Sir William Jones and Oriental Mysticism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Hadi Baghaei-Abchooyeh
Keyword(s):  
Persian Literature ◽  
Asiatic Society ◽  
Court Judge ◽  
Persian Language ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Western Scholar ◽  
Oriental Mysticism ◽  
Sir William Jones

Oriental mysticism, religion, and science are all intertwined with literature; while proven to be fantastic for many scholars, this intermixture has made it challenging to extract mystical concepts from poetry. This difficulty has been one of the earliest sources of conflict between Oriental literary scholars, religious figures, and mystics. The situation becomes more complex should one attempt to compare Oriental mysticism with its Occidental counterpart. Arguably, the first Western scholar who conducted such a rigorous comparison was Sir William Jones (1746–1794), a linguist, translator, and poet who was also a Supreme Court Judge in Calcutta. His fascination with Persian mystical poets such as Rumi (1210-1273), Sadi (1210-1292), and Hafez (1315-1390) drove him towards Sufism. Due to his understanding of Persian mysticism and culture, Jones became one of the best interpreters of Indo-Persian literature. His works, founded on his fascination with Persian language and literature, gained him the title of ‘Persian Jones’ and established his international reputation as an Orientalist. Jones’s publications highly impacted Romantic scholars, developing sympathetic representations of the Orient in the period’s literature. Jones’s works, letters, Persian manuscripts, and the annotations he made on them have not been examined for his Persian mystical studies before this thesis. Therefore, this PhD research will investigate his works and library on Sufism and his comparative study of mystical schools. It intends to analyse Jones’s findings in his comparative mystical studies and elaborate on his understanding of Sufism. This thesis investigates his essays, letters, and annotations in various texts; such texts are mainly available in the Royal Asiatic Society archives and the British Library’s India Office Records and Private Papers. Moreover, in some cases, Jones has altered his English translations of Persianate Sufi texts; these alterations will be examined and compared with the original texts to demonstrate Jones’s rationale behind them. This research will pursue the accuracy of Jones’s interpretation of Sufism and Hinduism. In addition, it examines his development of the interpretations of Oriental mysticism, which he presented to eighteenth-century Europe. The findings of this research will contribute to the growing literature on Orientalism and shed a brighter light on the works of Sir William Jones and Indo-Persian literature and mysticism.

scholarly journals Review of the Books of Persian Literature in the High School of the Old System and the Second Medium of the New System

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (SPE2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Majid Soltani ◽  
Mehdi Norouz ◽  
Akbar Shabani ◽  
Batoul Fakhr Islam
Keyword(s):  
Educational System ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Childhood And Adolescence ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Persian Literature ◽  
Persian Language ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Poetic Prose ◽  
Self Examination

Many educators believe that the intellectual, national, cultural, religious, and literary foundations of each generation are laid in childhood and adolescence. An important part of this is the responsibility of each country's education system. Textbooks are one of the most important tools in this formation. Persian books are a means of narrating human thoughts and imaginations due to their attention to fiction. The present article is a research on the books of Persian literature of the old educational system and Persian of the new educational system. In this study, we intend to examine the books of Persian language and literature of the old system and the Persian books of the second secondary school in the new educational system. Classical literature, contemporary literature, poetic, prose and fusion literature, Iranian and world literature are some of the components that are examined in this research. The authors appear to have focused on the text in older books and to pay more attention to self-examination in new books. This indicates that the new books emphasize greater student engagement.

La Construction de L'empire de la Géographie L'odyssée des arpenteurs de Sa Très Gracieuse Majesté, la reine Victoria, en Asie centrale

1997 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 1153-1180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kapil Raj
Keyword(s):  
Rudyard Kipling ◽  
Persian Language ◽  
Working Together ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Sir William Jones

The manners and sentiments of the easternnations will be perfectly known ; and the limitsof our knowledge no less extended than thebounds of our empire.Sir William Jones, A Grammar of the Persian LanguageYes, and thou must learn how to make picturesof roads and mountains and rivers — tocarry these pictures in thine eye till a suitabletime cornes to set them upon paper. Perhapssome day, when thou art a chain-man, I maysay to thee when we are working together ; Goacross those hills and see what lies beyond.But as it was occasionally inexpedient tocarry about measuring-chains a boy would dowell to know the precise length of his own footpace,so that when he was deprived of « adventitiousaids » he might still tread his distances.Rudyard Kipling, KimEn mai 1863, sur les hauteurs himalayennes qui surplombent Srinagar (la capitale du Cachemire), deux hommes, l'un autochtone, l'autre européen, parcourent interminablement les mêmes sentiers sinueux. Bâton de pèlerin en main, l'un marche, l'autre le suit en comptant meticuleusement les pas du premier : oui, ses deux mille pas font exactement un mile. Soudain, ils s'arrêtent, allument un petit réchaud à huile et posent dessus un petit récipient en cuivre — afin de faire du thé, penserait-on. Mais dès que l'eau se met à bouillir, l'autochtone sort des profondeurs de sa longue robe un petit thermomètre et le plonge dans la casserole. Il le regarde pendant un long moment et dit quelques mots à son compagnon. Celui-ci prend l'instrument, le regarde de près d'un air satisfait. Ils se remettent à marcher. Quelques instants plus tard, ils s'arrêtent de nouveau. Cette fois-ci, le premier pose son bâton et sort de ses habits un verre fumé et fait apparaître. tel un magicien, un tout petit sextant qu'il tient au-dessus du verre pour viser le soleil. Après un bref instant, il dit un chiffre à son camarade qui. malgré son air rébarbatif, laisse apparaître le soupçon d'un sourire derrière sa grande barbe. Puis, l'Indien consulte une boussole qui s'est matérialisée subitement dans ses mains. Ensuite, se mettant à l'abri du soleil et du vent, il sort un thermomètre qu'il expose quelques instants avant de le scruter et de marmonner encore quelque chose à son compagnon. Le soleil couché, ils rentrent tous deux au camp mais, dès la nuit tombée, ils ressortent de leur tente et recommencent à viser le ciel avec le sextant. Jour après jour, nuit après nuit, on les voit répéter les mêmes gestes. Le 12 juin, l'Européen repart pour Srinagar, tandis que son compagnon rejoint une troupe vêtue d'uniformes bleu marine qui fait route, avec des chevaux bien chargés, en direction de Leh.

Art. XVII.—Dr. Bhagvânlâl Indrâjî's Interpretation of the Mathurâ Lion Pillar Inscriptions

1894 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-540
Author(s):  
G. Bühler
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
Asiatic Society ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Royal Asiatic Society

A lingering illness, ending with a premature death, prevented the late Dr. Bhagvânlâl Indrâjî from completing. his article on one of his most important discoveries, the inscriptions on the Mathurâ Lion Pillar. What he had written, or rather dictated to his assistant—a transcript as well as Sanskrit and English translations, together with some notes—was sent after his death to England, with the sculpture (now in the British Museum), and made over for publication to the Royal Asiatic Society. With the permission of the Society's Council, I have undertaken to edit these materials, and thus for the last time to perform a task which I have performed more than once for my lamented friend's papers during his lifetime. In doing this I have compared Dr. Bhagvânlâl's transcript first with the originals on the stone, and afterwards again with an excellent paper impression, presented to me by Dr. James Burgess in 1889. The collation has made necessary some alterations in the transcript and in the translation, among which the more important ones have been pointed out in the notes. But I may confidently assert that all really essential points have been fully settled and explained by Dr. Bhagvânlâl, whose great acumen and scholarship are as conspicuous in his interpretation of these inscriptions as in his other epigraphic publications. For convenience's sake I have prefixed an introduction, summarizing the chief results deducible from the inscriptions.

The nature of the Persian Language written and spoken in India during the 13th and 14th Centuries

1934 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Borah
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Persian Literature ◽  
Persian Language ◽  
Permanent Home ◽  
The Difference

It has often been said that the Persian language written and spoken in India does not possess that flavour which is generally found in the writings of the Iranian authors. There is an element of truth in the foregoing charge so far as the literature produced in India during the later period of Muslim rule is concerned. But the Persian literature produced in India from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century may be favourably compared with the writings of many an indigenous Iranian scholar. The works of Amīr Khusrau and Hasan of Dihli and Badr-i-Chāch, who flourished during this period, are highly esteemed by Iranian scholars and are placed next to Sa'dī and Jalāl ul-Dīn Rūmī. The early immigrants who made India their permanent home retained the purity of their tongue in a much larger measure than their successors. But with the growing influence of the Hindu scholars who began to study Persian to qualify themselves for the service of the State, the difference in the style of India and Persia proper became more marked.

Margaret More Roper

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Goodrich
Keyword(s):  
Women's Education ◽  
Desiderius Erasmus ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Lord's Prayer ◽  
Women's Equality ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Sir Thomas More ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Domestic Roles

Margaret More Roper (b. 1505–d. 1544) was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More and Jane Colt, More’s first wife. More was a vocal proponent of humanism, and he set up a school in his home to teach his four children—Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John—Latin and Greek as well as arithmetic, astronomy, philosophy, and theology. While More’s commitment to educating his daughters was truly pioneering, it did not reflect a proto-feminist commitment to women’s equality. Rather, More aimed to enhance all of his children’s piety, and to prepare his daughters in particular for their domestic roles as wives and mothers. By all accounts, Roper was the star pupil of this school, and she gained a national and even international reputation as one of the foremost learned women in England. Roper exchanged letters with the prominent humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who dedicated to her his commentary on two hymns by Prudentius (1523). Perhaps in response to this compliment, Roper translated Erasmus’s treatise on the Lord’s Prayer (A Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster, 1524) from Latin into English. Published quasi-anonymously, this text popularized Erasmian piety in the vernacular while also advocating for the value of women’s education according to humanist tenets. Roper also drew on her classical learning to compose a number of works in Latin that have since been lost: letters to her father and Erasmus, declamations, and poetry. In 1521 she married William Roper, a lawyer and a friend of her father, and she soon became a mother, giving birth to five children: Elizabeth, Mary, Thomas, Margaret, and Anthony. Like her father, Margaret Roper educated her children according to humanist standards, and her daughter Mary Basset became known in her own right for her English translations of Latin and Greek works. As Thomas More’s favorite daughter, Roper also played an important role in his personal piety and his final years. She alone washed the hair shirt that More wore for devotional purposes, and only she was allowed to visit him after he was imprisoned in the Tower for refusing to accept Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. Three of the English letters that she wrote during his incarceration are extant, including the important Alington letter, which dramatically recounts her unsuccessful efforts to persuade More to change his mind. After More’s execution, she preserved his writings and his severed head, safeguarding his legacy until her own death in 1544.

‘Lisping Tongues’ and ‘Sanscrit Songs’: William Jones' Hymns to Hindu Deities

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Kurt A. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Cultural Translation ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Court Judge ◽  
Hindu Religion ◽  
Sir William Jones

In 1784-9 Sir William Jones, then a Supreme Court Judge in Bengal, wrote nine ‘Hymns’ to Hindu deities. In examining one of the ‘Hymns’ – ‘A Hymn to Súrya’ – in more detail, this article maintains that Jones uses the hymnal form as a means of cultural translation, transposing the religious and cultural significance of Vedanta Hinduism poetically into an accessible and uncompromised form. With an emphasis on Jones’ early poetic criticism and his personal fondness for the Hindu religion, this article demonstrates how Jones employs the hymnal form in order to reach a poetic, religious, and cultural ‘original’ through translation.

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