Translation

I saw the Beloved within the pupil of my eye.
Everywhere I looked, I saw the Beloved.

I circumambulated both the K’abah and the temple.
I found no one there and only saw You.

I looked everywhere to seek the truth.
But saw God’s home within the home of my heart.

To be a beggar at Your threshold is worthier than any kingship.
I realized that authority over the two worlds comes when desires are relinquished.

Goya, I’ve heard this calling ever since eternity.
That the summit of the world in the Origin.

Transcription

Darūn-i mardumak-i dīdeh dilrubā dīdam
Beh har taraf keh nazar kardam āshnā dīdam

Beh gird-i k’abeh ō butkhāneh har dō gardīdam
Digar nayāftam ānja hamīn torā dīdam

Beh har kujā keh nazar kardam az ruyi tahqīq
Valī bekhāneh-i dil khāneh-i khudā dīdam

Gadāyi dar-i kūyi to beh ze sultānīst
Khilāfat-i dō jahān tark-i mud’āa dīdam

Marā ze rūz-i azal āmad īn nidā Gūyā
Keh intahāyi jahān rā dar ibtadā dīdam

Gurmukhi

ਦਰੂਨਿ ਮਰਦਮਕਿ ਦੀਦਹ ਦਿਲ-ਰੁਬਾ ਦੀਦਮ ।
ਬਹਰ ਤਰਫ਼ ਕਿ ਨਜ਼ਰ ਕਰਦਮ ਆਸ਼ਨਾ ਦੀਦਮ ॥

ਬ-ਗਿਰਦਿ ਕਾਬਾ ਓ ਬੁਤਖ਼ਾਨਾ ਹਰ ਦੋ ਗਰਦੀਦਮ ।
ਦਿਗਰ ਨ-ਯਾਫ਼ਤਮ ਆਂ ਜਾ ਹਮੀਂ ਤੁਰਾ ਦੀਦਮ ॥

ਬਹਰ ਕੁਜਾ ਕਿ ਨਜ਼ਰ ਕਰਦਮ ਅਜ਼ ਰਹਿ ਤਹਕੀਕ ।
ਵਲੇ ਬ-ਖ਼ਾਨਾ-ਇ ਦਿਲ ਖ਼ਾਨਾ-ਇ ਖ਼ਦਾ ਦੀਦਮ ॥

ਗਦਾਈੲ ਦਰਿ ਕੂੲ ਤੋ ਬਿਹ ਜ਼ਿ ਸੁਲਤਾਨੀ-ਅਸਤ ।
‍ਖ਼ਿਲਾਫ਼ਤਿ ਦੋ ਜਹਾਂ ਤਰਕਿ ਮੁੱਦਆ ਦੀਦਮ ॥

ਮਰਾ ਜ਼ਿ ਰੋਜ਼ਿ ਅਜ਼ਲ ਆਮਦ ਈਂ ਨਿਦਾ ਗੋਇਆ ।
ਕਿ ਇੰਤਹਾਇ ਜਹਾਂ ਰਾ ਦਰ ਇਬਤਦਾ ਦੀਦਮ ॥

Persian

درونِ‌ مردمکِ دیده دلربا دیدم
به هر طرف که نظر کردم آشنا دیدم

به گردِ کعبه و بتخانه هر دو گردیدم
دگر نیافتم آنجا همین ترا دیدم

به هر کجا که نظر کردم از روی تحقیق!
ولی بخانه دل خانه خدا دیدم

گدایی درِ کوی تو به ز سلطانی ست
خلافتِ‌ دو جهان ترکِ مدعا دیدم

مرا ز روزِ ازل آمد این ندا گویا
که انتهایِ جهان را در ابتدا دیدم

Commentary

In the fifty-fifth ghazal in Bhai Nand Lal’s Diwan-i-Goya, the repeated word at the end of each couplet is dīdam, the simple past tense of the verb to perceive, in all the forms that perception may take. In other words, dīdam might be translated as having seen, looked, met, found, or visited, among the various other modes through which we can engage in the act of perception. Following this, readers will note that we did not translate dīdam as any one word in English, as the translation team was unable to locate a word in English that captured the entire suggestions of dīdam in Bhai Nand Lal’s text. Here, we have used “saw,” “found,” and “realized” to capture our interpretation of the original Persian text.

Several further aspects of the ghazal are worth reflecting on here. In the first couplet, Bhai Nand Lal offers the surprising image of finding the Beloved (dilrubā) not by viewing them through his eyes but rather within the pupil of his own eyes. The first couplet sets the stage. The perception–whether through sight or feeling–that Bhai Nand Lal is exploring through his repetition of the word dīdam is not a perception of the other. Here, Bhai Nand Lal is not describing the self’s discovery of a Beloved outside himself, but rather the Beloved is within. The sight being described here is not the one that allows us to move through the world. It is a sight that comes with divine knowing. As he tells us in the second line, once he located the Beloved in the pupil of his eye, he was unable to unsee them.

The second and third couplets help develop our understanding of the kind of perception that is being described in this ghazal. In the second couplet, Bhai Nand Lal describes his inability to find anyone but the Beloved–referred to here directly, in a shift from the first couplet–even in the spaces that might be understood as mediating an encounter between the self and the Divine: the K’abah and the temple. In the third couplet, Bhai Nand Lal describes seeing “God’s home” (khāneh-i khudā) within the “home of [his] heart” (khāneh-i dil). Note the parallel construction–not quite achievable in English–between the two homes in the original text.

In the fourth couplet, Bhai Nand Lal seems to turn to other matters. Here, again referring to the Divine directly in the second person, Bhai Nand Lal explores the relationship between the so-called “two worlds,” which we might understand as that of the inner self and the outer world. Authority over, or perhaps understanding of, these two worlds seems to derive from the journey towards the Beloved. In other words, he suggests that perceiving the Divine as entwined with us–in the pupil of the eye or in the heart's home–requires a revised relationship between the inner and outer worlds.

What might that relationship be? How can we move as our selves while begging at the Divine’s threshold? The last couplet might offer a hint, as he describes a knowledge that he’s always had, a calling that he’s heard from eternity–that the summit (intahā), or “end,” or “limit,” of the world is in its origin (ibtadā). Here, Bhai Nand Lal is expounding on something he’s always known, but by naming it as such, he also suggests that he has not always understood. In other words, the possession of knowledge–of time, existence, and its relationship to our existence in our bodies in this realm–is not necessarily understanding. In the podcast, we discussed this expression of doubt despite trust in relationship to a sabad revealed to Bhagat Ravidas, which is discussed further and fully transcreated here. In this sabad, Bhagat Ravidas questions the nature of his doubt even as he experiences it–it is a fantastical doubt like a ruler forgetting his kingdom while asleep. How might we channel such doubt into a transformation of perception?