Kabir says,
“First god created his light, from it all creatures were born. The whole world
emanated from one light. Whom shall we call good, whom bad? Brothers, wander not
in delusion: The creator is in created, the created in creator: he/she prevails
all over. The clay is the same, but moulded in various forms. The potter has
himself fashioned them all. Find not fault with the clay nor with the potter.”
Now do not be mistaken that Kabir is appealing us to follow concept of god
blindly without questioning its basic principle. Kabir is just expressing the
feeling of mutual engagement of devotee, devoted in spiritual sense, and not
idolising any personality or natural force. This feeling of participation in
Bhakti, love and also in life was one of the central themes in Jaipur
Literature Festival 2012.
 |
| Shabnam Viramani reciting Kabir at JLF |
In an interview
published in The Hindu Literary Review of 4 July 2010 Salman
Rushdie offers explanation as how his name 'Rusdie' evolved. He said,
"I'm not really called “Rushdie”,” my
father made up the name because he was an admirer of the philosopher Ibn
Rush'd, known to the West as Averroes. He was one of the people who, in the
12th century, tried to fight the literalist interpretation of the Koran, and
did so with great brilliance and scholarship, but, as we can now see from the
history of the world, lost the battle. He said that if you look at the
Judeo-Christian definition of God, it differs from the Muslim definition in one
important particular, which is that the Jews and Christians say that man was
created by God in his own image. And what that sentence clearly suggests is
that there is some relationship between the nature of man and the nature of God
— “created in his own image.” Islam says the opposite. Islam says that God has
no human qualities. He has divine qualities. And so Ibn Rush'd argued that
language also is a human quality, and that therefore it was unreasonable to
suggest that God spoke Arabic, because God presumably spoke “God”. And as a
result, when the archangel — even if you believe the story literally — appears
on the mountain and delivers the message, the Prophet, understanding it in
Arabic, is already making an act of interpretation: he's already taking something
that arrives in non-linguistic form and understanding it linguistically. He
takes something that arrives as a divine message and transforms it into human
comprehension. And so it was argued, if the original act of receiving the text
is already an act of interpretation, then further interpretation is clearly
legitimate. And that was Ibn Rush'd's attempt — probably the most brilliant
attempt, in my mind — to destroy literalism from inside the text. It didn't
work, unfortunately, but I wouldn't mind having another go."
Faizi, is 16th century
poet born in Agra, went to court of Akbar. He says at one place, “When love
crosses bound into intoxication, it begins to tyrannize everyone; Love then
becomes truthful tyrannifiication who thinks justice comes only from destroying
good.” This love about religion and misleading, obsessive and passionate idea
of supernatural and indifferent god has compelled the situations to go in
embarrassing way at Jaipur Literature Festival. When political forces contrived
with bureaucracy police
administration, theocratic clergies and energetic election strategists.
According to me
following were the significant issues discussed there. Dynamics of South Asia
(Borders, Violence, Freedom of Speech, Writers in Exile, Writing and
Resistance), Emerging writers (Young writers who reached to fame recently by
books about success mantras, alliance of competitive life and love,
philosophical packaging of the message about the intricacies of life), Science
and Spirituality (Has man replaced god, rationality vs faith, has humanity
become less violent over the centuries), Journalism (What is happening in
Pakistan, its connection with Literature, talking with celebrities, moderating
discussion of intellectuals and editors etc), Biographies (interviews of
legendary authors, philosophers in Bhakti movement, revealing
interviews of senior poets, writers and craftsmen/women of art of
storytelling), Drama (its place in contemporary life in relation with cinema,
adaptation of script into drama, film and other media), History (again
biographies, military history, holy wars, subcontinent`s bloody history of
dictatorship, issues of evolution and its contentions), Love (novels, stories,
poems, spirituality).
We will interact
about all these issues deliberated there in coming features on this address.
Stay tuned.
-----------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment