ed., India’s Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow, Munich/London, 2010.
Claude Martin, A Man of the Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century India: The Letters of Claude Martin, 1766–1800, ed. R. Llewellyn-Jones, New Delhi, 2003.
Mathurānāth, Reyāz al-mazāheb, MS. British Library (London), I. O. Isl. 4754, n.d.
Chr. Minkowski, “Advaita Vedānta in Early Modern History,” South Asian History and Culture 2.2 (2011), pp. 205–231, DOI 10.1080/19472498.2011.553493.
S. Mohan, Awadh under the Nawabs: Politics, Culture, and Communal Relations: 1722–1856, New Delhi, 1997.
Mowbad, Dabestān-e mazāheb, ed. R. Rezāzāda-ye Malek, 2 vols., Tehran, 1983–84/1362.
Sh. Nair, Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia, Oakland, 2020, DOI 10.1525/luminos.87.
Nemicandra, Śrī nemicandrācāryakṛta karmaprakr̥ti, ed. H. Śāstrī, Benares, 1964.
L. C. Orr, “European Imaginings of Jainism in Colonial Madras: Tales of the Coromandel Coast,” in A. Luithle-Hardenberg, J. E. Cort, and L. C. Orr, eds., Cooperation, Contribution and Contestation: The Jain Community, Colonialism and Jainological Scholarship, 1800–1950, Studies in Asian Art and Culture 6, Berlin, 2020, pp. 77–127.
St. Pellò, Ṭūṭiyān-i Hind: Specchi identitari e proiezioni cosmopolite indo-persiane (1680–1856), Religioni identità culture, Florence, 2012.
St. Pellò, “A Linguistic Conversion: Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥasan Qatīl and the Varieties of Persian (ca. 1790),” in St. Pellò, ed., Borders: Itineraries on the Edges of Iran, Eurasiatica: Quaderni di studi su Balcani, Anatolia, Iran, Caucaso e Asia Centrale 5, Venice, 2016, pp. 203–240, DOI 10.14277/6969-100-3/EUR-5-9.
St. Pellò, “Black Curls in a Mirror: The Eighteenth-Century Persian Kṛṣṇa of Lāla Amānat Rāy’s Jilwa-yi ẕāt and the Tongue of Bīdil,” International Journal of Hindu Studies 22 (March 2018), pp. 71–103, DOI 10.1007/s11407-018-9226-4.
J. R. Peterson, “Pluralizing the Non-Dual: Multilingual Perspectives on Advaita Vedānta, 1560–1847,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 48 (March 2020), pp. 1–7, DOI 10.1007/s10781-019-09416-y.
J. Petit, “De la convention à la conviction: Banārasīdās dans l’histoire de la pensée digambara sur l’absolu,” PhD. Diss., Université Sorbonne Nouvelle—Paris 3, 2013.
J. Petit, “Absolute and Conventional Points of View in Jainism: A Historical Perspective,” in J. Soni, M. Pahlke, and Chr. Cüppers, eds., Buddhist and Jaina Studies: Proceedings of the Conference in Lumbini, February 2013, LIRI Seminar Proceedings Series 6, Lumbini, 2014, pp. 387–402.
Qurʾan, tr. M. A. S. Abdel Haleem as The Qurʾan, Oxford World’s Classics, New York City, 2005.
Mohammad-ʿAli Sāʾeb Tabrīzī, Divān-e Sāʾeb Tabrizi, ed. M. Qahramān, 6 vols., Sherkat-e enteshārāt-e ʿelmi va farhangi 84, 137, 177, 188, 244, 282, Tehran, 1985–91.
K. Sakaki, “Yogavāsiṣṭha and the medieval Islamic Intellectuals in India,” in M. Sahadeva, ed., Yogavāsiṣṭha Mahārāmāyaṇa: A Perspective: Research Papers Presented in the International Seminar, 26–28 February 2003, Patiala, 2004, pp. 282–297.
H. Scharfe, Grammatical Literature, A History of Indian Literature 5, Wiesbaden, 1977.
F. Speziale, Culture persane et médecine ayurvédique en Asie du Sud, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science: Texts and Studies 102, Leiden/Boston, 2018, DOI 10.1163/9789004352766.
A. Truschke, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court, South Asia Across the Disciplines, New York City, 2016, DOI 10.7312/trus17362.
A. Truschke, “Jains and Muslims,” in J. E. Cort, P. Dundas, K. A. Jacobsen, and K. L. Wiley, eds., Brill’s Encyclopedia of Jainism, Handbook of Oriental Studies 2, South Asia 34, Leiden/Boston, 2020, pp. 330–341; online (2020), DOI 10.1163/2590-2768_BEJO_COM_045008 (accessed 01 July 2024).
N. A. Zheleznova, Digambarskaia filosofiia ot Umasvati do Nemichandry: Istoriko-filosofskie ocherki (Digambara Philosophy from Umasvati to Nemicandra: Historical and Philosophical Sketches), Moscow, 2012.
Pellò (2016) coined the expression “linguistic conversion” in his discussion of Mirzā Mohammad Hasan Qatil’s relation to Persian.
A. H. Kashmiri lists fourteen Hindu authors of marsiyas during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. “Delgir” Lakhnavi, who converted to Shiʿism in 1814, is the author of several hundred marsiyas (Kashmiri).
Regarding Jain-Muslim encounters, see Truschke 2020.
Truschke 2016 and Jain offer a detailed discussion on the presence of Jain monks at the Mughal court.
Founded by the eighth-century scholar Śaṅkarācārya, the Advaita (non-dualist) school of Vedānta holds that the “self” (Sanskrit ātman) is identical to brahman, the absolute being pervading the world. Advaita Vedānta teaches how to see through the cosmic power of illusion (Sanskrit māyā) which causes the self to perceive an artificial division between itself and the world. Advaita philosophy became tremendously influential in northern India throughout the modern and contemporary periods.
The British Library manuscript contains Delārām’s translation of both commentaries, on the Pañcāstikāyasāra and the Karmaprakṛti (Delārām 1796c/1210c). In reality, the British Library copy consists of two manuscripts bound together at a later stage. These manuscripts, together with those at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University (Delārām 1796a/1210; 1796b/1210b), belonged once to the same collection and bore the cataloguing numbers in Persian and Latin scripts 411, 412, 413, and 414. The Bodleian Library acquired the manuscripts in 1842 as part of a lot of 616 manuscripts for five hundred pounds sterling (Madan, 642–54).
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
Llewellyn-Jones (1992) offers a thoroughly researched biography of Claude Martin. See also Jasanoff (63–77) for a vivid depiction of European activity in Lucknow in this period.
R. Llewellyn-Jones (2019) recently discovered a trove of beautiful paintings of plants and animals commissioned by Claude Martin in Lucknow at the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew.
For more information on Zoffany and his painting depicting Martin and Polier, see Arpen.
It has been partially published in English translation; see Martin.
His use of the polite plural form in the third person seems to be inspired by Hindustani. He regularly uses the verb āmadan (“to come”) as the auxiliary for the passive voice. This usage strongly resembles the passive construction in Hindi/Urdu with the auxiliary jānā (“to go”). Among other borrowings from Hindustani, one can mention ādamī (“man”) instead of the Persian ādam and double plural forms (afʿālhā, afʿālāt).
The couplet is:
Citation: Journal of Persianate Studies 17, 1-2 (2024) ; 10.1163/18747167-bja10043
The term bhakti refers to a religious movement that emerged in South India in the sixth century and gradually spread to North India, where it underwent a remarkable development until the seventeenth century, giving rise to numerous organized groups worshipping Viṣṇu or one of its avatars (Kr̥ṣṇa or Rāma). The word bhakti comes from the Sanskrit verb root bhaj (“to share, to possess”), and is related to the word bhakta (“devotee”). Through bhakti, devotees cultivate their personal connection with God. Bhakti practices, often converging with Sufi Islam, include ecstatic forms of devotion, collective chanting, repetition of holy names, the idea of divine love, devotion to the master (guru). Its leading figures were the Sants, the poet-saints whose work, composed in many vernacular languages, circulated among northern Indian devotees. Initially rejecting caste barriers, bhakti movements were often indifferent or even hostile to the traditional knowledge held by the Brahman priestly caste. The celebrated poet-saint Kabir (c. 1440–1518) situated himself beyond traditional religious boundaries and referred to God by both Muslim and Hindu names. Bhakti also had a profound impact on Persian-speaking Hindu poets, who expressed their devotion through the forms of Persian poetry and reinvested it with new meanings (Pellò 2018).
Among the grammatical treatises that Delārām lists, we may mention the Sārasvatavyākaraṇa, belonging to a non-Pāṇinean school founded by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century grammarian Anubhūtisvarūpācārya and patronized by Hindu and Muslim princes, probably attracted by a simplified grammar system sufficient for learning Sanskrit (Scharfe, 189–90). Another work is the Siddhāntakaumudī, an early seventeenth-century grammar composed by Bhaṭṭoji Dikṣita (1550–1630), which gives a scholastic but still practical introduction to Sanskrit grammar in Pāṇini’s tradition (ibid., 174–75). Delārām also mentions the Laghukaumudī, a seventeenth-century summary by Varadarāja of the Siddhāntakaumudī, which presents Pāṇini’s system in a succinct and pedagogical manner and remained long very popular.
Āyurveda is a major medical tradition originated in the Indian subcontinent. Drawing upon an extensive Sanskrit corpus, it presents a unique theory of the human body and uses a large variety of local remedies. In the medieval Islamic world, a distinct medical tradition was developed by Islamic scholars such as Abu ʿAli Ebn Sinā (c. 980–1037) from the Greek medical traditions of Hippocrates and Galen. Islamic medicine reached India after the foundation of the Delhi Sultanate in the early thirteenth century and incorporated elements from Ayurvedic medicine. Islamic medicine still cohabits with Ayurvedic medicine in India and has become known as Yunāni (“Greek”) since the colonial period. On the rich literature in Persian on medicine and pharmacology produced in India, see Speziale.
Nāgawri was the author of the Shefāʾ al-maraz (Treatment of a Disease), a Persian versified medical treatise dealing with Greco-Arabic medicine and including materials from the Ayurvedic tradition (Speziale, 80–101).
Before becoming part of the collections of the India Office in London, this manuscript belonged to the renowned orientalist and collector John Leyden (1775–1811). He likely acquired it in Kolkata during the sale of Oriental manuscripts owned by Martin.
Glasenapp provides a comprehensive synthesis of the Jain doctrine of karma. For a short accessible account, see Dundas, 97–102.
For a biographical sketch, see Kāslīvāl; Jaini 2008.
Hemrāj is rarely mentioned in Jain sources. He is first mentioned in 1644, by the thinker Hīrānanda, who describes him as “wise and cultivated” in his Samavasaraṇavidhāna (Arrangement of the Divine Assembly) (Kāslīvāl, 206–7).
The edition of the Pravacanasāra by A. N. Upadhye contains a modernized version of this commentary (Kundakunda, Pravacanasāraḥ). According to A. N. Upadhye, Hemrāj’s commentary was based on Amr̥tacandra Sūri’s Sanskrit commentary (Kundakunda, Pravacanasāraḥ, 105–6).
The Caurāsī bol consists of ninety-one verses critiquing eighty-four opinions attributed to the Śvetāmbara sect and is the first “dispute (bol)” work produced by the Digambara sect, therefore holding a special place in the history of Jain inter-sectarian polemics. See Jaini 2004.
According to Cort (2002, 43–44), “Jainism has long exhibited a tension between those who focus on religious knowledge ( jñāna) of the fundamental principles of the tradition, and those who focus more on correct conduct and ritual observance (kriyā).”
Amr̥tacandra Sūri authored several highly influential Sanskrit commentaries on Kundakunda’s works that played a central role in their later reception among the Adhyātmika.
Only a few of his commentaries have been edited, often in modernized Hindi.
The 1906 edition (Kundakunda 1906) is adapted into modern Hindi, which appears to modify slightly the arrangement of the original text. In addition to I.O. San. 2909, preserved at the British Library (London), I was able to consult the digitized copy of manuscript Jha-18, held at the Shri D. K. Jain Oriental Library (Arrah).
In addition to I.O. San. 2909, preserved at the British Library, I was also able to consult the digitized copies of manuscripts G-134-4 and Jha-3 held at the Shri D. K. Jain Oriental Library (Arrah). Kāslīvāl (218) dates the commentary on the Karmaprakr̥ti to the year 1660/1717 saṃvat. The British Library manuscript mentions the month of Mārgaśīrṣa in the year 1716 saṃvat, equivalent to November 1659 (Hemrāj n.d. [b], fol. 90r).
Hemrāj also wrote a vernacular commentary on this text: Arrah, Shri D. K. Jain Oriental Library numbers, MS G-110-1 and MS Kh-170-6. An excerpt from this commentary is provided in Kāslīvāl 1983, 213–14.
Chand describes the text from a 1784 copy, contained in a manuscript then held by the Ganganatha Jha Research Institute in Allahabad, but now unfortunately lost (Sakaki, 286).
According to Banārsīdās, Rājamalla initiated the Adhyātmika movement through his annotated translation of Amr̥tacandra Sūri’s Samayasārakalaśa (A Vase on the Essence of the Doctrine), a Sanskrit commentary on Kundakunda’s Samayasāra (The Essence of the Doctrine). Rājamalla did not rely on Kundakunda’s original Prakrit text, but rather on the Sanskrit commentary (Petit 2013, 195). Banārsīdās saw his text as inaugurating the Adhyātmika tradition. Banārsīdās’ influential Samayasāranāṭaka (A Play on the Essence of the Doctrine) was also a translation and commentary based on Amr̥tacandra’s commentary (Petit 2013, 135; Cort 2015, 70–73).
See a similar idea in, “All creatures, the Creator and the creation are in reality one God (hama makhluqāt ō khāleq ō khalq az ru-ye tahqiq yak khodā ast)” (Delārām 1796b/1210b, fol. 55b).
See also Minkowski, who maps pre-colonial Advaita Sanskrit textual production within the social reality of scholarly networks and production sites.
For a translation of a Persian account on Vedānta written by Sītal Singh in Benares around 1800–10, see Ernst 2016. In this text, Sītal Singh expresses his disdain for the different sects (mazāheb) and religions (adyān), considering their differences to be only superficial. According to him, only Vedānta theology (elāhiyāt) constitutes the basis of Hindu beliefs. In this exposé, Sītal Singh uses the language and categories from the Islamic philosophical tradition; however, according to Ernst, he relies not so much on specific doctrinal references as on a simplified version of Advaita Vedānta, but his thinking and writing appear to become more complex over the years as seen in later texts.
Vaiṣṇava refers to the worship of the Indian God Viṣṇu, and Kṛṣṇaite to the worship of his most popular incarnation, Kṛṣṇa.
A name of the Indian deity Viṣṇu.
The image of the moon reflecting on water is a common Advaita metaphor (Gupta, 95).
The extensive Jain devotional literature in the vernacular languages often resembles other Hindu devotional cultures. In his description of the Supreme Self (adhyātman or paramātman), Banārsīdās’ style is for example reminiscent of the poetry of Nirguṇī Sants, who praise the formless God, such as the fifteenth-century Kabir.
It should be noted, however, that the Sāṃkhya and Vedānta concept of prakr̥ti as “nature” or “matter” is also found in some Digambara philosophers, such as Amr̥tacandra. The latter takes up the complementary concepts of puruṣa (Supreme Being, soul of the universe) and prakr̥ti (Amr̥tacandra, 6–7). However, unlike Sāṃkhya and Vedānta, in Amr̥tacandra’s philosophy, the mind is truly transformed by its connection with karma and ignorance is not merely the consequence of a lack of knowledge of non-duality. On some Persian translations of śakti in Pānipati’s translation, see Nair, 51, 55.
Among the few exceptions, two studies (Lipton; Nair, 85–118) delve into the philosophy of Mohebbollāh Mobārez Allāhābādi (1587–1648), one of the greatest promoters of Ebn al-ʿArabi’s teachings in India.
The word motlaq (“absolute”) is drawn from Aristotelian philosophy and is characteristic of vahdat al-vojud metaphysics (Nair, 144–46). In Pānipati’s translation of the Laghuyogavāsiṣṭha, the phrase “vojud-e motlaq (absolute existence)” is used as equivalent to the Advaita notion of brahman.
The intellectual environment framing the context of composition and reception of these texts was also heavily influenced by the Eshrāqi (Illuminationist) philosophy (Ernst 2010).