LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE are the life and spirit of a society. The Sindhi language and literature reflect the rich variety and quality of Sindhi life and thought. Sindhi has 125 names for as many varieties of fish. From Hyderabad to the sea, a distance of less than one hundred miles, the Sindhu river has half a dozen names --- Sahu, Sita, Mograh, Popat, Bano, and Hajamiro --- to reflect its many moods. The camel has a score of names, to indicate its age, colour, gait and character.
There are seven styles of the Sindhi language --- Siro (north), Vicholo (middle), Laar (south), Thareli (Thar), Laasi (Lasbela), Kutchki (Kutch), and Dhatki (Sindhi-Rajasthani).
The fact that Sindhi is mostly written in the Arabic script, gives some people the impression that it is a Persio-Arabic tongue. It is nothing of the kind. Over seventy per cent of the Sindhi words are Sanskrit. A peculiarly Sindhi-sounding word like `manhu' (man) is derived from the Sanskrit `manush'. English scholars of the mid-nineteenth century were all praise for the Sindhi language and literature.
Professor E. Trumpp in his monumental `Sindhi Alphabet and Grammar' (1812) writes: ``The Sindhi is a pure Sanskritical language, more free from foreign elements than any of the North Indian vernaculars.''
Grierson confirms this and says: ``The immediate predecessor of Sindhi was an Apabhramsha Prakrit named Vrachada.''
John Beames writes: ``It is a rough language, having thorny paths of its own, but there hangs about it, to my mind, somewhat of the charm of wild flowers.... There is a flavour of wheaten flour and a reek of cottage smoke about Panjabi and Sindhi, which is infinitely more natural and captivating than anything which the hide-bound Pandit-ridden languages of the eastern part of India can show.''
Richard Burton wrote way back in 1851: ``As regards the literature in the Sindhi tongue it may be easily asserted that no vernacular dialect at the time of our taking that country possessed more, and few so much, original composition.''
And Capt. George Stack writes: ``I was hitherto proud of the English language as more beautiful and very copious language in the world, but it is really vain of me; when I learnt Sindhi, I found reduplicated casual verbs and other points that give Sindhi beauties distinct from most Indian tongues.''
Writes Dr. Annemarie Schimmel, Harvard professor of Islamics, and versatile linguist: ``Since every word in Sindhi ends in a vowel, the sound is very musical.''
Today Sindhi is written in Sindh in the Arabic script. In India, Devnagri is also used. The Government of India recognizes both scripts. What was the original script of Sindhi? Even 300 years after the Arab conquest, at the time of Mahmud Ghazni, Al-Biruni, historian, found three scripts current --- Ardhanagari, Saindhu and Malwari, all variations of Devnagri.
When the British arrived, they found the Pandits writing Sindhi in Devnagri. Traders --- including Khojas and Memons --- were using a variety of ``Modi'' or ``Vanika'' scripts, without any vowels. Hindu women were using Gurmukhi and government employees, some kind of Arabic script.
British scholars found the language Sanskritic and said that the Devnagri script would be right for it. In 1849 they produced an English-Sindhi dictionary in Devnagri. A year later they translated the Bible in Sindhi, again in the Devnagri script. Government servants, many of whom were Hindus, unwisely favoured the Arabic script, since they did not know Devnagri, and had to learn it anew. (For the same reason, after partition, the Sindhi language teachers in Bombay insisted on teaching the language in the Arabic script, causing the government to permit both scripts for Sindhi.) A big debate started, with Capt. Burton favouring the Arabic script and Capt. Stack favouring Devnagri. Sir Frere, the Commissioner of Sindh, referred the matter to the Court of Directors of the British East India Company, which favoured Arabic on the ground that Muslim names could not be written in Devnagri. Since the Arabic script could not express many Sindhi sounds, a scheme of dots was worked out for the purpose. As a result, the Sindhi script today not only has all its own sounds, but also all the four Z's of Arabic. Though called ``Arabic'', no Arab will be able to read it. Gandhiji felt that Sindhi had been given the ``Arabic script'' to divide Muslims and Hindus.
There was a Sindhi version of the Mahabharata in the third century B C. The Kushan King Vasudev VII had ordered the listing of all Sindhi poetical works in A.D. 346. But today none of that remains. The Arabs tried to impose Arabic on Sindh but failed. The wise among them saw the virtue of local languages, with their greater appeal to the people. And so Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273) wrote in his `Masnavi':
Sindhian ra istalah Sindh madah;
Hindian ra istalah Hind madah.
(The Sindhis are welcome to use the Sindhi idiom; the Hindis are welcome to use the Hindi idiom.)
Sindhi as we know it today is about 800 years old. But the earliest Sindhi writings, are only 600 years old. These are the seven riddles (mamui) spoken by seven faqirs on being decapitated by the rulers. Two of the more important riddles warned of the dangers from the Kandhar side and prayed for the Sindhu shifting its flow eastwards.
At about the same time came the religious writings of Ismaili Khojas (Khwajas), known as ``Ginan'' (Gnan). They availed of the local language to reach the masses for religious conversion. However, their diction and idiom were almost entirely Hindu. Asking the people to get up early and pray, one Ginan says: ``Jago Jago Bhayara, raina wihai'' (Wake up dear brothers, the night is over) --- or else ``the hooris will not hold hands with you.''
Other Sindhi poets, it is known, used to sing Sindhi Kaafi in the durbars of Sheikh Farid and Nizamuddin Aulia. And of course there had been any number of ballads sung from generation to generation --- and improvised in the process.
The first major Sindhi poet was Qazi Kadan (d.1551), the scholar statesman of Bakhar. Most of his Dohas have been recovered from Bhagat Haridas's mutt, in village Ranela in the Bhiwani district of Haryana, after Independence. They are transcribed in the Devnagri script. He says: ``Let others study grammar, I only want to contemplate the Lord.'' He had no use for ``Qanz, Qaduri, Kafiyan'' (Prophet's traditions, Hanifi law, and traditional grammatical poem); he found the Lord, he said, elsewhere. He says: ``Jogi jagayos, sutto huyus ninda mein'' (The yogi woke me up when I was fast asleep).
Qazi Kadan influenced the great Hindu saint Dadu Dayal of Haryana, who himself has written some Sindhi poetry.
The next great poet-saint was Shah Abdul Karim (1536--1623). His guru was Sultan Ibrahim of Bihar, who was so disgusted with killing men in war that h- renounced the world and arrived in Sindh. When his master presented him a pair of shoes, Abdul Karim had them re-made into a cap -so that he could wear it on his head, and not on his feet. Abdul Karim was a simple farmer; but he was a man of God. Once when his elder brother saw him dance in ecstasy, he slapped him and dragged him to his mother. The mother rebuked her elder son and told him that his brother was a spiritual man. Once a friend asked him how he could remember God while farming, and Abdul Karim explained: ``When a woman carries a pitcher on her head, is she not able to walk and talk?'' He said, ``The Lord is nearer to you than your heart.... Separation and union are one and the same.'' Abdul Karim has left us only 93 verses. He was so Sindhi, he has used only 8 Persian and 30 Arabic root words. However, the greatest gift of Abdul Karim was his great-grandson, Shah Abdul Latif `Bhitai'.
Shah Abdul Latif (1689--1752) was not only the greatest poet of Sindh, he was probably the greatest Sindhi in history As a poet he belongs to world class. His poetry is more valuable than all the other Sindhi literature put together. And he was not only a great poet; he was a great saint, a great nationalist, a great humanist. And at a pinch. he could be a humorist, too.
A Frenchman, who saw ``Hamlet'', said that the play was fine but the author had uied too many quotations. He did not know that the ``quotations'' had been coined by the author Or ``Hamlet'' himself. So, too, with Shah. Many wise sayings, which are current coin in Sindhi, had been authored by Shah. Here was a Syed who spent three years visiting holy spots from Hinglaj to Dwarka. Except when he wore black during Moharrum, he draped himself in bhagwa. Atal and Chanchal, two singers from Delhi, played music in his durbar, despite orthodox displeasure.
Much of his poetry expresses the aspirant's seeking for God in terms of well-known ballads. In Islamic tradition the seeker and the sought are both males. But Shah followed the Indian tradition, in which the seeker is a woman. Most of Shah's heroines come from a ``lower'' strata than the heroes --- but they shine brighter. His ``Sur Husseini'' glorifies the martyrdom of Hassan and Hussain. ``Not only men, but birds and animals and the angels in the skies, too, wept for them.''
In ``Sur Samundi,'' Shah immortalises the trading traditions of Sindh. ``The monsoon is over. It is Diwali time and traders are preparing to set sail for distant lands. Their wives are bringing offerings to the waves with tearful eyes. Here they clasp the mast; there they say that without their lords, they will feel cold even in their quilts.'' But then he gives it a quick spiritual turn: ``You must worship the Deep (God) if you wish to gain rubies and pearls.... They who worship the sea, they shall be fulfilled.''
``Sur Ramkali'' is devoted to the yogis. ``They carry nothing with themselves, certainly not their own self (ego).... They have sewed up their hearts to Rama. . . For them joy is the same as sorrow; they offer arati with their tears of blood.... If you want to be a yogi, follow the guru, forget all desires and proceed to Hinglaj. The yogis respond to an ancient call that was given even before Islam; they have given up everything, to be one with Gorakhnath.''
As a yogi himself, Shah looks upon the world with an equal eye. ``Sorrows are the ornament of joys; I have no use for joys unmixed with sorrows.... Don't follow the beaten path; other people float downstream, you should swim upstream.''
Shah has no use for formal Hindus and Muslims. He tells the Muslim hypocrites: ``Faith does not consist in saying the 'Kalma'; with evil in your heart, you are a devil and not a Musalman.'' Likewise he tells hypocritical Hindus: ``Don't call yourself a Hindu: you don't deserve your janeo. The tilak behooves only those who are true to God.'' He says: ``Roza and Namaz are all right; but it is some other discipline that helps you see the Lord.'' On one occasion he had stopped the forcible conversion of a bania (trader) who was crying piteously.
With rain so sparse in Sindh, Shah invokes it again and again in `Sur Sarang'. ``The clouds should learn weeping from the lovers, whose eyes never dry.'' When it rains, it is bliss itself. ``The pedigree horse is there in the yard, and out, there, is the buffalo; the house is shimmering in the plain; the bed smells good with my lord by my side; oh rain, go on pouring May I and my lord live long and equal.''
In another verse, Shah prays for rain in Istanbul and Maghreb, China and Samarkand, Kabul and Kandhar, Delhi and Deccan, Jaisalmir, Bikaner, and Girnar, but above all in Sindh. ``Saeen Sadaeen Karein Mathay Sindh Sukar'' (Oh Lord, may you always confer plenty on Sindh). Here is the national poet of Sindh wishing the whole world well. He is only too right when he says that his poetry is not ordinary verses; they are `ayats', inspired verses. Here is a rishi of recent times.
Another immortal poet of Sindh was Abdul Wahab (1739- 1829) well known as Sachal `Sarmast' [Shrine] --- the True Intoxicated One. He was born in Darazan, near Khairpur, and spent all his life there. Here was a great Persian-Arabic scholar, who wrote much in Persian and then became an intoxicated Sufi thinker-poet. He became vegetarian, living mostly on pulses and curds. He had no use for creeds and rituals. And he thirsted for Hindu-Muslim unity. At the beat of a drum and the pull of a string, he would stand up, his hair on end, and dance --- like Sri Ramakrishna. Poet Bedil, who saw him, later wrote, ``There was a unique spectacle of love in Darazan. Sachal was like Mansur; he was an incarnation of love (Ishq Jo Avtar Ho).''
Sachal had no use for empty rituals. ``The Kalma has not at all made me a Musalman; nor did Mohammed send any faith from Araby. I am the Truth --- though I am but a man for men.'' In another place he says: ``If I read the Kalma, I will become a kafir. I will not set foot on the path of Mohammed.'' Elsewhere he says: ` Why this Kaaba and Qibla? All these are excuses.'' He says: ``One should seek knowledge even in China.'' Of mullahs and qazis he says: ``I don't care for them. What do they know of divine love?'' Seeing God in everything and everybody, he says: ``If you look upon yourself as God, you are God; if you see yourself as a beggar, you are a beggar.''
Although the British conquest of Sindh was decades away, Sachal could see the havoc they would play. He wanted the Hindus and the Muslims to unite to prevent such a catastrophe. ``Time has come to overcome these divisions. Be quick to eschew all fruitless, graceless controversies. Let Hindus and Muslims commingle in love. Let it not be too late to save the situation. `` He adds: ``If action is not taken in time, these foreigners will leave behind heaps of corpses.'' What a prophetic view of 1947, more than one hundred years before!
Sachal is in love with Jogis who have had ``a true bath in Gan- ga-Jamuna. I would die a hundred times for this tribe of Jogis.'' He adds: ``I am neither a mulla nor a Brahmin; nor even a page of the Koran. Not-for me the scripture or the Gita. I am neither east nor west, neither earth nor sky. I am a Jogi.''
Some of Sachal's poetry is highly Sanskritized. He says: ``Guru and Govind are the same.'' He talks of making your mind into a ``mandir'' and installing the ``Devi'' in your heart. He says ``Sachu is a pujari of Porbandar.'' He writes: ``O Sadhu, the Lord is one beyond all doubt. He enjoys the scene anywhere and is king at all points. Sometimes he will read the Hindu scriptures, sometimes the Koran. He can be Jesus as well as Mohammed --- and even Hanuman. He can create a bewilderment for His own self, for His own Lila.'' That was Sachal --- Sachu, the True one. To this day he is sung in congregations wherever there is a sizable Sindhi population, Hindu or Muslim.
The third great Sindhi poet was Chainrai ``Sami'' (1743--1850). Sami (Swami) was a cloth merchant of Shikarpur who spent much time in Amritsar. He wrote out his verses on bits of paper and put them in a ``matka''. Long after his death, these bits and pieces were edited and published. His entire poetry is religious. He had rendered the Vedic thought in simple Sindhi(`` Vedan jaa vichar, se Sindhi mein sunayam''). Shah was an ocean of love and pining; Sachal was an ocean of wonderment; Sami was an ocean of pure bliss. Since then there have been many poets --- Bedil, Bekas, Dalpat, Kishenchand ``Bewas''. During the British period Sindhi prose attained great heights under Mirza Kalich Beg, Hakim Fateh Mohammed Khan Sewhani, Bherumal Mehrchand, Lalchand Amardinomal, Jethmal Parasram, N.R. Malkani and Dr. Gurbuxani.
The post-Partition period has thrown up two great poets. Says Narayan Shyam: ``The Ganga and the Jamuna are all amrit, but the Sindhu is my mother's milk.'' And Sheikh Ayaz sings: ``I belong to the religion of all men, all women and all children. I am everyone. I am as old as the hills of Aror. I am the `madan-mast' plant which grew up wherever there fell the drops of blood shed by Ladi, wife of Dahir, fighting the ruthless Arabs. I am the cave of Goddess Kali's thousand idols which I wrought in stone and which I have been worshipping all my life.''
Sindhi is alive. Sindhis are alive --- in India and in Pakistan. Sindh is alive too!