S. R. Faruqi:

[This is the third of five 'continuous' verses that make up a kind of unofficial verse-set; for extensive discussion see the first verse, {307,1}.]

In the third verse, there's an allusion to the famous words that God said [in a hadith qudsi]: 'I was a hidden treasure, I wanted to be manifest, thus I created the world'. But Mir took it further. The meaning of 'meaning' is 'reality', and .suurat means 'appearance'. See

{1421,2}.

The Divine Reality can only be manifest at the time when it would adopt an 'appearance'. Although the appearance is only a guise, and without existence, without it the existence of 'meaning' is not [habitually] established. Therefore the 'people of vision/insight' consider us alone (that is, humans, or the external universe) to be 'the worshipped one(s)'.

For jaante hai;N there are two meanings: (1) we accept; (2) we believe and are confident. Between .suurat and na:zar is the relationship of a zila.

[See also {502,3}; {944,1}; {1076,7}.]

FWP:

SETS == GRANDIOSITY
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS == MEANING; MUSALSAL; VERSE-SET; ZILA

This is the third of five 'continuous' verses that form an unofficial verse-set; for discussion see {307,1}.

Compare the final verse in the sequence,

{307,5},

which repeats this theme in a different style.

Note for grammar and script fans: The unusual plural spelling ve (instead of the ambiguous vuh ) in the first line is perhaps meant to guarantee that we will read ma((nii as plural, as 'meanings', to go with the enforced 'those' [ve]. Otherwise, in the context of the line there's no other way to assure that we do this (since Mir hasn't opted for ma((aanii , the official plural). In Urdu, by convention-- and a very annoying convention it is, too-- ma((nii takes plural verbs even when the intent is clearly singular. In this case the line doesn't contain a verb (the present tense can be colloquially omitted because of the nahii;N ); but even if the line had contained ma((nii nahii;N hai;N , that would done no more than open up the vague possibility of a plural sense, leaving no particular reason for us to adopt it. Thus it might be that Mir was determined to push the plural into our minds, and cause us to reject 'that meaning' in favor of 'those meanings'. (Of course, all this speculation depends on the assumption that Mir himself consciously chose the spelling ve ).