The Magic Doe: Qutban Suhravardi's Mirigavati - Hardcover

Behl, Aditya

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199842922 ISBN 13: 9780199842926

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Mirigavati or The Magic Doe is the work of Shaikh Qutban Suhravardi, an Indian Sufi master who was also an expert poet and storyteller attached to the glittering court-in-exile of Sultan Husain Shah Sharqi of Jaunpur. Composed in 1503 as an introduction to mystical practice for disciples, this powerful Hindavi or early Hindi Sufi romance is a richly layered and sophisticated text, simultaneously a spiritual enigma and an exciting love story full of adventures. The Mirigavati is both an excellent introduction to Sufism and one of the true literary classics of pre-modern India, a story that draws freely on the large pool of Indian, Islamic, and European narrative motifs in its distinctive telling of a mystical quest and its resolution. Adventures from the Odyssey and the voyages of Sindbad the Sailor--sea voyages, encounters with monstrous serpents, damsels in distress, flying demons and cannibals in caves, among others--surface in Suhravardi 's rollicking tale, marking it as first-rate entertainment for its time and, in private sessions in Sufi shrines, a narrative that shaped the interior journey for novices. Before his untimely death in 2009, Aditya Behl had finished this complete blank verse translation of the critical edition of the Mirigavati, an epic romance that is also the symbolic key to a secret Sufi mystical tradition and a gem of Indian and world literature.

About this title

About the Author

Aditya Behl (1966-2009) was Associate Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

Wendy Doniger is Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago

Review

"In this elegant, beautifully paced translation of the Mirigavati, Aditya Behl displays the verve and luminosity that sparkled from every page of his own tragically short life. Wary of 'keys to the scriptures,' he nonetheless finds one written into the text itself and thus unlocks a literary secret 500 years old. This is a work of sustained genius-a genius, alas, ever young." --John Stratton Hawley, Professor of Religion, Barnard College, Columbia University

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0199842922
• ISBN 13: 9780199842926
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Doniger Wendy