The ''Hamzanama'' (
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
/
Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
: ''Hamzenâme'', ) or ''Dastan-e-Amir Hamza'' (Persian/Urdu: , ''Dâstân-e Amir Hamze'', ) narrates the
legend
A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the ...
ary exploits of
Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib
Ḥamza ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim ibn ʿAbd Manāf al-Qurashī (; )Muhammad ibn Saad. ''Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir'' vol. 3. Translated by Bewley, A. (2013). ''The Companions of Badr''. London: Ta-Ha Publishers. was a foster brother, ...
, an uncle of
Muhammad
Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
. Most of the stories are extremely fanciful, "a continuous series of romantic interludes, threatening events, narrow escapes, and violent acts". The ''Hamzanama'' chronicles the fantastic adventures of Hamza as he and his band of heroes fight the enemies.
The stories, from a long-established oral tradition, were written down in Persian, the language of the courts of
Persianate societies
A Persianate society is a society that is based on or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art and/or identity.
The term "Persianate" is a neologism credited to Marshall Hodgson. In his 1974 book, ''The Venture of Is ...
, in multiple volumes, presumably in the era of
Mahmud of Ghazni
Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Sabuktigin (; 2 November 971 – 30 April 1030), usually known as Mahmud of Ghazni or Mahmud Ghaznavi (), was Sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire, ruling from 998 to 1030. During his reign and in medieval sources, he is usuall ...
(r. 998–1030). In the West, the work is best known for the enormous illustrated manuscript, the ''
Akbar Hamzanama'', commissioned by the
Mughal emperor
The emperors of the Mughal Empire, who were all members of the Timurid dynasty (House of Babur), ruled the empire from its inception on 21 April 1526 to its dissolution on 21 September 1857. They were supreme monarchs of the Mughal Empire in ...
Akbar
Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...
about 1562. The written text augmented the story as traditionally told orally in
dastan performances. The dastan (storytelling tradition) about Amir Hamza persists far and wide up to
Bengal
Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...
and
Arakan
Arakan ( or ; , ), formerly anglicised as Aracan, is the historical geographical name for the northeastern coastal region of the Bay of Bengal, covering present-day Bangladesh and Myanmar. The region was called "Arakan" for centuries. It is ...
, as the
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...
controlled those territories. The longest version of the ''Hamzanama'' exists in Urdu and contains 46 volumes comprising over 45,000 pages.
History: versions and translations
Iranian origins
In Persian and Arabic, ''dastan'' and ''
qissa'' both mean "story," and the narrative genre they refer to goes back to medieval Iran.
William L. Hanaway, who has made a close study of Persian dastans, describes them as "popular romances" that were "created, elaborated, and transmitted" by professional storytellers. At least as early as the ninth century, the dastan was a widely popular form of story-telling. Dastan-narrators told tales of heroic romance and adventure—stories about gallant princes and their encounters with evil kings, enemy champions, demons, magicians, ''
jinns
Jinn or djinn (), alternatively genies, are supernatural beings in pre-Islamic Arabian religion and Islam.
Their existence is generally defined as parallel to humans, as they have free will, are accountable for their deeds, and can be either ...
'', divine emissaries, tricky secret agents called ''
ayyar
Ayyar may refer to:
*Ayyar, a lunar month in the Arabic calendar, corresponding to Iyar in the Hebrew calendar and to May in the Gregorian calendar
* Ayyār, a person associated with a class of warriors in Iraq and Iran from the 9th to the 12th ...
s'', and beautiful princesses who might be human or of the ''
pari'' ("fairy") race. Their ultimate subject matter was always simple: "''razm o bazm''," the battlefield and the elegant courtly life, war and love. Hanaway mentions five principal dastans surviving from the pre-Safavid period (that is, from the 15th-century and earlier): those that grew up around the adventures of the world-conqueror
Alexander
Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here ar ...
(''
Alexander Romance''), the great Persian king
Darius
Darius may refer to:
Persian royalty
;Kings of the Achaemenid Empire
* Darius I (the Great, 550 to 487 BC)
* Darius II (423 to 404 BC)
* Darius III (Codomannus, 380 to 330 BC)
;Crown princes
* Darius (son of Xerxes I), crown prince of Persia, ma ...
, the Prophet
Muhammad
Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
's uncle
Hamza
The hamza ( ') () is an Arabic script character that, in the Arabic alphabet, denotes a glottal stop and, in non-Arabic languages, indicates a diphthong, vowel, or other features, depending on the language. Derived from the letter '' ʿayn'' ( ...
, the legendary king Firoz Shah, and a trickster-hero named
Samak the Ayyar. Of all the early dastans, the Hamza romance is thought to be the oldest.
The romance of Hamza claims to go back to the life of its hero,
Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib
Ḥamza ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim ibn ʿAbd Manāf al-Qurashī (; )Muhammad ibn Saad. ''Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir'' vol. 3. Translated by Bewley, A. (2013). ''The Companions of Badr''. London: Ta-Ha Publishers. was a foster brother, ...
, the paternal uncle of the Prophet, who was slain in the
Battle of Uhud
The Battle of Uhud () was fought between the early Muslims and the Quraysh during the Muslim–Quraysh wars in a valley north of Mount Uhud near Medina on Saturday, 23 March 625 AD (7 Shawwal, 3 AH).
After the expulsion of Hijrah, Muslims from ...
(625 CE) by a slave instigated by a noblewoman named
Hind bint Utbah
Hind bint Utba ibn Rabi'a () was an Arabs, Arab commander, the wife of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb and the mother of Mu'awiya I. Hind fought against the early Muslims and the Prophets and messengers in Islam, prophet Muhammad until converting to Islam he ...
, whose relatives Hamza had killed at
Badr. Hind bint Utbah then went to the battlefield and mutilated the dead Hamza's body, cutting off his ears and nose,
cutting out his liver and chewing it to fulfill the vow of vengeance she had made. Later, when the Prophet conquered
Mecca
Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...
, Hind bint Utbah accepted Islam, and was pardoned.

It has been argued that the romance of Hamza may actually have begun with the adventures of a Persian namesake of the original Hamza: Hamza ibn Abdullah, a member of a radical Islamic sect called the
Kharijites
The Kharijites (, singular ) were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the conflict with his challeng ...
, who was the leader of a rebel movement against the caliph
Harun al-Rashid
Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ar-Rāshīd (), or simply Hārūn ibn al-Mahdī (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Hārūn al-Rāshīd (), was the fifth Abbasid caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, reigning from September 786 unti ...
and his successors. This Persian Hamzah lived in the early 9th-century, and seems to have been a dashing rebel whose colorful exploits gave rise to many stories. He was known to have fought against the
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...
caliph-monarch, and the local warriors from
Sistan
Sistān (), also known as Sakastān (, , current name: Zabol) and Sijistan (), is a historical region in south-eastern Iran and extending across the borders of present-day south-western Afghanistan, and south-western Pakistan. Mostly correspond ...
,
Makran
Makran (), also mentioned in some sources as ''Mecran'' and ''Mokrān'', is the southern coastal region of Balochistan. It is a semi-desert coastal strip in the Balochistan province in Pakistan and in Iran, along the coast of the Gulf of Oman. I ...
,
Sindh
Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind (caliphal province), Sind or Scinde) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is t ...
and
Khorasan
KhorasanDabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 (; , ) is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West and Central Asia that encompasses western and no ...
are said to have joined him in the battle, which lasted until the Caliph died. After the battle, Hamza left, inexplicably, for
Sarandip (
Ceylon
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
) and
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, leaving behind 5000 warriors to protect the powerless against the powerful. His disciples wrote the account of his travels and expeditions in a book ''Maghazi-e-Amir Hamza'', which was the original source of ''Dastan-e-Amir Hamza''. As these stories circulated, they eventually transferred to the earlier Hamza, who was an orthodox Muslim champion acceptable to all.
[D. M. Lang and G. M. Meredith-Owens (1959), "''Amiran-Darejaniani'': A Georgian Romance and its English Rendering", ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 22(3): 454–490. ]
The seventeenth-century ''Zubdat ur-Rumuz'' actually gives two conflicting origin-stories for the ''Hamzanama''. The first is that after Hamza's death, ladies living near the Prophet's house told praising anecdotes to get the Prophet's attention; one Masud
Makki then produced the first written version of these stories to divert the Meccans from their hostility to the Prophet. The second is that wise courtiers devised the romance to cure a brain fever suffered by one of the Abbasid caliphs. The 1909
Indo-Persian version also gives two conflicting sources. The first is that the dastan was invented by
Abbas
Abbas may refer to:
People
* Abbas (name), list of people with the name, including:
**Abbas ibn Ali (645–680), popularly known as ''Hazrat-e-Abbas'', the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib (the first imam in Shia Islam)
**Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (567 ...
, who used to tell it to the Prophet, his nephew, to cheer him up with stories of his other uncle's glory. The second is that the dastan was invented during the reign of
Muawiyah I
Mu'awiya I (–April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashid ...
(661–79) to keep loyalty to the Prophet's family alive among the people, despite official hostility and vilification.
In his study of the Arabian epic, Malcolm Lyons discusses ''
Sirat Hamzat al-
Pahlawan'', which is a parallel cycle of tales about Amir Hamza in Arabic, with similarities of names and places to the ''Hamzanama'': thus
Anushirwan
Anushirwan Khan (, ''Anūshīrvān Khān'') occupied the Ilkhanid throne in Arran from 1344 until his death in 1357. He was a puppet of the Chobanid ruler Malek Ashraf and possessed no power of his own. He is notable for being the last of the ...
corresponds to Nausheravan, the vizier Buzurjmihr is synonymous to
Buzurjmehr, and there are parallels for the Persian capital
Midan and also jinn of
Jabal Qaf. But it is difficult to prove who has borrowed from whom.
Spread down to the 15th century
The Hamza story soon grew, ramified, traveled and gradually spread over immense areas of the Muslim world. It was translated into
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
(''Sīrat Amīr Ḥamza''); there is a twelfth-century
Georgian version,
[ and a fifteenth-century Turkish version twenty-four volumes long. Moreover, even in Iran the story continued to develop over time: by the mid-nineteenth century the Hamza romance had grown to such an extent that it was printed in an edition comprising about twelve hundred very large pages. By this time the dastan was often called ''Rumuz-e Hamza'' (The Subtleties of Hamza), and had also made itself conspicuously at home in ]India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
.
Evolving Indian versions
Persian
Annemarie Schimmel
Annemarie Schimmel SI HI TCLN (7 April 1922 – 26 January 2003) was an influential German Orientalist and scholar who wrote extensively on Islam, especially Sufism. She was a professor at Harvard University from 1967 to 1992.
Early life a ...
judges that the Hamza story must have been popular in the Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
from the days of Mahmud of Ghazni
Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Sabuktigin (; 2 November 971 – 30 April 1030), usually known as Mahmud of Ghazni or Mahmud Ghaznavi (), was Sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire, ruling from 998 to 1030. During his reign and in medieval sources, he is usuall ...
in the early eleventh century. The earliest solid evidence, however, seems to be a late-fifteenth-century set of paintings that illustrate the story; these were crudely executed, possibly in Jaunpur, perhaps for a not-too-affluent patron.
In 1555, Babur
Babur (; 14 February 148326 December 1530; born Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad) was the founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan through his father and mother respectively. He was also ...
noted with disapproval that the leading literary figure of Khurasan had recently "wasted his time" in composing an imitation of the cycle. The great emperor Akbar
Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...
(1556–1605), far from sharing his grandfather's attitude, conceived and supervised the immense task of illustrating the whole romance, producing a manuscript now known as the Akbar ''Hamzanama''. As Akbar's court chronicler tells us, Hamza's adventures were "represented in twelve volumes, and clever painters made the most astonishing illustrations for no less than one thousand and four hundred passages of the story." The illustrated manuscript thus created became the supreme achievement of Mughal art
Mughal painting is a South Asian style of painting on paper made in to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums ( muraqqa), originating from the territory of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. It ...
: "of all the loot carried off from Delhi by Nadir Shah in 1739 (including the Peacock Throne), it was only the ''Hamza-nama'', 'painted with images that defy the imagination,' that Emperor Muhammad Shah pleaded to have returned."
The Hamza story left traces in the 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 ...
as well. One Persian romance-narrator, Haji
Hajji (; sometimes spelled Hajjeh, Hadji, Haji, Alhaji, Al-Hadj, Al-Haj or El-Hajj) is an honorific title which is given to a Muslim who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca.
Etymology
''Hajji'' is derived from the Arabic ' (), which ...
Qissah-Khvan Hamadani, records his arrival in 1612 at Hyderabad
Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...
, at the court of Sultan
Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...
Abdullah Qutb Shah (1611-72) of Golconda
Golconda is a fortified citadel and ruined city located on the western outskirts of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparudra in the 11th century out of mud walls. It was ceded to the Bahmani ...
. The Haji writes, "I had brought with me a number of manuscripts of the ''Rumuz-e Hamza''. When I presented them in the king's service, I was ordered, 'Prepare a summary of them.' In obedience to this order this book ''Zubdat ur-Rumuz'' (The Cream of the Rumuz) has been prepared." At least two other seventeenth-century Indo-Persian Hamza manuscripts survive, dated 1096 AH 684–85 CEand 1099 AH 687–88 CE as well as various undated and later ones.
In the course of countless retellings before faithful audiences, the Indo-Persian Hamza story seems to have grown generally longer and more elaborate throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By the eighteenth century, the Hamza story was so well-known in India that it inspired an indigenous Indo-Persian imitation, the massive ''Bostan-e Khiyal'' (Garden of " Khiyal") by Mir Muhammad Taqi. By the nineteenth century, however, Persian was in a slow decline as an Indian language, for its political and cultural place was being taken by Pashto
Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...
and the Indic languages. It is in these languages that the dastan found a hospitable environment to survive and flourish.
Urdu
The Hamza romance spread gradually, usually in its briefer and less elaborate forms, into a number of the modern languages of South Asia. Pashto
Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...
and Sindhi were particularly hospitable to the Hamza story, and at least in Pashto it continues to flourish today, with printed pamphlet versions being produced. In Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
it was popular among Muslims as early as the 18th-century, in a long verse romance called ''Amirhamjar puthi
A puthi (, Arabic script, Perso-Arab: پوتھی) is a book or writing of poetic fairy tales and religious stories of Bengal and present-day East India, which were read by a senior "educated" person while others would listen. This was used as a med ...
'', which its authors, Fakir Garibullah and Saiyad Hamja, described as a translation from the Persian. This romance was printed repeatedly in pamphlet form in the nineteenth century, and even occasionally in the twentieth. Various Hindi
Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
versions were produced too—but above all, the story of Hamza flourished in Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
.
The earliest Hamza retelling in Urdu exists in a late Dakhani prose version called ''Qissa-e Jang-e Amir Hamza'' (Qissa of the War of Amir Hamza) (1784). Very little is known about this work's background. It was probably translated from a Persian text. In 1801, Khalil Ali Khan Ashk, a member of the Hindustani department of the famous Fort William College
Fort William College (also known as the College of Fort William) was an academy of Orientalism, oriental studies and a centre of learning, founded on 18 August 1800 by Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, Lord Wellesley, then Governor-Gener ...
in Calcutta, composed the earliest printed version of the dastan in Urdu: the 500-page ''Dastan-e Amir Hamza'', consisting of twenty-two dastans, or chapters, grouped into four "volumes."
Ashk claims that the story he is telling goes back to the time of Mahmud of Ghazni
Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Sabuktigin (; 2 November 971 – 30 April 1030), usually known as Mahmud of Ghazni or Mahmud Ghaznavi (), was Sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire, ruling from 998 to 1030. During his reign and in medieval sources, he is usuall ...
, in the early eleventh century; he implies that his present text is a translation, or at least a rendering, of the written, presumably Persian text that the distinguished dastan-narrators of Mahmud's court first set down. Ashk also claims that his sources, the narrators of Mahmud's court, compiled fourteen volumes of Hamza's adventures. However, we have no evidence that Mahmud of Ghazni ever sponsored the production of such a work. Gyan Chand Jain thinks that in fact Ashk based his version on the Dakhani ''Qissa-e jang-e amir Hamza'' because his plot agrees in many important particulars with the early Persian ''Qissa-e Hamza'', though it disagrees in many others.
However, the most popular version of the dastan in Urdu was that of Aman Ali Khan Bahadur Ghalib Lakhnavi published by Hakim Mohtasham Elaih Press, Calcutta
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
in 1855. In the 1860s, one of the early publications of Munshi Nawal Kishore, the legendary publisher from Lucknow
Lucknow () is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the largest city of the List of state and union territory capitals in India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is the administrative headquarters of the epon ...
, was Ashk's ''Dastan-e Amir Hamza''. Nawal Kishore eventually replaced Ashk's version with a revised and improved ''Dastan-e amir Hamza'' (1871), explaining to the public that the Ashk version was marred by its "archaic idioms and convoluted style." Munshi Nawal Kishore commissioned Maulvi Syed Abdullah Bilgrami to revise Ali Khan Bahadur Ghalib's translation and published it in 1871. This version proved extraordinarily successful. The Bilgrami version has almost certainly been more often reprinted, and more widely read, than any other in Urdu. In 1887 Syed Tasadduq Husain, a proofreader at Nawal Kishore Press, revised and embellished this edition. In the twentieth century, Abdul Bari Aasi adapted this version by removing all the couplets from it and toning down the melodramatic scenes.
Owing to the popularity of the Ashk and Bilgrami versions in Urdu, Nawal Kishore also brought out in 1879 a counterpart work in Hindi called ''Amir Hamza Ki Dastan'', by Pandits Kalicharan and Maheshdatt. This work was quite an undertaking in its own right: 520 large pages of typeset Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...
script, in a prose adorned not with elegant Persian expressions but with exactly comparable Sanskritisms, and interspersed not with Persian verse forms but with Indic ones like ''kavitt'', ''soratha'', and '' chaupai''. The ''Amir Hamza Ki Dastan'', with its assimilation of a highly Islamic content into a self-consciously Sanskritized form, offers a fascinating early glimpse of the development of Hindi. The heirs of Nawal Kishore apparently published a 662-page Hindi version of the dastan as late as 1939.
During this same period Nawal Kishore added a third version of the Hamza story: a verse rendering of the romance
Romance may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...
, a new masnavi
The ''Masnavi'', or ''Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi'' (, DIN 31635, DMG: ''Mas̲navī-e maʻnavī''), also written ''Mathnawi'', or ''Mathnavi'', is an extensive poem written in Persian language, Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, also known as Rumi. I ...
by Tota Ram Shayan called ''Tilism-e Shayan Ma ruf Bah Dastan-e Amir Hamza'' published in 1862. At 30,000 lines, it was the longest Urdu masnavi ever written in North India
North India is a geographical region, loosely defined as a cultural region comprising the northern part of India (or historically, the Indian subcontinent) wherein Indo-Aryans (speaking Indo-Aryan languages) form the prominent majority populati ...
, with the exception of versions of the Arabian Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition () ...
. Yet Shayan is said to have composed it in only six months. This version too apparently found a good sale, for by 1893 Nawal Kishore was printing it for the sixth time.
1881–1905 Kishore ''Dastan-e Amir Hamza''
In 1881, Nawal Kishore finally began publishing his own elaborate multi-volume Hamza series. He hired Muhammad Husain Jah, Ahmad Husain Qamar, and Tasadduq Husain, the most famous Lucknow dastan-narrators, to compose the stories. This version of the ''Dastan-e Amir Hamza'' was an extraordinary achievement: not only the crowning glory of the Urdu dastan tradition, but also surely the longest single romance cycle in world literature, since the forty-six volumes average 900 pages each. Publication of the cycle began with the first four volumes of ''Tilism-e Hoshruba'' ("The Stunning Tilism") by Muhammad Husain Jah; these volumes were published between 1883 and 1890, after which Jah had differences with Nawal Kishore and left the Press. These four volumes by Jah proved immensely popular, and are still considered the heart of the cycle. After Jah, the two main architects of the cycle, Ahmad Husain Qamar (nineteen volumes) and Tasadduq Husain (nineteen volumes) took over the work from 1892 to its completion around 1905.
These writers were not the original creators of the tales and by the time the Nawal Kishore Press began publishing them, they had already evolved in their form and structure. As these dastans were mainly meant for oral rendition, the storytellers added local colour to these tales. Storytelling had become a popular craft in India by nineteenth century. The storytellers narrated their long winding tales of suspense
Suspense is a state of anxiety or excitement caused by mysteriousness, uncertainty, doubt, or undecidedness. In a narrative work, suspense is the audience's excited anticipation about the plot or conflict (which may be heightened by a viol ...
, mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
*Mystery, a seahorse that SpongeBob SquarePants adopts in the episode " My Pre ...
, adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...
, magic
Magic or magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
** ''Magick'' (with ''-ck'') can specifically refer to ceremonial magic
* Magic (illusion), also known as sta ...
, fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures.
The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...
, and the marvellous rolled into one to their inquisitive audiences. Each day, the session would end at a point where the curious public would be left to wonder as to what happened next. Some of the most famous storytellers of Hamza dastan were Mir Ahmad Ali (who belonged to Lucknow but later moved to Rampur), Mir
''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...
Qasim Ali, Hakim Sayed Asghar Ali Khan (who came to Rampur during the tenure of Nawab Mohammad Saeed Khan i.e. 1840–1855), Zamin Ali Jalal Lucknowi, Munshi
During the Mughal Empire, ''Munshi'' () came to be used as a respected title for persons who achieved mastery over language and politics in the Indian subcontinent. Use in Bengal
The surname "Munshi" ( Bengali: মুন্সি) is used by bot ...
Amba Prasad Rasa Lucknowi (a disciple of Mir Ahmad Ali who later converted to Islam and was rechristened Abdur Rahman), his son Ghulam Raza, Haider Mirza Tasawwur Lucknowi (a disciple of Asghar Ali), Haji
Hajji (; sometimes spelled Hajjeh, Hadji, Haji, Alhaji, Al-Hadj, Al-Haj or El-Hajj) is an honorific title which is given to a Muslim who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca.
Etymology
''Hajji'' is derived from the Arabic ' (), which ...
Ali Ibn Mirza Makkhoo Beg, his son Syed Husain Zaidi and Murtuza Husain Visaal.
The final arrangement of the cycle was into eight '' daftars'' or sections. The first four ''daftars''—the two-volume ''Naushervan-nama'' (The Book of Naushervan); the one-volume ''Kochak Bakhtar'' (The Lesser West); the one-volume ''Bala bakhtar'' (The Upper West); and the two-volume ''Iraj-nama'' (The Book of Iraj
Iraj (; Pahlavi: ērič; from Avestan: , literally "Aryan") is the seventh Shah of the Pishdadian dynasty, depicted in the ''Shahnameh''. Based on Iranian mythology, he is the youngest son of Fereydun. He was killed by his brothers Salm and ...
)—were closer to the Persian romance, and were linked more directly to Hamza's own adventures, especially those of the earlier part of his life. Then came the fifth ''daftar'', the ''Tilism-e Hoshruba'' itself, begun by Jah (four volumes) and completed by Qamar (three volumes). The remaining three ''daftars'', though they make up the bulk of the cycle in quantity, emphasize the adventures of Hamza's sons and grandsons, and are generally of less literary excellence. Though no library in the world has a full set of the forty-six volumes, a microfilm set at the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago is on the verge of completion. This immense cycle claims to be a translation of a (mythical) Persian original written by Faizi, one of the great literary figures of Akbar's court; this claim is made repeatedly on frontispieces, and here and there within the text. Like this purported Persian original, the Urdu version thus contains exactly eight ''daftars''—even though, as the Urdu cycle grew, the eighth ''daftar'' had to become longer and longer until it comprised twenty-seven volumes.
This astonishing treasure-house of romance, which at its best contains some of the finest narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...
prose
Prose is language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...
ever written in Urdu, is considered the delight of its age; many of its volumes were reprinted again and again, well into the twentieth century. Although towards the end of the nineteenth century dastans had reached an extraordinary peak of popularity, the fate of dastan literature was sealed by the first quarter of the twentieth century. By the time of the great dastan-narrator Mir Baqir Ali's death in 1928, dastan volumes were being rejected by the educated elite in favor of Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
and Hindi novels—many of which were in fact very dastan-like.
Indonesian versions
The '' Hikayat Amir Hamzah'' is the classical Malay version translated directly from the Persian originally written on traditional paper in old Jawi script
Jawi (; ; ; ) is a writing system used for writing several languages of Southeast Asia, such as Acehnese, Banjarese, Betawi, Magindanao, Malay, Mëranaw, Minangkabau, Tausūg, Ternate and many other languages in Southeast Asia. Jawi ...
. Versions are also found in other languages of Indonesia, including Javanese (''Serat Menak''), Sundanese (''Amir Hamjah''), Bugis
The Bugis people, also known as Buginese, are an Austronesian ethnic groupthe most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi (the others being Makassarese and Torajan), in the south-western province of Sula ...
, Balinese and Acehnese.
Modern translations
Two English-language translations have been published based on the 1871 Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami version published by Munshi Nawal Kishore press. The first is an abridged translation called ''The Romance Tradition in Urdu'' by Frances Pritchett of Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. It is available in an expanded version on the website of the translator. In 2008 Musharraf Ali Farooqi, a Pakistani-Canadian author, translated the Lakhnavi/Bilgrami version into English as ''The Adventures of Amir Hamza: Lord of the Auspicious Planetary Conjunction''. He took seven years to translate this thousand-page adventure, producing a very close translation, without abridging the ornate passages.
A Pakistani author, Maqbool Jahangir, wrote ''Dastan-e-Amir Hamza'' for children in the Urdu language. His version contains 10 volumes and was published by Ferozsons
Ferozsons (Pvt) Limited (also Ferozsons Publishers) () is a Pakistani publishing company in Lahore, Pakistan. Established in 1894, it is Pakistan’s oldest publishing house.
In 1954, the Ferozsons Business Group expanded when one of the famil ...
(also Ferozsons Publishers).
Synopsis
Dastan-e-Amir Hamza
The collection of Hamza stories begins with a short section describing events that set the stage for the appearance of the central hero. In this case, the place is Ctesiphon
Ctesiphon ( ; , ''Tyspwn'' or ''Tysfwn''; ; , ; Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon — ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified July 28, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/58.) was an ancient city in modern Iraq, on the eastern ba ...
( Madain) in Iraq, and the initial protagonist is Buzurjmehr, a child of humble parentage who displays both a remarkable ability to decipher ancient scripts and great acumen in political affairs. By luck and calculated design, Buzurjmehr displaces the current vizier, and attaches himself first to the reigning king, Kobad, and then to his successor, Naushervan.
Nonetheless, a bitter rivalry has been seeded, for the widow of the wicked dead vizier
A vizier (; ; ) is a high-ranking political advisor or Minister (government), minister in the Near East. The Abbasids, Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a help ...
bears a son she names Bakhtak Bakhtyar, and he in turn becomes a lifelong nemesis of both Hamza and Buzurjmehr. The latter soon relates a vision to Naushervan that a child still in embryo in Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
will eventually bring about his downfall; Naushervan responds in Herod-like fashion, dispatching Buzurjmehr to Arabia with an order to kill all pregnant women
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestates inside a woman's uterus. A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.
Conception usually occurs following vaginal intercourse, but can also ...
. Emerging unscathed by this terrible threat are Hamza
The hamza ( ') () is an Arabic script character that, in the Arabic alphabet, denotes a glottal stop and, in non-Arabic languages, indicates a diphthong, vowel, or other features, depending on the language. Derived from the letter '' ʿayn'' ( ...
and Amar Umayya, who is destined to be Hamza's faithful companion.
Unlike most Persian heroes, Hamza is not born to royalty, but is nonetheless of high birth, the son of the chief of Mecca
Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...
. An auspicious horoscope
A horoscope (or other commonly used names for the horoscope in English include natal chart, astrological chart, astro-chart, celestial map, sky-map, star-chart, cosmogram, vitasphere, radical chart, radix, chart wheel or simply chart) is an ast ...
prophesies an illustrious future for him. Hamza shows an early aversion to idol-worship, and with the aid of a supernatural instructor, develops a precocious mastery of various martial arts
Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defence; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; ...
. He soon puts these skills to good use, defeating upstart warriors in individual combat, preventing the Yemeni
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the northeast, the south-eastern part of the Arabian Sea to the east, the Gulf of Aden to the south ...
army from interdicting tribute to Naushervan, and defending Mecca from predatory – but not religious – foes. Naushervan learns of these sundry exploits, and invites Hamza to his court, where he promises him his daughter Mihr Nigar in marriage. The girl is thrilled at this match, for she has long yearned for Hamza, and has had one soulful but chaste evening with him.
First, however, Naushervan sends Hamza to Ceylon
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
to fend off a threat from Landhaur, and thence onto Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
, where Bakhtak Bakhtyar has insidiously poisoned the kings against him. Hamza, of course, proves his mettle in these and other tests, but his marriage to Mihr Nigar is forestalled by the treacherous Gostaham, who arranges her nuptials with another. Hamza is seriously wounded in battle with Zubin, Mihr Nigar's prospective groom, and is rescued by the vazir of the pari king Shahpal, ruler of the realm of Qaf. In return for this act of kindness, Hamza gallantly agrees to subdue the rebellious elephant-eared Devs
DEVS, abbreviating Discrete Event System Specification, is a modular and hierarchical formalism for modeling and analyzing general systems that can be discrete event systems which might be described by state transition tables, and continuous stat ...
who have seized Shahpal's kingdom. The whole expedition to Qaf is to take eighteen days, and Hamza insists on fulfilling this debt of honor before his wedding. However, he is destined to be detained in Qaf not for eighteen days, but for eighteen years.
At this point, the shape of the story radically changes: adventures take place simultaneously in Qaf and on earth, and the dastan
Dastan () is an ornate form of oral history, an epic, from Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan.
A dastan is generally centered on one individual who protects his tribe or his people from an outside invader or enemy, although only occasion ...
moves back and forth in reporting them. While Hamza in Qaf is killing Devs, trying to deal with Shahpal's powerful daughter Asman Pari whom he has been forced to marry, and looking desperately for ways to get home, Amar in the (human) World is holding Hamza's forces together, moving from fort to fort, and trying to defend Mihr Nigar from Naushervan's efforts to recapture her.
While Hamza and his allies navigate various shoals of courtly intrigue, they also wage a prolonged war against infidels
An infidel (literally "unfaithful") is a person who is accused of disbelief in the central tenets of one's own religion, such as members of another religion, or irreligion, irreligious people.
Infidel is an Ecclesiology, ecclesiastical term in Ch ...
. Although the ostensible goal of these conflicts is to eradicate idolatry and convert opponents to Islam, the latter is usually related with little fanfare at the end of the episode. Champions often proclaim their faith in Allah
Allah ( ; , ) is an Arabic term for God, specifically the God in Abrahamic religions, God of Abraham. Outside of the Middle East, it is principally associated with God in Islam, Islam (in which it is also considered the proper name), althoug ...
as they take to the battlefield, and sometimes reproach unbelievers for failing to grasp that the Muslims' past military success is prima facie evidence of the righteousness of their cause.
After eighteen years, much suffering, and more divine intervention
Divine intervention is an event that occurs when a deity (i.e. God or gods) becomes actively involved in changing some situation in human affairs. In contrast to other kinds of divine action, the expression "divine ''intervention''" implies that ...
, Hamza does finally escape from Qaf; he makes his way home, and is reunited with his loyal companions. In the longest and most elaborate scene in the dastan, he marries the faithful Mihr Nigar. But by this time, the story is nearing its end. About two-fifths of the text deals with Hamza's early years, about two-fifths with the years in Qaf, and only one-fifth with the time after his return. The remaining years of Hamza's long life are filled with activity; some of it is fruitful, but usually in a kind of equivocal way. Hamza and Mihr Nigar have one son, Qubad, who is killed at an early age; soon afterwards, Mihr Nigar herself is killed.
Hamza, distraught, vows to spend the rest of his life tending her tomb. But his enemies pursue him there, kidnap him, and torment him; his old companions rally round to rescue him, and his old life reclaims him. He fights against Naushervan and others, travels, has adventures, marries a series of wives. His sons and grandsons by various wives appear one by one, perform heroic feats, and frequently die young. He and Amar have a brief but traumatic quarrel. Toward the very end of his life he must enter the Dark Regions, pursuing a series of frightful cannibal kings; while their incursions are directly incited by Naushervan, Amar's own act of vicarious cannibalism seems somehow implicated as well.
Almost all Hamza's army is lost in the Dark Regions, and he returns in a state of grief and desolation. Finally, he is summoned by the Prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...
, his nephew, back to Mecca to beat off an attack by the massed infidel armies of the world. He succeeds, losing all his companions except Amar in the process, but dies at the hands of the woman Hindah, whose son he had killed. She devours his liver, cuts his body into seventy pieces, then hastily accepts Islam to save herself. The Prophet and the angels
An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...
pray over every piece of the body, and Hamzah is rewarded with the high celestial rank of Commander of the Faithful
() or Commander of the Faithful is a Muslim title designating the supreme leader of an Islamic community.
Name
Although etymologically () is equivalent to English "commander", the wide variety of its historical and modern use allows for a ...
.
Tilism-e Hoshruba
In this new tale, Amir Hamza's adventures bring him to Hoshruba, a magical world or " tilism". The tilism of Hoshruba was conjured by sorcerers in defiance of Allah and the laws of the physical world. However, being a creation of magic, Hoshruba is not a permanent world. At the moment of its creation a person was named who would unravel this magical world at an appointed time using the tilism key.
With the passage of time, the whereabouts of the tilism key were forgotten, and the usurper Afrasiyab became the Master of the Tilism and Emperor of Sorcerers. Afrasiyab and his sorceress Empress Heyrat ruled over Hoshruba's three regions named Zahir the Manifest, Batin the Hidden, and Zulmat the Dark, which contained countless dominions and smaller tilisms governed by sorcerer kings and sorceress queens, and where the dreaded Seven Monsters of the Grotto
A grotto or grot is a natural or artificial cave or covered recess.
Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or often flooded at high tide.
Sometimes, artificial grottoes are used as garden fea ...
lurked.
Emperor Afrasiyab was among the seven immortal sorcerers of Hoshruba who could not be killed while their counterparts lived. His fortune came to reveal itself on the palms of his hands. His left hand warned him of inauspicious moments and the right hand revealed auspicious ones. Whenever anyone called out his name in the tilism, Afrasiyab's magic alerted him to the call. He possessed the Book of Sameri that contained an account of every event inside and outside the tilism. Afrasiyab used a magic mirror Magic mirror or The Magic Mirror may refer to:
Art
* ''Magic Mirror'' (M. C. Escher), a 1946 lithograph by M. C. Escher Escher
* '' In the Magic Mirror'', a 1934 painting by Paul Klee
Literature
* ''Magic Mirror'' (book), a 1999 book by Orson Sc ...
that projected his body into his court during his absence, and many magic doubles who replaced him when he was in imminent danger. Besides sorcerers and sorceresses, the emperor also commanded magic slaves
Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
and magic slave girls who fought at his command and performed any and all tasks assigned them.
As Hoshruba's time neared its end, Emperor Afrasiyab resolved to defend his empire and tilism, and foil the conqueror of the tilism when he appeared. The story of Hoshruba opens where the false god Laqa—an eighty-five-foot-tall, pitch-black giant – and one of Amir Hamza's foremost enemies – is in flight after suffering a fresh defeat at Amir Hamza's hands. He and his supporters arrive near Hoshruba and solicit the aid of the Emperor of Sorcerers.
Before long, Amir Hamza's armies pursuing Laqa find themselves at war with Afrasiyab and his army of sorcerers. When hostilities break out Amir Hamza's grandson, Prince Asad, is the designated conqueror of the tilism of Hoshruba. Prince Asad sets out at the head of a magnificent army to conquer Hoshruba. With him are five matchless tricksters headed by the prince of tricksters, the incomparable Amar Ayyar, whose native wit, and wondrous talents are a match for the most powerful sorcerer's spells.
Upon learning of Prince Asad's entry into the tilism with his army, Afrasiyab dispatches a number of sorcerers and five beautiful trickster
In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherw ...
girls to foil his mission. When the trickster girls kidnap the prince, Amar Ayyar and his band of misfits continue the mission of the conqueror of the tilism with the help of Heyrat's sister, Bahar Jadu, a powerful sorceress of the tilism, who Afrasiyab had banished from his court to please his wife.
Cultural influence
The immense popularity of the dastan
Dastan () is an ornate form of oral history, an epic, from Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan.
A dastan is generally centered on one individual who protects his tribe or his people from an outside invader or enemy, although only occasion ...
had a long-lasting effect on other forms of fictional narratives. The earliest novels in Urdu as well as Hindi
Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
often seem nothing more than simplified or bowdlerized
An expurgation of a work, also known as a bowdlerization, is a form of censorship that involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive from an artistic work or other type of writing or media.
The term ''bowdlerization'' is often used in th ...
forms of Dastans. Babu Devaki Nandan Khatri's '' Chandrakanta'' and '' Chandrakanta Santati'' and Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar
Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar (; 1846 or 1847 – 21 January 1903) was an Indian Urdu novelist, columnist and editor from British India. Born into a Kashmiri Brahmin family which settled in Lucknow, he received his education at Canning College and ...
's '' Fasana-e-Azad'' are only the two most stellar examples of this genre. Chandrakanta bears the direct influence of dastans as witnessed in the case of eponymous protagonist Chandrakanta who is trapped in a tilism and the presence of notable ayyars. The dastan also influenced Munshi Premchand
Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known as Munshi Premchand based on his pen name Premchand (), was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani language, Hindustani literature.
Premchand was a pioneer ...
(1880-1936) who was fascinated and later on inspired by the stories of ''Tilism-e Hoshruba'' that he heard at the tobacconist
A tobacconist, also called a tobacco shop, a tobacconist's shop or a smoke shop, is a retail business that sells tobacco products in various forms and the related accoutrements, such as pipes, lighters, matches, pipe cleaners, and pipe tampe ...
shop in his childhood days. The conventions of the dastan narrative also conditioned Urdu theatre: the trickster Ayyar
Ayyar may refer to:
*Ayyar, a lunar month in the Arabic calendar, corresponding to Iyar in the Hebrew calendar and to May in the Gregorian calendar
* Ayyār, a person associated with a class of warriors in Iraq and Iran from the 9th to the 12th ...
, permanent friend of Hamza provided the convention of the hero's omicsidekick
A sidekick is a close companion or colleague who is, or is generally regarded as, subordinate to those whom they accompany.
Origins
The first recorded use of the term dates from 1896. It is believed to have originated in pickpocket slang of ...
that achieved culmination in the Hindi cinema
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...
of the sixties.
The story is also performed in Indonesian puppet theatre, where it is called ''Wayang Menak''. Here, Hamza is also known as Wong Agung Jayeng Rana or Amir Ambyah.
Frances Pritchett's former student at Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
, Pasha Mohamad Khan, who currently teaches at McGill University
McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...
, researches qissa/dastan (romances) and the art of dastan-goi (storytelling), including the ''Hamzanama''.
Notes
References
* Beach, Milo Cleveland, ''Early Mughal painting'', Harvard University Press, 1987, ,
* "Grove", Oxford Art Online
Oxford Art Online is an Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press ...
, "Indian sub., §VI, 4(i): Mughal ptg styles, 16th–19th centuries", restricted access.
* Titley, Norah M., ''Persian Miniature Painting, and its Influence on the Art of Turkey and India'', 1983, University of Texas Press, 0292764847
* Farooqi, Musharraf Ali (2007), ''The Adventures of Amir Hamza'' (New York: Random House Modern Library).
* '' The Bustan of Amir Hamzah'' (the Malay version of the story)
* Musharraf Farooqi (2009), (transl.''Tilism-e hoshruba'', vol. 1 of Jah): Hoshruba, Book One: The Land and the Tilism, by Muhammad Husain Jah.
* Seyller, John (2002), ''The Adventures of Hamza, Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India'', Freer Gallery of Art
The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and ...
and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., focusing on Culture of Asia, Asian art. The Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the Uni ...
, Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
, Washington, DC, in association with Azimuth Editions Limited, London, (contains the most complete set of reproductions of Hamzanama paintings and text translations)
online
Further reading
* (see index: p. 148-152; plate 7–8)
*
External links
''The Adventures of Amir Hamza'' - the first complete and unabridged translation of the ''Dastan-e Amir Hamza''
* ttp://www.galbithink.org/sense-s3.htm ''A Masterpiece of Sensuous Communication: The Hamzanama of Akbar''(images i
pdf file
Section II )
at the Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
, London
Frances Pritchett's website for 'The Romance Tradition in Urdu: The Adventures from the Dastan-e Amir Hamza
{{Authority control
Indian painting
Oral tradition
16th-century paintings
16th-century books
16th-century Indian books
Mughal art
Islamic illuminated manuscripts
Asian objects in the Victoria and Albert Museum
Epic poems in Persian
Indian manuscripts
Urdu-language novels