===
1328,
4
===
 

{1328,4}

z̤āhir meñ ḳhvūrshīd huʾā vuh nūr meñ apne pinhāñ hai
ḳhālī nahīñ hai ḥusn se chhupnā aise bhī paidāʾī kā

1) outwardly, the sun appeared-- she/he/it is hidden in her/his/its own light
2) it is not devoid of beauty/elegance, the hiding of even/also such a creation/production/result

 

Notes:

paidā : 'Born, created, generated, produced; invented, discovered, manifested, manifest, exhibited; procured, acquired, earned, gained'. (Platts p.298)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

S. R. Faruqi:

The sun's light is so radiant that in its light everything can be seen, but to see the sun itself is impossible. So to speak, the sun is hidden because of its own radiance. In this way the radiance/appearance of the Divine Reality is in every direction, but the Divine Reality itself is hidden from everyone's sight-- that is, it's hidden in its own radiance/appearance, there is no radiance/appearance of the Divine Reality. On this reading the verse expresses the theme of 'unity of appearance' [vaḥdat ul-shuhūd].

In the second line he has expressed the reason for the hiddenness of the presence of the reality: that a presence that would have creative power to such an extent (would be manifest to such an extent) that it would become hidden in its own creation/result-- this style/coquetry too is a style/coquetry of beauty. Because the presence that, when hidden, would become manifest to such an extent-- how deadly must be its manifestation!

The astronomers say that the sun's radiance is the result of a heat-generating process through which its internal elements break apart-- that is, 'fission'. Then by means of the breaking apart, atoms of hydrogen gas mingle-- that is, 'fusion' occurs. In both aspects, an uncommon power keeps being generated at every moment, and this becomes visible to us in the form of radiance. In this way the real sun is not the one we see. In Mir's time these facts were not known to people, but the imagination of the poet who said nūr meñ apne pinhāñ hai had searched out that idea long before.

FWP:

SETS == SUBJECT?
MOTIFS == SUN
NAMES
TERMS

There's also the enjoyably paradoxical idea that someone's or something's becoming invisible through sheer radiance is 'not without beauty'; presumably the beauty is of a metaphysical or imagined kind.

And of course, we have no idea who or what is the subject. It could equally well be the beloved, or God, or the sun itself. Because of the extremely broad range of pādāʾī , we get no hint of the actual process of creation (see the range of possibilities for paidā in the definition above).

Compare Ghalib's version of this theme:

G{115,3}.

 

 
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