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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 June 2019
In the last years of the eighteenth century, an Indian woman authored a work in Persian intended for the entertainment and guidance of students of that language. Entitled Miftāḥ-i Qulūb-i Mubtadiyān (‘The Key of the Hearts of Beginners’), the work comprised of stories from vernacular oral traditions as well as extracts from well-known Persian poetic, historical and ethical works. Although the work was translated into English in 1908 by Annette Beveridge, it has received no serious scholarly attention. Drawing upon recent scholarship offering new ways of thinking about India's multilingual literary past, this article examines the intersection of multiple vernacular and generic traditions as translated and manifested in Miftāḥ-i Qulūb al-Mubtadīyān. While vernacular languages followed different, and in relative terms, more limited routes of circulation and exchange in comparison with cosmopolitan languages such as Persian, their paths of movement were no less significant. Through a close reading of this work and its context, this article seeks to understand how Bībī Ḥashmat al-Daula crafted a distinct, cosmopolitan voice for herself through her deployment of both Persianate and regional Indian traditions.
1 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Whinfield 53.
2 Following the author's terminology, I use hindī (rather than hindavī or Hindustani) to refer to the vocabulary in this work.
3 It was not possible to identify the authors of all the verses included in the selection.
4 Sharma, S., ‘From ‘Ā’esha to Nur Jahān: The Shaping of a Classical Persian Poetic Canon of Women’, Journal of Persianate Studies 2, 2 (2009), pp. 148–164CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Sharma, S., Mughal Arcadia: Persian Literature in an Indian Court (Cambridge, 2017), p. 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Phukan, S., ‘“Through Throats Where Many Rivers Meet”: The Ecology of Hindi in the World of Persian’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 38, 1 (2001), p. 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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14 Fisher, M. H., ‘Women and the Feminine in the Court and High Culture of Awadh, 1720–1856’, in Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Patronage, Piety, (ed.) Hambly, Gavin (New York, 1998), pp. 489–519Google Scholar; Williams, R. D., ‘Songs between Cities: Listening to Courtesans in Colonial North India’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 27, 4 (2017), pp. 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharma, Mughal Arcadia, pp. 100–111.
15 Z. Shah, ‘Between Cosmopolitan and Classical: Persian in Early Colonial India, c.1757–1857’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Oxford, 2017), pp. 190–226.
16 See, for example, Reports from Committees: Session: 4 November 1852 – 20 August 1853, xxv (London, 1853), pp. 188–200; partly the emphasis on vernacular education for girls was also a result of greater missionary interest in female education. See also Murdoch, J., Education in India: A letter to His Excellency the Most Honorable, the Marquis of Ripon (Madras, 1881), pp. 119–143Google Scholar.
17 For example, see Lal, R., Coming of Age in Nineteenth-Century India: The Girl-Child and the Art of Playfulness (Cambridge, 2013)Google Scholar; Vanita, R., ‘“Married Among Their Companions”: Female Homoerotic Relations in Nineteenth-Century Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India’, Journal of Women's History 16, 1 (2004), pp. 12–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Minault, G., ‘Begamati Zuban: Women's Language and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Delhi’, India International Centre Quarterly 11, 2 (1984), pp. 155–170Google Scholar; Siobhan Lambert-Hurley's recent work on women's autobiographies also primarily focuses on the later colonial and postcolonial eras, and women's writing in Indian vernacular languages and English, see Lambert-Hurley, S., Elusive Lives: Gender, Autobiography, and the Self in Muslim South Asia (Stanford, 2018)Google Scholar.
18 Orsini, F., ‘The Multilingual Local in World Literature’, Comparative Literature 67, 4 (2015), pp. 345–374CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Ibid., p. 364.
20 Mirzā Abū T̤ālib Iṣfahānī numbered amongst Brooke's close acquaintances, and authored a Persian taẕkira, Khulāsat al-Afkār (‘The Essence of Thoughts’) which also included a selection of Braj verses: British Library, MS. Isl. 2692. Another Indian writer patronised by Brooke was Mīr Abūʼl Qāsim “Nis̤ār” of Lahore, who wrote in both ‘Hindustani’ and Marathi, and also translated Persian stories. See Cambridge University Library, MS. Corpus 185.
21 Orsini, ‘The Multilingual Local’, p. 346.
22 Ibid.
23 Malhotra, A., ‘Miracles for the Marginal? Gender and Agency in a Nineteenth-Century Autobiographical Fragment’, Journal of Women's History 25, 2 (2013) pp. 15–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Wald, E., ‘From Begums and Bibis to abandoned females and idle women: sexual relationships, venereal disease and the redefinition of prostitution in early nineteenth-century India’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 46, 1 (2009), pp. 5–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Ghosh, D., Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire (Cambridge, 2006), p. 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 An author in The Saturday Review mentioned in 1877 that “of [Brooke's] ‘odd ways […] and his connexion with a native lady to whom he was always faithful, there are stories current in Anglo-Indian society to this day.” See, ‘The Raja of Sarawak’, The Saturday Review 43 (21 April 1877), p. 488; see also, ‘Obituary: W. A. Brooke, Esq.’, The Gentleman's Magazine (May 1834), p. 555.
27 See, for example, ibid., and also ‘Asiatic Intelligence – Calcutta: Mr. Brooke’, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany 13, 49 (February 1834), p. 92.
28 Beveridge relies on the Annals of Rural Bengal for her information, but this source is not entirely clear: it could also refer to Thomas Brooke, another judge at Benares. See Beveridge, A. S., The Key of the Hearts of Beginners (London, 1908), pp. ix–xGoogle Scholar.
29 James, J. F. W., Selections from the Correspondence of the Revenue Chief of Bihar, 1781–1786 (Patna, 1919), p. 33Google Scholar.
30 MS. Whinfield 53, f.4r.
31 Alam, M. and Subrahmanyam, S., ‘The Making of a Munshi’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, 2 (2004), pp. 61–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 MS Whinfield 53, f.167v.
33 MS. Whinfield 53, ff.4v-6v.
34 Bengal: Past and Present (Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society) 33, 65 (1927), p. 143.
35 For instance, ‘The Raja of Sarawak’, p. 488.
36 Papers Relating to East-India Affairs: viz. Hindoo Widows and Voluntary Immolations (London, 1821), p. 22. It should be noted that this source, and Mani below, both transcribe W. A. Brooke as M. H. Brooke. However, it is clear that William Augustus Brooke is the individual referred to, as his designation as Collector of Shahabad district is also mentioned.
37 Lata Mani notes that between 1789 and 1829 four circulars regarding sati were published by the government, as the practice gradually became a matter of concern for the colonial state. See, Mani, L., Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India (Berkeley, 1998), p. 17Google Scholar.
38 Raman, B., Document Raj: Writing and Scribes in Early Colonial South India (Chicago, 2012), p. 85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 Beveridge, The Key of the Hearts, p. xi.
40 Lal, R., Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (New York, 2005), pp. 61–64Google Scholar.
41 Rahman, T., From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History (Karachi, 2011), p. 120Google Scholar.
42 MS. Whinfield 53, f.4v.
43 MS. Whinfield 53, f.5r.
44 Robinson, F., ‘Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print’, Modern Asian Studies 27, 1 (2008), pp. 229–251CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
45 MS. Whinfield 53, f.4r.
46 Shah, ‘Between Cosmopolitan and Classical’, p. 152.
47 G. Khan, ‘Indian Muslim Perceptions of the West during the Eighteenth Century’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Oxford, 1993), pp. 34–40.
48 Such biographical segments were also similarly structured in taẕkiras. See, Shah, ‘Between Cosmopolitan and Classical’, pp.139-165.
49 Lal, Coming of Age, p. 37.
50 Beveridge, The Key of the Hearts, p. ix.
51 Williams, ‘Listening to Courtesans’, p. 597; similarly, the Indo-Persian traveller (and Brooke's acquaintance) Mirzā Abū T̤ālib Iṣfahānī also described European women when he visited England at the turn of the nineteenth century. See Stewart, Charles, The Travels of Mirza Abu Talib Khan in Asia, Africa and Europe during the years 1799–1800, 1801, 1802 and 1803, 2 Vols. 2nd edition (London, 1818), pp. 57, 97–106Google Scholar, 188.
52 Fisher, ‘Women and the Feminine’, pp. 489-519.
53 For instance, the wealthy Hyderabadi courtesan, Māh Laqa Bai “Chandā”, who was Bībī Ḥashmat al-Daula's contemporary, was memorialised in later taẕkiras as a ‘prostitute’ despite the powerful position she commanded at the Hyderabadi court. See Kugle, ‘Mah Laqa Bai and Gender’, pp. 365-367.
54 MS. Whinfield 53, f.4r; This version of the Miʻrāj-nāma may have been that of Saiyid Bulāqī, composed in Dakhanī in 1694 AD. See Schimmel, A-M., And Muhammad is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Kuala Lumpur, 1985), pp. 159–175Google Scholar.
55 MS. Whinfield 53, f.5v.
56 Ibid.
57 Bangha ‘Rekhta: Poetry in Mixed Language’, p. 22.
58 MS. Whinfield 53; Platts, J.T., A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (London, 1884)Google Scholar; Molesworth, J.T., A Dictionary, Marathi and English. 2nd edition (Bombay, 1857)Google Scholar; Singh, M., The Panjabi Dictionary (Lahore, 1895)Google Scholar, Schmidt, R., A Practical Dictionary of Modern Nepali (New Delhi, 1993)Google Scholar; Biswas, S., Samsad Bengali-English dictionary, 3rd edition (Calcutta, 2000)Google Scholar; Grierson, G. A., A Dictionary of the Kashmiri Language (Calcutta, 1932)Google Scholar.
59 Names of gods and goddesses, such as Rām, Indar and Sītā, have been excluded due to their ubiquity.
60 The title of this story refers to the cleverness of two characters: the literal meaning of ćhal is stratagem, deception or fraud. This was wrongly transcribed by Beveridge as chahār (four) and misinterpreted by Grierson as ćhār or ćhārī (‘ingot’). See, Beveridge, The Key of the Hearts, p. 25; Grierson, G.A., ‘Review of The Key of the Hearts of Beginners by Bībī Brooke and Annette S. Beveridge’, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1909), pp. 517–521CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
61 MS. Whinfield 53, ff.22r-45r; Knowles, J. H., Folk-tales of Kashmir, 2nd edition (London, 1893), pp. 104‘123Google Scholar; Datta, A., Encyclopaedia of South Asian Folklore, i (New Delhi, 1987), p. 345Google Scholar.
62 MS. Whinfield 53, ff.107-147r; Pritchett, F. W., Marvelous Encounters: Folk Romance in Urdu and Hindi (Riverdale, 1985), pp. 124–143, 191–193Google Scholar.
63 A Gurmukhi manuscript entitled ‘Roop Basant Katha’, also glossed in the text as a qiṣṣa, is housed at Kurukshetra University, and is available online: Panjab Digital Library, MN-000043, http://www.panjabdigilib.org (accessed 4 January 2019); cf. Pritchett, Marvelous Encounters, p. 133.
64 For instance, Bībī Ḥashmat al-Daula's version lacks the miraculous gifts that the brothers possess in some of the versions listed by Pritchett, in which pearls and precious jewels fall when the brothers laugh or cry; similarly, the younger brother, Basant, in Bībī Ḥashmat al-Daula's story, causes a ship to sail by uttering the Arabic ‘Bismillāh’. This said, the stories follow the same basic plots, and ‘Gul-ruḵẖ’, the name of the merchant's daughter (and Basant's future bride) in Bībī Ḥashmat al-Daula's version even echoes her Indic counterpart, ‘Phūlwantī’, both names suggesting flower-like beauty and delicateness.
65 MS. Whinfield 53, ff.59r-91v.
66 Indar, rather than Indra, is the spelling preferred by in Bībī Ḥashmat al-Daula.
67 Lahorī, Nihāl Chand, Mazhab-i ‘Ishq, translated by Lahorī, Nihāl Chand (1844, Calcutta)Google Scholar; also published as Lahorī, Nihāl Chand, Gul-i Bakāwalī, (1804, Calcutta)Google Scholar. Another version was produced in the form of an Urdu masnavi in 1838: see Shankar, D., Gulzar-i Nasim (ed.) Nurani, Amir Hasan (Delhi, 1965)Google Scholar. For ‘Izzatu'llāh Bangālī’s Gul-i Bakāwalī, see Cambridge University Library, Add. MS. 3263. This manuscript appears to have been in circulation in 1785.
68 Steele, F. A. and Temple, R. C., Wide-Awake Stories (Bombay, 1884), p. 314Google Scholar; Crooke, W., An Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India (Allahabad, 1894), p. 38Google Scholar; also see Shurreef, Jaffur and Herklots, G. A., Qanoon-e-Islam, or the Customs of the Moosulmans of India (London, 1832), p. 385Google Scholar.
69 Hansen, K., Grounds for Play: The Nautanki Theatre of North India (Oxford, 1992), p. 76Google Scholar.
70 Ernst, ‘Indian Lovers’, p. 4; Sharma, ‘Translating Gender’, p. 91.
71 Behl, A., Love's Subtle Magic: An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition, 1379–1545, (ed.) Doniger, W. (Oxford, 2012), p. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sreenivasan, R., The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen: Heroic Pasts in India, c. 1500–1900 (Seattle, 2013), pp. 56–57Google Scholar.
72 MS. Whinfield 53, f.85.
73 The term sārā occurs in Hindi/Urdu, as well as Rajasthani. See, Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English; Mcalister, G., A dictionary of the dialects spoken in the state of Jeypore (Allahabad, 1898)Google Scholar.
74 Knowles, Folk-tales of Kashmir, pp. 104-123. This story also bears strong affinities with the short mas̤nawī, ‘Gulzār-i ‘Abbāsī’ (‘The Rose Garden of Abbasi’), authored in 1671 by the poet Muḥammad T̤āhir Wahīd, in which a prince rejects his bride after the wedding, only to be later seduced by her in disguise. However, Wahid's version refers to broadly defined countries (the protagonist is the son of a ‘king of Iran’, while his wife is the daughter of a ‘king of India’ who masquerades as a princess from Europe); in ‘Ḥikāyat-i Ḍeṛh-ćhal wa Aṛhāʼī-ćhal’, no place names are given. See, Sharma, Mughal Arcadia, pp. 191-193.
75 Najmabadi, A., ‘Reading and Enjoying “Wiles of Women” Stories as a Feminist’, Iranian Studies 32, 2 (1999), pp. 203–222CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
76 MS. Whinfield 53, ff.9v-12r.
77 U. Marzolph, ‘“Pleasant Stories in an Easy Style”: Gladwin's Persian Grammar as an Intermediary between Classical and Popular Literature’, Proceedings of the Second European Conference of Iran Studies (Bamberg, 30 September to 4 October 1991), pp. 445-475.
78 Marzolph, ‘“Pleasant Stories in an Easy Style.”’
79 Similarly, as noted earlier, ‘Ḥikāyat Ḍeṛh- ćhal wa Aṛhāʼī- ćhal’ also had parallels in an earlier work produced in 1671, dedicated to Shāh ‘Abbās II. See Sharma, Mughal Arcadia, pp. 191-193.
80 Grierson, ‘Review’.
81 Pritchett, Marvelous Encounters, pp. 124-143.
82 In the case of ‘Sīt Basant’, as noted already, the story circulated in at least three forms: qiṣṣa, kathā and sangīt/swāṅg.
83 Pollock, S., The Language of the Gods in the World of Men (New York, 2006), p. 93Google Scholar; Orsini, F., ‘How to Do Multilingual Literary History? Lessons from Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century North India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 49, 2 (2012), p. 241CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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86 Beveridge, The Key of the Hearts, p. xi.
87 Beveridge's own evidence suggests that the only child that Bībī Ḥashmat al-Daula may have had died before the completion of Miftāḥ-i Qulūb al-Mubtadīn. Beveridge's assumption that there more children followed is pure speculation.
88 Grierson, ‘Review’, p. 517.
89 Beeston, A. F. L., Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani and Pushtu Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Part III: Additional Persian Manuscripts (Oxford, 1954), p. 18Google Scholar.
90 MS Whinfield 53, ff.169v-170r.
91 Forbes, D., Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts, Chiefly Persian, Collected in the Last Five and Thirty Years by Duncan Forbes (London, 1866), ii, p. 32Google Scholar. Original emphasis.
92 Forbes described a 322-page work, whereas the Whinfield/Bodleian manuscript consists of 338 pages.
93 British Library, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections, MS. Egerton 707.
94 Apart from these two manuscripts, it is possible that other transcriptions of Miftāḥ-i Qulūb al-Mubtadīn also exist. Keene's binding of the story alongside these ethnographic texts led Dr Tarachand to list the work as an example of a “Hindu story” written in Persian. See, Tarachand, ‘Presidential Address’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 3 (1939), pp. 883–917.
95 Beveridge, The Key of the Hearts, p. ix.
96 For more on Beveridge's desires to identify with the Indian women whose works she translated, see Scherer, M. A., ‘Woman to Woman: Annette, the Princess, and the Bibi’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 6, 2 (1996), pp. 197–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
97 Grierson, ‘Review’, p. 518.
98 See Sharma, Mughal Arcadia, pp. 191-193; Knowles, Folk-tales of Kashmir, pp. 104-123.