''Pem Nem'' () is a 16th-century manuscript commissioned at the court of the

Bijapur Sultanate The Sultanate of Bijapur was an early modern kingdom in the western Deccan and South India, ruled by the Muslim Adil Shahi (or Adilshahi) dynasty. Bijapur had been a '' taraf'' (province) of the Bahmani Kingdom prior to its independence in 14 ...

. It belongs to the ''Prem Marg'' genre of

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

literature, where a love story forms a metaphor representing the quest for the

union with God In Christian theology, divinization ("divinization" may also refer to ''apotheosis'', lit. "making divine"), or theopoesis or theosis, is the transforming effect of divine grace, the spirit of God, or the atonement of Christ. Although it li ...

. Written in an early form of

Dakhni Deccani ( ''dakanī'' or ''dakhanī''; also known as Deccani Urdu, Deccani Hindi, and Deccani Hindustani) is an Indo-Aryan language variety based on a form of Hindustani spoken in the Deccan region of south-central India and is the native l ...

, it is a ''

mathnawi Mathnawi ( ), also spelled masnavi, mesnevi or masnawi, is a kind of poem written in rhyming couplets, or more specifically "a poem based on independent, internally rhyming lines". Most mathnawi poems follow a Meter (poetry), meter of eleven, or o ...

'', a long narrative poem written in

rhyming couplet In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there ...

s. The only surviving copy of the manuscript, containing 239 folios, is situated in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

. It is richly illustrated, with thirty-four paintings in the Bijapur school of

Deccan The Deccan is a plateau extending over an area of and occupies the majority of the Indian peninsula. It stretches from the Satpura and Vindhya Ranges in the north to the northern fringes of Tamil Nadu in the south. It is bound by the mount ...

art.

Background

The author is Hasan Manju Khalji, bearing the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

of Hans. While he does not explicitly name his patron, the sections dedicated to praises of

Ibrahim Adil Shah II Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1570 – 12 September 1627) was Sultan of the Sultanate of Bijapur and a member of the Adil Shahi dynasty. Under his reign the sultanate had its greatest period as he extended its frontier as far south as Mysore. He ...

and the city of Bijapur make its provenance clear. The author gives the date of the compilation as 999 Hijri. However, this date is likely inaccurate, and may have been chosen for its numeric symbology. In the introduction, the suburb of

Nauraspur Nauraspur was a city in what is today Karnataka, India. It was founded in 1599 by Ibrahim Adil Shah II, the sultan of the Bijapur Sultanate. It was destroyed in 1624 by Burhan Nizam Shah III, then sultan of the Ahmednagar Sultanate, which were ...

is mentioned, which was established in 1599. Furthermore, the mention of Ibrahim's musical talents and achievements also points to a later date, since he would have been only nineteen years old in 1590.

Plot

The lovers in the story are Shah Ji, the prince of Kuldip, and Mah Ji, the princess of an island called Sangaldip. They fall in love after a turtle reveals to them each other's images. Shah Ji leaves his kingdom and undertakes an arduous journey, travelling across the ocean in search of his beloved. Upon reaching the island of Sangaldip, he meets with the king, who happens to be his paternal uncle. He faints when the princess is brought in front of him. However, Shah Ji has begun to regard the image of Mah Ji that he carries around in his heart as the reality and the princess herself as an illusion. Thus, he leaves the palace, in search of the truth through contemplation. This contemplation lasts for one year, and Mah Ji is left pining for her lover. After a year, Shah Ji realizes that Mah Ji was not a reflection, and returns to the island. He meets with the king, and the lovers reunite, the union of the lovers serving as a metaphor for the union of the soul with God. Finally, they are married.

Illustrations

There are thirty-four illustrations, mostly full-page, done by three different artists. These were not painted directly onto the folios of the manuscript; rather, they were painted on separate pieces of paper and then pasted onto the folios. The most obvious visual metaphor is the depiction of Mah Ji's image on Shah Ji's chest, meant to convey that she has become a part of him. It is a representation of

dhikr (; ; ) is a form of Islamic worship in which phrases or prayers are repeatedly recited for the purpose of remembering God. It plays a central role in Sufism, and each Sufi order typically adopts a specific ''dhikr'', accompanied by specific ...

. In most modern scholarship, the three artists are referred to as hand A, hand B, and hand C respectively. The first two have painted fifteen illustrations each, while only four are attributed to hand C.

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{Cite book , last=Matthews , first=David , title=From Cairo to Kabul: Afghan and Islamic Studies presented to Ralph Pinder-Wilson , chapter=Pem Nem: A 16th Century Dakani Manuscript Manuscripts in the British Library Sufi poetry Love stories 16th-century manuscripts