The Stories of Sanā’ī’s Fakhrī-nāma

Summary

To say that a didactical mathnavī is a poem written with the special purpose “to teach” may sound tautological. However, in one of the rare essays examining the nature of this genre, Gustav Richter proposed precisely this definition for what he called a Lehrgedicht. Actually, it is not superfluous to stress that the essential contents of a didactical poem are its theoretical discourse, the religious or moral truths the author wanted to impart. This means that any other element contained in a work of this kind is subordinated to the primary function of the poem. It is necessary to keep this in mind because didactical mathnavīs are often appreciated for a different reason. Several specimens of the genre, such as Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār's Manṭiq al-ṭayr, Saʿdī's Būstān and the Mathnavī-yi maʿnavī of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, have gained the reputation of masterpieces of Persian narrative art, and with good cause. The conspicuous role of story-telling in most of Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār's didactic poems inspired Hellmut Ritter to base his analysis of ʿAṭṭār's views on “man, the world and God” on the stories rather than on the poet's own theoretical discourse. He often isolated the stories from their connection to the context, indicating only “where it seemed necessary” what ʿAṭṭār really wanted to illustrate with his story.

The reader who approaches the Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa (“The Garden of Reality”), the major didactic work of Sanā’ī of Ghazna (d. 525/1131), with expectations raised by an acquaintance with the poems mentioned above will almost certainly be disappointed. Already Richter noted that “in Sanā’ī's use of the genre, themes were put on the foreground, not stories (Vorgänge).” The disappointment will even be greater if the uncertainties presented by the textual tradition of Sanā’ī's poem are taken into account as well. The Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa as it is available in print provides a very misleading picture of the complicated history of the text which, at a very early stage, must have undergone a number of editorial interventions of great consequence. The reconstruction of this editorial process is hampered considerably by the condition of the available material. Although some very old manuscripts are still extant, many are either defective or already show signs of the amalgamation of earlier versions from which eventually a kind of “vulgate” text emerged. By chance, however, we do possess a few manuscripts which provide us with a reliable basis for the reconstruction of the stage, or stages, where Sanā’ī's own hand can still be discerned.