The question, then, is not When did Persian first become intermixed with Hindī in the literary speech?—for this process began with the first entry of Muslim conquerors into India, and continued for centuries before a line of Urdū verse was composed; nor When was the Persian character first employed to write Hindī?—for the written form is but a subordinate matter; as already mentioned, the MSS. of Malik Muḥammad’s purely Hindī poem, the Padmāwat, are ordinarily found to be written in the Persian character; and copies lithographed in Dēvanāgarī of the popular compositions of the Urdū poet Naẕīr are commonly procurable in the bāzārs. We must ask When was the first verse composed in Hindī, whether with or without foreign admixture, according to the forms of Persian prosody, and not in those of the indigenous metrical system? Then, and not till then, did Urdū poetry come into being. This appears to have happened, as already mentioned, about the end of the 16th century. Meantime the vernacular speech had been gradually permeated with Persian words and phrases. The impulse which Akbar’s interest in his Hindū subjects had given to the translation of Sanskrit works into Persian had brought the indigenous and the foreign literatures into contact. The current language of the neighbourhood of the capital, the Hindī spoken about Delhi and thence northwards to the Himālaya, was naturally the form of the vernacular which was most subject to foreign influences; and with the extension of Mogul territory by the conquests in the south of Akbar and his successors, this idiom was carried abroad by their armies, and was adopted by the Musalmān kingdoms of the Deccan as their court language some time before their overthrow by the campaigns of Aurangzēb.
It is not a little remarkable that, as happened with the Vaishnava reformation initiated by Rāmānuja and Rāmānand, and with the Vallabhāchārya cult of Krishna established at Mathurā, the first impulse to literary composition in Urdū should have been given, not at the headquarters of the empire in the north, but at the Muhammadan courts of Gōlkondā and Bījāpur in the south, the former situated amid an indigenous population speaking Telugu, and the latter among one whose speech was Kanarese, both Dravidian languages having nothing in common with the Aryan tongues of the north. This fact of itself defines the nature of the literature thus inaugurated. It had nothing to do with the idiom or ideas of the people among whom it was born, but was from the beginning an imitation of Persian models. It adopted the standards of form and content current among the poets of Ērān. The qaṣīda or laudatory ode, the ghazal or love-sonnet, usually of mystical import, the marsiya or dirge, the masnavī or narrative poem with coupled rhymes, the hijā or satire, the rubā‘ī or epigram—these were the types which Urdū took over ready-made. And with the forms were appropriated also all the conventions of poetic diction. The Persians, having for centuries treated the same themes with a fecundity which most Europeans find extremely wearisome, had elaborated a system of rhetoric and a stock of poetic images which, in the exhaustion of original matter, made the success of the poet depend chiefly upon dexterity of artifice and cleverness of conceit. Pleasing hyperbole, ingenious comparison, antithesis, alliteration, carefully arranged gradation of noun and epithet, are the means employed to obtain variety; and few of the most eloquent passages of later Persian verse admit of translation into any other language without losing that which in the original makes their whole charm. What is true of Persian is likewise true of Urdū poetry. Until quite modern times, there is scarcely anything in it which can be called original.[15] Differences of school, which are made much of by native critics, are to us hardly perceptible; they consist in the use of one or other range of metaphor or comparison, classed, according as they repeat the well-worn poetical stock-in-trade of the Persians, or seek a slightly fresher and more Indian field of sentiment, as the old or the new style of composition.
Shujā‘uddīn Nūrī, a native of Gujarāt, a friend of Faiẓī and contemporary of Akbar, is mentioned by the native biographers as the most ancient Urdū poet after Amīr Khusrau. He was tutor of the son of the wazīr of Sultān Abu-l-Ḥasan Kuṭb Shāh of Golkonda, and several ghazals by him are said to survive. Kulī Kuṭb Shāh of Golkonda, who reigned from 1581, and his successor ‘Abdullāh Kuṭb Shāh, who came to the throne in 1611, have both left collections of verse, including ghazals, rubā‘īs, masnavīs and qaṣīdas. And during the reign of the latter Ibn Nishāṭī wrote two works which are still famous as models of composition in Dakhni; they are masnavīs entitled the Tūṭī-nāma, or “Tales of a Parrot,” and the Phūl-ban. The first, written in 1639, is an adaptation of a Persian work by Nakhshabī, but derives ultimately from a Sanskrit original entitled the Śuka-saptati; this collection has been frequently rehandled in Urdū, both in verse and prose, and is the original of the Ṭōṭā-Kahāni, one of the first works in Urdū prose, composed in 1801 by Muḥammad Ḥaidar-bakhsh Ḥaidarī of the Fort William College. The Phūl-ban is a love tale named from its heroine, said to be translated from a Persian work entitled the Basātīn. Another famous work which probably belongs to the same place and time is the Story of Kāmrūp and Kalā by Taḥsīnuddīn, a masnavī which has been published (1836) by M. Garcin de Tassy; what makes this poem remarkable is that, though the work of a Musalmān, its personages are Hindu. Kāmrũp, the hero, is son of the king of Oudh, and the heroine, Kalā, daughter of the king of Ceylon; the incidents somewhat resemble those of the tale of as-Sindibād in the Thousand and One Nights; the hero and heroine dream one of the other, and the former sets forth to find his beloved; his wanderings take him to many strange countries and through many wonderful adventures, ending in a happy marriage.
The court of Bījāpur was no less distinguished in literature. Ibrāhīm ‘Ādil Shāh (1579-1626) was the author of a work in verse on music entitled the Nau-ras or “Nine Savours,” which, however, appears to have been in Hindī rather than Urdū; the three prefaces (dībājas) to this poem were rendered into Persian prose by Maulā ẕuhūrī, and, under the name of the Sih nasr-i ẕuhūrī, are well-known models of style. A successor of this prince, ‘Alī ‘Ādil Shāh, had as his court poet a Brahman known poetically as Nuṣratī, who in 1657 composed a maṣnavī of some repute entitled the Gulshan-i ‘Ishq, or “Rose-garden of Love,” a romance relating the history of Prince Manōhar and Madmālatī,—like the Kāmrūp, an Indian theme. The same poet is author of an extremely long masnavī entitled the ‘Alī-nāma, celebrating the monarch under whom he lived.
These early authors, however, were but pioneers; the first generally accepted standard of form, a standard which suffered little change in two centuries, was established by Walī of Aurangābād (about 1680-1720) and his contemporary and fellow-townsman Sirāj. The former of these is commonly called “the Father of Rēkhtah”—Bābā-e Rēkhta; and all accounts agree that the immense development attained by Urdū poetry in northern India during the 18th century was due to his example and initiative. Very little is known of Walī’s life; he is believed to have visited Delhi towards the end of the reign of Aurangzēb, and is said to have there received instruction from Shāh Gulshan in the art of clothing in a vernacular dress the ideas of the Persian poets. His Kullīyāt or complete works have been published by M. Garcin de Tassy, with notes and a translation of selected passages (Paris, 1834-1836), and may be commended to readers desirous of consulting in the original a favourable specimen of Urdū poetical composition.
The first of the Delhi school of poets was Zuhūruddīn Hātim, who was born in 1699 and died in 1792. In the second year of Muhammad Shāh (1719), the dīwān of Walī reached Delhi, and excited the emulation of scholars there. Hātim was the first to imitate it in the Urdū of the north, and was followed by his friends Nājī, Mazmūn and Ābrū. Two dīwāns by him survive. He became the founder of a school, and one of his pupils was Rafī us-Saudā, the most distinguished poet of northern India. Khān Ārzū (1689-1756) was another of the fathers of Urdū poetry in the north. This author is chiefly renowned as a Persian scholar, in which language he not only composed much poetry, but one of the best of Persian lexicons, the Sirāju-l-lughāt; but his compositions in Urdū are also highly esteemed. He was the master of Mīr Taqī, who ranks next to Saudā as the most eminent Urdū poet. Ārzū died at Lucknow, whither he betook himself after the devastation of Delhi by Nādir Shāh (1739). Another of the early Delhi poets who is considered to have surpassed his fellows was In‘āmullāh Khān Yaqīn, who died during the reign of Ahmad Shāh (1748-1754), aged only twenty-five. Another was Mīr Dard, pupil of the same Shāh Gulshan who is said to have instructed Walī; his dīwān is not long, but extremely popular, and especially esteemed for the skill with which it develops the themes of spiritualism. In his old age he became a darwēsh of the Naqshbandī following, and died in 1793.
Saudā and Mīr Taqī are beyond question the most distinguished Urdū poets. The former was born at Delhi about the beginning of the 18th century, and studied under Hātim. He left Delhi after its devastation, and settled at Lucknow, where the Nawāb Āṣafuddaulah gave him a jāgīr of Rs. 6000 a year, and where he died in 1780. His poems are very numerous, and cover all the styles of Urdū poetry; but it is to his satires that his fame is chiefly due, and in these he is considered to have surpassed all other Indian poets. Mīr Taqī was born at Agra, but early removed to Delhi, where he studied under Ārzū; he was still living there at the time of Saudā’s death, but in 1782 repaired to Lucknow, where he likewise received a pension; he died at a very advanced age in 1810. His works are very voluminous, including no less than six dīwāns. Mīr is counted the superior of Saudā in the ghazal and masnavī, while the latter excelled him in the satire and qaṣīda. Sayyid Aḥmad, an excellent authority, and himself one of the best of modern authors in Urdū, says of him in his Āsāru-ṣ-Ṣanādīd: “Mīr’s language is so pure, and the expressions which he employs so suitable and natural, that to this day all are unanimous in his praise. Although the language of Saudā is also excellent, and he is superior to Mīr in the point of his allusions, he is nevertheless inferior to him in style.”
The tremendous misfortunes which befell Delhi at the hands of Nādir Shāh (1739), Ahmad Shāh Durrānī (1756), and the Marāṭhās (1759), and the rapid decay of the Mogul empire under these repeated shocks, transferred the centre of the cultivation of literature from that city to Lucknow, the capital of the newly founded and flourishing state of Oudh. It has been mentioned how Ārzū, Saudā and Mīr betook themselves to this refuge and ended their days there; they were followed in their new residence by a school of poets hardly inferior to those who had made Delhi illustrious in the first half of the century. Here they were joined by Mīr Hasan (d. 1786), Mīr Sōz (d. 1800) and Qalandar-bakhsh Jur’at (d. 1810), also like themselves refugees from Delhi, and illustrious poets. Mīr Hasan was a friend and collaborator of Mīr Dard, and first established himself at Faizābād and subsequently at Lucknow; he excelled in the ghazal, rubā‘ī, masnavī and marsiya, and is counted the third, with Saudā and Mīr Taqī, among the most eminent of Urdū poets. His fame chiefly rests upon a much admired masnavī entitled the Siḥru-l-bayān, or “Magic of Eloquence,” a romance relating the loves of Prince Bë-naẕīr and the Princess Badr-i Munīr; his masnavī called the Gulzār-i Iram (“Rose-garden of Iram,” the legendary ‘Ādite paradise in southern Arabia), in praise of Faizābād, is likewise highly esteemed. Mīr Muḥammadī Sōz was an elegant poet, remarkable for the success with which he composed in the dialect of the harem called Rekhtī, but somewhat licentious in his verse; he became a darwēsh and renounced the world in his later years. Jur’at was also a prolific poet, but, like Sōz, his ghazals and masnavīs are licentious and full of double meanings. He imitated Saudā in satire with much success; he also cultivated Hindī poetry, and composed dohās and kabittas. Miskīn was another Lucknow poet of the same period, whose marsiyas are especially admired; one of them, that on the death of Muslim and his two sons, is considered a masterpiece of this style of composition. The school of Lucknow, so founded and maintained during the early years of the century, continued to flourish till the dethronement of the last king, Wājid ‘Alī, in 1856. Ātash and Nāsikh (who died respectively in 1847 and 1841) are the best among the modern poets of the school in the ghazal; Mīr Anīs, a grandson of Mīr Hasan, and his contemporary Dabīr, the former of whom died in December 1875 and the latter a few months later, excelled in the marsiyah. Rajab Alī Beg Surūr, who died in 1869, was the author of a much-admired romance in rhyming prose entitled the Fisānah-e ‘Ajāib or “Tale of Marvels,” besides a dīwān. The dethroned prince Wājid ‘Alī himself, poetically styled Akhtar, was also a poet; he published three dīwāns, among them a quantity of poetry in the rustic dialect of Oudh which is philologically of much interest.
Though Delhi was thus deserted by its brightest lights of literature, it did not altogether cease to cultivate the poetic art. Among the last Moguls several princes were themselves creditable poets. Shāh Ālam II. (1761-1806) wrote under the name of Āftāb, and was the author of a romance entitled Manẕūm-i Aqdas, besides a dīwān. His son Sulaimān-shukoh, brother of Akbar Shāh II., who had at first, like his brother authors, repaired to Lucknow, returned to Delhi in 1815, and died in 1838; he also has left a dīwān. Lastly, his nephew Bahādur Shāh II., the last titular emperor of Delhi (d. 1862), wrote under the name of ẕafar, and was a pupil in poetry of Shaikh Ibrāhīm ẕauq, a distinguished writer; he has left a voluminous dīwān, which has been printed at Delhi. Maṣḥafī (Ghulām-i Hamdānī), who died about 1814, was one of the most distinguished of the revived poetic school of Delhi, and was himself one of its founders. Originally of Lucknow, he left that city for Delhi in 1777, and held conferences of poets, at which several authors who afterwards acquired repute formed their style; he has left five dīwāns, a Taẕkira or biography of Urdū poets, and a Shāh-nāma or account of the kings of Delhi down to Shāh ‘Ālam. Qāim (Qiyāmuddīn ‘Alī) was one of his society, and died in 1792; he has left several works of merit. Ghālib, otherwise Mirzā Asadullāh Khān Naushāh, laureate of the last Mogul, who died in 1869, was undoubtedly the most eminent of the modern Delhi poets. He wrote chiefly in Persian, of which language, especially in the form cultivated by Firdausī, free from intermixture of Arabic words, he was a master; but his Urdū dīwān, though short, is excellent in its way, and his reputation spread far and wide. To this school, though he lived and died at Agra, may be attached Mīr Walī Muḥammad Naẕīr (who died in the year 1832); his masnavīs entitled Jogī-nāma, Kauṛī-nāma, Banjāre-nāma, and Buṛhāpe-nāma, as well as his dīwān, have been frequently reprinted, and are extremely popular. His language is less artificial than that of the generality of Urdū poets, and some of his poems have been printed in Nāgarī, and are as well known and as much esteemed by Hindus as by Mahommedans. His verse is defaced by much obscenity.
4. Modern Period.—While such, in outline, is the history of the literary schools of the Deccan, Delhi and Lucknow, a fourth, that of the Fort William College at Calcutta, was being formed, and was destined to give no less an impulse to the cultivation of Urdū prose than had a hundred years before been given to that of poetry by Walī. At the commencement of the 19th century Dr John Gilchrist was the head of this institution, and his efforts were directed towards getting together a body of literature suitable as text-books for the study of the Urdū language by the European officers of the administration. To his exertions we owe the elaboration of the vernacular as an official speech, and the possibility of substituting it for the previously current Persian as the language of the courts and the government. He gathered together at Calcutta the most eminent vernacular scholars of the time, and their works, due to his initiative, are still notable as specimens of elegant and serviceable prose composition, not only in Urdū, but also in Hindī. The chief authors of this school are Ḥaidarī (Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥaidar-bakhsh), Ḥusainī (Mīr Bahādur ‘Alī), Mīr Amman Luṭf, Ḥafīẕuddīn Aḥmad, Shēr ‘Alī Afsōs, Nihāl Chand of Lahore, Kāẕim ‘Alī Jawān, Lallū Lāl Kavi, Maẕhar ‘Alī Wilā and Ikrām ‘Alī.