Thread by @mullasadra

The basics on #Bedil - the standard 4 volumes of his collected works were printed in Kabul in 1960s - 1: ghazals 2: shorter poems and qasidas and some masnavis 3: masnavis 4: his prose work Chahar Unsur which is useful for his biography and his correspondence 1/

#Bedil wrote four masnavis 1: Muhit e A’zam his first work in 1078/1667 which is a cosmology based on #IbnArabi 2: Tilism e hayrat was completed two years later on another theme of #IbnArabi the quest for ultimate reality and the #PerfectHuman 2/

3: Tur e ma’rifat was completed around 20 years later and dedicated to his patron Shukrullah Khan and concerns geography and the seasons and his partly his praise of India 4: his longest masnavi ‘Irfan was completed near the end of his life in 1124/1712 3/

#Bedil masnavi ‘Irfan is a long philosophical contemplation of the emergence of the human self that juxtaposes ideas from #IbnArabi and #Avicenna with #Vedic and other #Indic psychologies and cosmogonies 4/

More recently Akbar Bihdarvand has produced new critical editions such as two volumes of the ghazals and qasidas of #Bedil 5/

And this edition of the masnavis of #Bedil entitled Shu’la-ye avval 6/

Nevertheless despite the attempts of Shafii Kadkani and Syed Ahsan Zafar #Bedil remains a neglected (and perceived difficult) poet - and this culmination of the #IndianStyle and perhaps the first #tazagui poet needs a fresh appraisal 6/

It in in this vein that Prashant Keshavmurthy and I are editing a collection of studies on #Bedil and the notion of #selfhood that should appear later this year - and hope this will encourage others 7/

If you’re looking for a poet with a spectacular taste for imagery and turn of phrase as well as a keen understanding of #IbnArabi #Avicenna #PersoIndica and #Indic thought then #Bedil is well wait the effort 8/