Sadhu

SADHU, a Sanskrit word meaning "straight," so "pure," a saint-like ascetic or devotee, who may belong to any order, such as the Sanyasis, Bairagis or Gosains.

SA`Di

(c. 1184-1291), Musux-uDDIN, or more correctly MUSHARRIF-UDDiN B. MUSLIH-UDDIN, the greatest didactic poet and the most popular writer of Persia, was born about 1184 (Ali. 58o) in Shiraz. His early youth was spent in study at the Nizamiyya in Baghdad and he returned to Isfahan just at the time of the inroads of the Mongols, when the atabeg Saed (in whose honour Saecli took his pen-name) had been deposed by the vic torious Khwarizm ruler of Ghiyass-uddin (1226). Distressed by the misfortune of his patron and disgusted with the miserable condition of Persia, Sa`di quitted Shiraz and entered upon the second period of his life—that of his wanderings (1226-1256). He proceeded via Balkh, Ghazni and the Punjab to Gujarat, on the western coast of which he visited the famous shrine of Siva in Somnath. After a prolonged stay in Delhi, where he learnt Hin dustani, he sailed for Yemen. Overcome with grief at the loss of a beloved child (when he had married is not known), he undertook an expedition into Abyssinia and a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Thence he directed his steps towards Syria and lived as a renowned sheikh for a considerable time in Damascus, which he had once already visited. There and in Baalbek he added to his literary renown that of a first-rate pulpit orator. Weary of Damascus, he withdrew into the desert near Jerusalem and led a solitary wandering life, till one day he was taken captive by a troop of Frankish soldiers, brought to Tripoli, and condemned to forced labour in the trenches of the fortress. After enduring countless hardships, he was eventually rescued by a rich friend in Aleppo, who paid his ransom, and gave him his daughter in marriage. But Saedi, unable to live with his quarrel some wife, set out on fresh travels, first to North Africa and then through the length and breadth of Asia Minor and the adjoining countries. Not until he had passed his seventieth year did he return to Shiraz (about 1256; A.H. 653). Finding the place of his birth tranquil and prosperous under the wise rule of Abubakr b. Sec', the son of his old patron (1226-126o; A.H. the aged poet took up his permanent abode, interrupted only by re peated pilgrimages to Mecca, and devoted the remainder of his life to Sufic contemplation and poetical composition. He died at Shiraz in 1292 (A.H. 691) according to Hamdallah Mustaufi (who wrote only forty years later), or in December 1291 (Ali. 69o), at the age of iio lunar years.

His Bfistdn or "Fruit garden" (1257) and Gulistdn or "Rose garden" (1258), both dedicated to the reigning atabeg Abu Bekr, acquired great popularity in both the East and the West, owing to their easy, varied style and their happy bons mots. But Sa`di's

Diwein, or collection of lyrical poetry, far surpasses the Bfistan and Gulistan, at any rate in quantity, and perhaps in quality. Minor works are the Arabic qa.sidas, the first of which laments the destruction of the Arabian caliphate by the Mongols in 1258 (Ali. 656) ; the Persian qasidas, partly panegyrical, partly didac tical ; the marathi, or elegies, beginning with one on the death of Abu Bekr and ending with one on the defeat and demise of the last caliph, ; the mulamma'at, or poems with alternate Persian and Arabic verses of a rather artificial character ; the tarji`at, or refrain-poems; the ghazals, or odes ; the siihibiyyah and mulzatta`cit, or moral aphorisms and epigrams ; the rubatiyydt, or quatrains; and the mufradat, or distichs. Sa`di's lyrical poems possess neither the easy grace and melodious charm of 1,15.fiz's songs nor the overpowering grandeur of Jelalud-din Rilmi's divine hymns, but they are nevertheless full of deep pathos and show a fearless love of truth.

The first who collected and arranged his works was All b. Ahmad b.

Bisutun ; The most exact information about Sa'di's life and works is found in the introduction to Dr. W. Bacher's Sa'di's Aphorismen and Sinngedichte (Sahibiyyah) (Strass burg, 1879 ; a complete metrical translation of the epigrammatic poems) , and in the same author's "Sa`di Studien," in Zeitschrift der morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, xxx. pp. 81-106; see also H. Ethe in W. Geiger's Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii. pp. 292-296, with full bibliography ; and E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, pp. 525-539. Sa`di's Kulliyydt or complete works have been edited by Harrington (Calcutta, 1791-1795) with an English translation of some of the prose treatises and of Daulat Shah's notice on the poet, of which a German version is found in Graf's Rosengarten (Leipzig, 1846 p. 229 sq.) ; for the numerous lithographed editions, see Rieu's Pers. Cat. of the Brit. Mus. ii. p. 596. The Bustin has been printed in Calcutta (1810 and 1828), as well as in Lahore, Cawnpore, Tabriz, etc., a critical edition with Persian commentary was published by K. H. Graf at Vienna in 1850 (German metrical translations by the same, Jena 185o, and by Schlechta-Wssehrd, Vienna, 1852) ; English prose translations by H. W. Clarke (1879) ; and Ziauddin Gulam Moheiddin (Bombay, 1889) ; verse by G. S. Davie (1882) ; French translation by Barbier de Meynard (1880). The best editions of the Gulistcin are by A. Sprenger (Calcutta, 1851) and by Platts (London, 1874) ; the best translations into English by Eastwick (1852) and by Platts (1873), the first four &Ms in prose and verse by Sir Edwin Arnold (1899) ; into French by Defremery (1858) ; into German by Graf (1846) ; see also S. Robinson's Persian Poetry for English Readers (1883), pp. 245-366.