Mashrabaمشربة

Maḥmūd Shabistarī · d. 720/1320 or c. 740/1339–40

The Rose-Garden of Mystery

گلشن راز

Gulshan-i rāz (717/1317): fifteen questions on thinking, the self, unity and multiplicity, the Perfect Human, and the lovers' language of the Sufis, answered in Persian couplets

About this text · the edition, the poet's own readings of the symbols, the transliteration, recitations

Contents · 1008 couplets

  1. Exordiumvv. 1–33 · recitation
  2. Why the book was writtenسبب نظم کتابvv. 34–70 · recitation
  3. 1. What is thinking?۱ سؤالvv. 71–111 · recitation
  4. 2. Which thinking is the condition of the path?۲ سؤالvv. 112–287 · recitation
  5. 3. What am I?۳ سؤالvv. 288–311 · recitation
  6. 4. The traveller and the Perfect Human۴ سؤالvv. 312–394 · recitation
  7. 5. Who reaches the secret of unity?۵ سؤالvv. 395–413
  8. 6. If knower and known are one۶ سؤالvv. 414–435
  9. 7. “I am the Truth”۷ سؤالvv. 436–467 · recitation
  10. 8. Union, and the journey۸ سؤالvv. 468–512 · recitation
  11. 9. Necessary and contingent, near and farسؤال ۹vv. 513–561
  12. 10. The sea whose shore is speechسؤال ۱۰vv. 562–633
  13. 11. The part greater than its wholeسؤال ۱۱vv. 634–703
  14. 12. Eternal and temporalسؤال ۱۲vv. 704–716
  15. 13. Eye and lip, curl, cheek, down and moleسؤال ۱۳vv. 717–804
  16. 14. Wine, candle, the beautiful one, the tavernسؤال ۱۴vv. 805–864 · recitation
  17. 15. Idol, girdle and Christianityسؤال ۱۵vv. 865–999
  18. Epilogueخاتمةvv. 1000–1008

a human recitation on Ganjoor starts in this section (a link out from the couplet; not this reader's audio).

Tap a word for its gloss and its transliteration. The Persian is Whinfield's (London 1880), transcribed here from the page images; each couplet number links to its page, and Whinfield's own marginal variants are given under the couplet. The transliteration (a reading in classical Persian as the metre scans it), the English under each couplet and the word glosses are AI. Whinfield's English (1880) can be shown under each couplet for comparison. Metre: hazaj musaddas maḥdhūf (mafāʿīlun mafāʿīlun faʿūlun; the last foot also mafāʿīl), one metre for the whole poem.

Persian: Whinfield's edition (London 1880), public domain, transcribed from the archive.org page images. Whinfield's English: 1880, public domain. Transliteration, English and glosses: AI (Claude), marked; † marks a hemistich whose reading does not scan. How this text was established.