By Gilani Kamran

Source: The Nation Lahore Edition, Islamabad Edition

Punjabi poetry of pre-modern times has widely attracted the lovers of poetry in South Asia as well as the countries abroad. Its sufism has been its much distinctive feature, and its roots in the soil of Five Rivers has also given it a geo-cultural relevance. It is surprising to note that the pre-modern poets though highly educated in imitative and rational learning, and while they knew the Persian ghazal, versified love, romances and allegorical writings, they avoided their outward influence, and took up an independent view of poetry. This feature has a value of its own. The poets form Baba Fareed to Shah Hussain and Buleh Shah form a distinctive phase of creative imagination as it expresses itself in Punjabi poetry.

What is, however, significant is that there seems to be hardly any tradition of literary theory preceding the writings of the poets. There has been a long chain of writers on Rhetoric, but their views could not help create the poems. There was also no model before them to build their poems on an available outline. With these facts the pre-modern poetry and the poets come up as the most original writers in world-poetry. It is time that the structure and construction of pre-modern Punjabi poem may be studied to bring out what is original about it.

Baba Fareed's poetic landscape begins with a life at ordinary level of perception where common life is infested with mud and worldly attachments. The poet advises the initiate to keep clear of the filth and to listen to the voice which rings in the verses. Sometime these are two notes of views in a single verse. A free translation may give some idea of such a verse.

"If you are
a rarefied intellect, do not
Write dark letters on my way.
You just look within
yourself and knew what is there."

This mode of writing juxtaposes two different human attitudes and creates a unity of structure within a single verse.
Baba Fareed's landscape gradually leads the reader from what is present to a point in the distance. It in fact moves from here to what is far-off. From lanes and by-lanes of rural life the landscape reaches a countryside with flowerbeds and white cranes. A sense of joy radiates from the environment of the landscape. In terms of experience the earlier phases of the landscape are resounded by a fearsome motif of death. As such the entire journey is from here to hereafter -; from a state of purgatory to a state of blissful existence. Baba Fareed's poetry, for the first time in Punjab, portrays the pilgrimage of the human soul within the spectrum of purgatorial existence to a rewarding state of paradise. This aspect of Baba Fareed's creative imagination has not been properly studied by scholars so far. What is important is that the vision of the poet is suffuse with real facts of life that stand transformation -; the poem becomes a mirror image of the human soul.

The pre-modern Punjabi poetry can be compared with any other poetry written in the 11th century or in the 16th and 17th century. Creative imagination as an active principle of gnosis is seldom seen in contemporary world. It becomes effective when it discovers its own material and arranges it according to its own plane. Shah Hussain's creative imagination is a classic example of writing. The poem opens with a statement: Go! and play; enter the courtyard. In Sufi thinking to play means to counter one's life. Courtyard is actual existence. The voice making the entry of the poem's protagonist is pre-natal. Thus the soul enters the world. This poem is unique of its own kind.

There is a big river, boats sinking in water and reaching the other bank of the river. This sketch is followed by a house with seven doors. The last door is locked, remains unopened. Following it, a room appears, a flower-bed for the lover. The Bridegroom visits it. It may be remembered that in Shah Hussain's poetry bridegroom is the Heavenly lover. It has a biblical connotation. Then an Elephant is introduced mad with lust, held fast in heavy chains: it frightens the passers-by.

All those different views are inter-related and come into being as a single act of creative imagination. Dr Nazir Ahmed had classified it as a riddle.

This poem is an effective working of imagination in its creative act. It represents the state of human soul in one single act of perception.

In the 17th century Buleh Shah had provided a view of the human soul by representing it as the form of various acts. In Buleh Shah's imaginative perception 'young girls' symbolise human acts. In one of his poems Buleh Shah has portrayed young unmarried girls drawing from a water-well. It is a country scene. Girls clad in much impressive dress wait for an unseen visitor, draw water - some leave disgusted, dismayed, unhappily. this scene is repeated twice in the following stanzas. The richly dressed girls meet no success. Yet they keep on waiting - drawing water from the well. This picture symbolises a perpetual waiting for the visitor.

Buleh Shah's creative imaginative projects a pictographic scene to convey the message which runs through his poems. It is meant from a visual perception, auditory awareness and it is also a reminder to man in the confusion of everyday life. It is not the voice of the poet which turns to invite attention. It is the picture which communicates. Picture is the poem in Buleh Shah.

Punjabi poetry has its own way of speaking. It can be enjoyed when it is seen in a different perspective. I have only tried to suggest a different approach. The poems can of course yield pleasant scenario if these are observed from a close visibility point. Punjabi poetry has a strange world to offer. It is significant in many ways.