Fluttering about like a solar mote in the atmosphere of that lip,
Until I attain at last to the fountain-head of the radiant sun.”
The Mobed Khushi is the author of the Bazm-Gah (or “banqueting house”), in which treatise when describing the stations of Azar Kaiván’s illustrious disciples and most eminent followers, who are twelve in number; he enumerates them in this order: Ardashír, Kharad, Shiroíyah, Khiradmand, Farhad, Suhrab, Azádah, Bizhen, Isfendiar, Farshidwird, Bahman and Rustam: the daily food of each of these individuals was much below ten direms weight: and they carried the austerities recommended by Kaiván to the utmost limit, so that no others of his disciples attained to the same rank as these twelve persons. Of Farhád, Farshídwird, and Bahman, some account has been given in the preceding part of this work.
In the Bazm-gah, Khushi thus states respecting himself: “In the days of my youth, it was my anxious desire to find a spiritual guide. I therefore had recourse to the eminent doctors of Iran, Turan, Room, and Hindustan; that is, to Moslems, Hindoos, Guebers, Christians, and Jews. They all said to me: ‘Quit thy present faith and pass over to us:’ but my heart felt no inclination to change of religion, to adopting another, and abandoning opinions, as they did not afford me sufficient light in the object of my pursuit.
“Whilst a person beholds not the water, why pull off his slippers?”
“Such is the language of the prejudiced; although each of these doctors praised himself as being free from its influence: I afterwards beheld, in a vision, a mighty river from which streams and canals issued forth, all of which after many windings returned back into the same great river, and were confined within its two banks. I abandoned the great water, and in order to allay my thirst, directed my steps towards the rivulets in search of water: but as the banks of their channels were difficult of access through slime and mud, and carrying a bowl,[335] I could not reach the stream, and remained in great perplexity. At length my father came up and said: ‘Entreat God to conduct thee to the water.’ A voice then reached my ear: ‘This man has abandoned the river, and directed his face towards the rivulets.’ On my directing my steps towards the river, a blessed Angel said to me: ‘The great river is Azar Kaiván; the small rivulets are the doctors.’ I then knew that the slime and mud of the banks, the bowl, and the rivulets refer to prejudice and envy: therefore, being accompanied by Khoda Jói, I joined myself to Azar Kaiván, and discovered the object of my inquiries.” Hafiz of Shiraz observes:
“Whither can we turn our face from the high-priest’s threshold?
Happiness dwells in his abode, and salvation within that portal.”
Farzanah Bahram, the son of Farhád, was called Bahram the Less: the Arzhang Máni (the gallery of Máni) is the production of his genius: he was in attendance on Zu-al-Ulum, but attained to communion with God and to perfection, in the service of Farzanah Bahram, the son of Farhad. In the year of the Hejirah 1048 (A. D. 1638) the compiler of these pages met with Bahram the Less, the son of Farhad, in the imperial city of Lahore, in perfect health, but in the same year that sage bade adieu to this world. He was a man who found repose in God, and avoided all intercourse with society: he was learned in all the theoretical and practical sciences, and eminently conversant with the languages of Arabia, Persia, Hindustan, and Europe: by him were translated into Persian, that is, into Parsi mixed with Arabic, the works of the Shaikh Ishrák Shuháb ud dín Maktúl, which treated of the Ishrakian tenets; his time was employed in transcribing books, from which source he was obliged to derive his scanty support. He never slept at night; in the year of the Hejirah 1048 (A. D. 1638) the author beheld him with Húshyár at Lahore; during the entire night, the writer of these pages sat in his presence, and from morn until evening Húshyár remained before him; whilst the above-mentioned Farzanah, seated on both knees, with his face to the east, never moved: people have witnessed in him many things of this description. They say that he used to remain seated two or three days after this fashion, neither eating bread nor drinking water; he never laid his back on the ground; his food consisted of a small quantity of cow’s milk; his lips were never polluted with any other substance, and even this he swallowed at intervals of two or three days.
“Be thou as a goblet, free from the contamination of body,