0877_01

S. R. Faruqi:

The word dha;Nsaknaa has not appeared in any dictionary-- so much so that even Farid Ahmad Barkati in his farhang-e miir has overlooked it. He has certainly entered dhasaknaa , on the basis of this verse in the second divan [{803,6}]

go dil dhasak hii jaave aa;Nkhe;N ubal hii aave;N
sab uu;Nch niich kii hai ham-vaar terii ;xaa:tir

[although the heart might indeed sink, the eyes might indeed boil over,
everything of high and low, is smooth/controlled for your sake]

In the aa.sifiyah and the nuur ul-lu;Gaat too, it doesn't appear. Platts, Fallon, Duncan Forbes have included dhasaknaa , and given more or less the same meaning: to move from its place, to fall, etc. It's possible to think that in the present verse dha;Nsaknaa is a scribal error, and the original reading will be dhasaknaa . But in all the trustworthy manuscripts, {803,6} is written with dhasaknaa and the present verse with dha;Nsaknaa . Thus it's necessary to assume that dhasaknaa and dha;Nsaknaa are both correct.

Or else it's possible that here Mir might have combined dha;Nsnaa and khasaknaa and made the new word dha;Nsaknaa . But there's also the point that in former times this word wasn't dha;Nsnaa , but rather dhasnaa . Thus Abd ul-Vasi Hansavi in his ;Garaa))ib ul-lu;Gaat has written dhasnaa and has given the meaning as 'for the ground to sink'; to this, Khan-e Arzu in navaadir ul-alfaa:z has objected that dhasnaa means only 'to sit down, to fall, etc.', and not particularly for the ground to sink. Since Khan-e Arzu too hasn't written dha;Nsnaa , the idea is reinforced that at that time the word was dhasnaa . Thus the possibility increases that dha;Nsaknaa was an established word, and that Mir did not invent it by combining dha;Nsnaa and khasaknaa .

Now however all that may be, the freshness and rareness of dha;Nsaknaa is sufficiently proved by the fact that the word doesn't appear in common dictionaries. In the present verse, with regard to harmony of sound too, it's not necessary to say what an affinity dha;Nskaa has. In the first line there's nothing special, but the second line he has unquestionably composed in a peerless way.

This ghazal is in a 'ground' of Vali's, and to a great extent it seems to be a 'reply' to Vali. But Vali has two or three verses such that Mir hasn't been able to approach them. Vali's opening-verse is:

;xuubii-e i((jaaz-e ;husn-e yaar agar inshaa karuu;N
be-takalluf .saf;hah-e kaa;Ga;z yad-e bai.zaa karuu;N

[if I would write the excellence of the miracle of the beloved's beauty
putting aside formality, I would make the page of paper a 'white hand' [as in Moses's miracle]]

Mir was not able to create an opening-verse equal to this one; nor indeed was Mir able to use the rhyme-word inshaa with such an eloquent theme. Mir contented himself with doing only this much [{877,2}]:

lohuu rotaa huu;N mai;N har ik ;harf-e ;xa:t par ham-damaa;N
aur bhii rangiin jaisaa tum kaho inshaa karuu;N

[I weep blood at every letter of the script, oh friends
As you would say/command, I would create even more colorful belles-lettres]

Though indeed, the following three verses included in the present intikhab are so lofty and fresh, that all Vali's ustad-ship becomes colorless when compared to them.

{877,1}

Notes:

S. R. Faruqi:

FWP: