86_06

{86,6}

pā-e afgār pah jab se tujhe raḥm āyā hai
ḳhār-e rah ko tire ham mihr-giyā kahte haiñ

1) ever since you have had mercy on the wounded foot
2) we call the thorn of your road mandragora/'mihr-giya'

Notes:

giyā is a shortened form of giyās , 'grass'.

mihr-giyā : 'A mistress, the face of a sweetheart; the mandrake; the plant turnsole; a fresh fruit, from the root of which a delicious juice is extracted; chemists; those especially who search after the philosopher's stone, alchemists'. (Steingass p.1354)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

Nazm:

By 'your thorn of the road' is meant the thorn that has lodged in the lover's foot during his search for the beloved. The reason for calling it mihr-giyā is that it became the cause of the beloved's affection and mercy. If it had not wounded the foot-soles, then she would not have felt mercy. And mihr-giyā -- that is, giyāh-āftāb [sun-grass]-- is a species of grass. (85)

== Nazm page 85

Hasrat:

mihr-giyā is a kind of plant of which the root is in the shape of a man. It's well known that people become kind [mihrbān] toward the man who keeps it with him. Here, he has called the thorn of the road mihr-giyā because the foot was wounded by the thorn, and the beloved felt mercy toward the wounded foot. (77)

Bekhud Dihlavi:

He says, since our feet have become wounded by thorns of the road, you've felt mercy toward them. Thus we don't call the thorns of your road thorns, but rather, mihr-giyā . [He then copies Hasrat's explanation for this, without acknowledgment.] (135)

Shadan:

[In English mihr-giyā] is 'root of mandrake' [English], a plant the root of which is two figures facing each other. They say that whoever has this root, the person before whom the root-bearer goes becomes kindly [mihrbān] to him. (284)

Josh:

mihr-giyā is a species of grass. They say that whoever might have a sprig of this plant, everyone always remains kind [mihrbān] to him. (172)

FWP:

SETS == DEFINITION; MUSHAIRAH
SPEAKING: {14,4}

The proverbially magic plant with the human-shaped root is called in English 'mandrake', and belongs to the 'mandragora' family; mihr-giyā perhaps contains some cognate echo. Whether it does or not, clearly the affinity between its name, 'mihr-grass', and the mihr that means kindness or graciousness, as in mihrbānī , is at the heart of the verse.

In fact there's not much else going on in the verse. It would surely be at its best in a mushairah, where it would be called on only for one quick, punchy, enjoyable effect. 'A fresh word is equal to a theme', as Talib Amuli, Shah Jahan's poet laureate, famously said. (For further discussion, see {17,2}.) Presumably mihr-giyā is such a fresh word that it can energize and carry the verse all by itself.

Ghazal 86, Verse 6