The Tale of Five Rivers

The Five Rivers

There were actually seven rivers. The Persians called them Sapta Sindhva (land of seven seas). When Saraswati dried up, Indus began to be treated as the boundary and the place got to be called the "land of five rivers" – comprising Beas, Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, and Sutlej. Its approximate boundary was Indus on the West; where Jumna falls South in the East; the Himalayas in the North and Punjnad, the confluence of five rivers, in the South. The area was thickly forested where the wild animals roamed. There were heavy monsoons and floods which kept the plains fertile. People lived in small mud built hamlets ruled by local chieftains. They reared cattle, led a pastoral life and were prosperous in their own simple way. There were a few small villages like Lahore and Multan. The life revolved around simple customs and old superstitions along with influence of the Vedantic, Jain and Buddhist philosophies.

A traveler, from the West or North, suddenly came across this region with flowing rivers, lush vegetation and rich crops after hundreds of miles of the Iranian wilderness and dry barren mountains of Afghanistan. So they came in droves, one after other, sucked in by the allure of this little heaven on Earth. The Persians (Darius 521 BC) were the first. They were followed by the Greeks (Alexander 325 BC) and then the Mauryans from the East. Thereafter, the area was ruled by the Bactrians and Scythians from the West until the Guptas from the East held sway over them. Next were the Mongoloid Huns from Central Asia who were expelled by Vardhana. Now was the turn of the Muslim invaders. The Afghan tribes made a beeline - Mahmud Ghazni, Ghoris, Tughlaks, Surs and Lodhis. Then the Central Asians Taimur and Babar uprooted the Afghans and established their own empire. After a few hundred years, the British conquered the land. But the word Punjab (Persian – five waters) is only 400 years old when it was first coined in a book in 1580 which talked about a Sher Khan of Punjab who built a fort.

Birth of Punjabi Language

The invaders brought new languages like Greek, Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Pashto which mingled with the local Sanskrit. Their Islamic faith clashed with the local Vedantic, Jain and Buddhist philosophies. And since the invaders never brought their wives along, they married the local women and mostly settled down injecting Persian, Greek, Afghan, Turk, Arab and Mongol blood in the local blood line. The did improve the local genetic quality but disrupted the peace and tranquility the sleepy Punjabi countryside. Punjab was kept under a constant stress, chaos and turmoil.

Out of this stress and turmoil emerged a new Indo-Aray language called Punjabi which heavily borrowed from the foreign languages while holding on to a Sanskrit foundation. A distinct Punjabi cultural identity began to evolve. The common man spoke this language of the masses while the rulers and the elite spoke Turkish, Persian; and much later, English or Urdu.

Confluence of Bhakti & Sufi Philosophy

The Punjabi masses were suffering oppression of the two kinds. The brutality of the foreign invaders and the religious suppression of the Mullahs and Pundits who enjoyed power and prestige. This brought about a unique confluence of interests of the people belonging to different faiths. The Sufi and the Bakhti movements had a similar base. Both preached the love of God, piety and spirituality. And both challenged the religious orthodoxy, caste and meaningless ritualism. Both believed in narrowing down the distance between the Aatma(soul) and Paramatma (God).

Bakhti movement (800-1700 AD) which spread out from South India, emphasized the devotion to God as sole means of salvation. Eventually Sikhism and Vaishnavism were to evolve out of this movement. Sufism took birth in Arabia in ninth century and had different flavours. The Arab Sufism was bone-dry mainly stressing on asceticism and disciplining the body. The Turkish Sufism was more nationalistic in character but rich in artistic expression such as the whirling dervishes. The Iranian Sufism was linked to the old Iranian mythologies with a love of humanity. The South Asian Sufism was influenced by the Vedantic teachings and the Buddhist lore and believed in an emotionally a rich life with drinking, dancing and advocating a physical love that could sublimate itself into the spiritual love. Sufis had faith in God, they loved the Prophet but maintained that the Musrshid or Guru could also lead them to the Ultimate Truth. Many rituals of different faiths found a parallel stream. Kirtan at a hindu temple, qawalli at a muslim dargah and singing of gurbani at a gurdwara.

The Saen Babas of Punjab were in the forefront of these spiritual movements and rose in the form of saints, sants, faqirs, sadhus, gurus and sufis. And preached a greater law of humanity than the narrow law of the kings, the powerful and the clergy. Punjabi was their tool to propagate ideas of equality and justice for all the people, irrespective of their caste or creed or faith. And just as the Iranian mystics sang the praises of Yusaf Zulaikha, Laila Majnun and Shirin Farhad, the mystics of Punjab idealized the romances of Heer Ranjha, Sohni Mahiwal and Sassi Punnu. They spoke directly to the masses in a language that was simple, conversational, light and lyrical.

The Saen Babas of the Rivers

Punjab produced many Saen Babas but we will make a brief mention of only a few due to space considerations.

Baba Farid (1173 AD): He came 100 years after Taimur. Baba Farid was the first great Punjabi sufi poet. Punjabi does not seemed to have changed much since his days.

’’Farid Kaaley maindey kaprey, kaala mainda wais, Gunahan Bharehan main pheraan, Lok kahain dervish’’. (Oh Farida! I have taken to, Wearing black clothes and my, Whole garb is of black phase, Full of sins, I move, But people call me a dervish)

Saint Kabir (1398): Kabir was 70 years before Guru Nanak. Kabir rejected both the Vedas and Quran and believed in singing the praises of God and living a simple pure life of devotion called Bakhti. He was against all ritualistic and ascetic methods as means to salvation.

Guru Nanak (1469): Once emperor Babar wanted to offer him gifts. His reply was ’’When God is there to give everything, what else can you offer me?" . Guru Nanak was born in Nankana Sahib, Sheikhupura. He was for the purity of heart rather than learning of scriptures. He condemned caste system and stressed a simple life like Kabir.

’’He is One. He is first. He is all that is; His name is Truth; He is the Creator of all.’’

Madho Lal Shah Hussain (1538): The story goes that Madho Lal (Brahmin) and Shah Hussain (Sufi) were friends and to immortalize the friendship, Shah Hussain decided to call himself Madho Lal Hussain. Outside Shalamar Gardens in Lahore, an annual festival "Mela Chiraghan" or the Festival of Lights, is held at the time of spring harvest in his honur. Hussain wrote short poems known as "Kafis".

’’Main wi janan dhok Ranjhan di, naal mare koi challey; Pairan paindi, mintan kardi; jaanan tan peya ukkaley; Neen wi dhoonghi, tilla purana; sheehan ney pattan malley; Ranjhan yaar tabeeb sadhendha; main tan dard awalley; Kahe Husain faqeer namana; sain senhurray ghalley’’

Bulleh Shah (1680): He was one of the greatest Sufi poets of Punjab and was so unorthodox in his life that the Mullas of Kasur refused to bury him. He had a sister who, like him, remained celibate and spent her life in meditation.

’’Qazi and mullah stray away; And paddle their religion; like hawkers; They are like bird trappers; Of this world; And throw away their nets; Everywhere to catch innocents.’’

Waris Shah (1736): His Heer Ranja is a romance of star-crossed lovers who were doomed to a tragic end. This ballad of two lovers is an all time true Punjabi classic of a great beauty and pathos.

Bhai Vir Singh (1872-1957): Known as father of modern Punjabi literature, he single handed brought a renaissance of Punjabi poetry. In his poem lagian Niban, a girl complains about her insensitive lover:

’’I have fallen in love with a stone; Who owns neither laughter; Nor any expression; But I admit he is handsome; And enchants my heart; But he is so secretive of nature; And never lets me into his heart.’’

Amrita Pritam (1917): Amrita Pritam’s work has been translated into 21 languages. Her poetry is a blend of earthiness with a lyrical quality derived from Sufi and Sikh traditions and a soft touch of feminism.

’’AJ Akhan Waris Shah noo, Kite kabran wicho bol, Te Kitabe ishak da koi, Aglaa varka khol.......’’

After the Partition

When the British occupied Punjab, they made Urdu the official legal language and teaching of Punjabi was prohibited in the schools. Punjabi was castigated as an uncouth language fit only for the peasants.

After partition, East Punjab (24 million) quickly got its act together by making Punjabi as the official language. Punjabi got full patronage and soon blossomed enriching the local culture with home grown aesthetics, literary work, song, dance, drama and folk art. Besides other factors, this strong stable cultural base with all elements in harmony contributed to the remarkable success of the East Punjabis in all fields ranging from farming to business to entrepreneurship both in the domestic and international field.

Unfortunately, Punjabi was not given any official recognition in West Punjab (70 million), the biggest Punjabi speaking region in the world and same happened with other Pakistani regional languages. The generations born after the partition can neither read nor write in Punjabi, their mother tongue. In the linguistic sense, they are not lingual. They are semi-lingual because they think in Punjabi and speak in Urdu or English. Meanwhile Urdu also became the official language of the mullah and the madressa thus deepening the cultural disconnect even further. Paradoxically, the illiterate village folk who only have the Punjabi folklore to go by, display a more balanced cultural approach than the educated small-towners or the city dwellers.

May be it is about time the West Punjabis got their coming generations introduced to the heritage left behind by the Saen Babas of rivers. And got them reconnected to the soil of their ancestors. A tree with week roots always has a stunted growth…