MIRZA GHALIB AND
THE MESSAGE OF VEDANTA / UPANISHADS
Mirza Ghalib’s world is vast, and one cannot fit him into
any single category of issue or subject. In his ghazals, he carries not only a
unique intensity of emotion but also a perfection of form and a deep feeling
for the beauty of the world. Very consciously, he experiences himself as part
of the cosmos, which he attempts to touch and understand through poetry.
Undoubtedly, many couplets of Ghalib reveal striking
resonances with the core insights of Vedanta and the Upanishads. There is no
authenticated source to verify whether Ghalib ever learned Sanskrit or read the
Upanishads in Persian translation. How he came so close to the philosophical
essence of Vedanta remains an intriguing mystery worthy of serious research.
Upanishads say that this world is empirical reality (
Maaya ) and not absolute reality ( Brahman ) . But Brahman is the cause of this
universe. The world, thus, is something like an unreal perception of the viewer. An
illusion not because it does not exist, but because it is not what it appears
to be all the time. From an absolute perspective, the material universe is a
temporary creation. Upanishads assert that the mind has the power to perceive the
world as it is, as well as fabricate the world as it wants to perceive it. Mind
is a means to see the world, but it is prone to flaws. In this Ontological quest, man has to make a serious attempt to realise the "true reality ( Brahman )
behind perceived reality ( Maaya )". That Brahman has no attributes or
characteristics. German Philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer, in his book " Die Welt" ( in one
specific passage on the Vedantic Concept of
Maaya )
writes :-
“It is Maya, the veil of deception, which blinds the eyes
of mortals and makes them behold a world of which they cannot say that it is or
that it is not: for it is like a dream; it is like the sunshine on the sand
which the traveler from afar takes to be water; or the stray piece of rope he
takes for a snake.”
The Upanishads were translated from Persian into French
and, later, Latin by Anquetil Duperron. Schopenhauer got hold of a Latin
translation of a Persian translation of The Upanishads. Schopenhauer's book
"The World as Will and Representation" brings forth the message of the Upanishads.
Dara Shikoh's translation of the Upanishads into Persian
played a very significant role in attracting the West to the wisdom of the Upanishads. It began with France. In 1671, Francis Bernier, a French traveller,
took a copy of the Persian translation to France and got it
translated into French. Bernier was briefly personal physician
to Prince Dara Shikoh (The eldest son of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan), and
after Dara Shikoh was killed, he became physician to Aurangzeb. He stayed in India for about 12
years. He met so many Persian and Sanskrit scholars of India . While leaving India, he took with him loads of Sanskrit and Persian Manuscripts/
Books......................... Victor Cousin (1792-1867 ), the reputed French Philosopher also wrote that Vedanta and the philosophy of the
Upanishads are the highest philosophy that mankind has ever produced.
..............................Upanishads were widely read in France by many
French philosophers of the 20th century. This long list includes Jean Grenier, André Malraux and Albert Camus.
It is well established that Ghalib was deeply influenced
by the Persian poet Mirza Abdul Qadir Bedil of the Sabk-e-Hindi tradition.
Bedil studied ancient Indian philosophers extensively; the influence of the
Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna is evident in his poetry. Bedil was also
influenced by the Advaita philosophy of Adi Shankara. This may well explain the
Vedantic undertones discernible in Ghalib’s verse.
Did Ghalib read Dara Shikoh’s Persian translation of the
Upanishads? There is no firm evidence. Yet Dara Shikoh, a devoted seeker of
spiritual unity, commissioned the translation of fifty-two Upanishads into
Persian under the title Sirr-e-Akbar in 1657. He also arranged Persian
translations of the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Vasistha. In his foreword to
Sirr-e-Akbar, he wrote that the reader who studies it sincerely, abandoning
prejudice, shall become fearless, imperishable, and eternally liberated.
As a poet of
humanity, Ghalib transcends sectarian boundaries. His love may be sensuous, yet
it rests upon idealism and self-surrender. His poetry frees the mind while
carving its path through the heart. His inquisitive temperament is evident in
his cosmic questioning:
“Sabz o Gul kahaan
se aaye hain,
Abr kya cheez hai,
havaa kya hai?”
(Where have these flowers and greenery come from?
What are these clouds?
What is the secret of the air?)
Even
in romantic expression, he interrogates reality:
“Ye pari chehra
log kaise hain,
Ghamza o ishva o
adaa kya hai?”
(What are these fairy-faced beings?
What are these gestures and graces?)
Dr Gopi Chand Narang noted that Bedil possessed and
studied a Persian translation of Yoga Vasistha, which deeply influenced his
thought. Yoga Vasistha, consisting of approximately 29,000 verses across six
books, presents a philosophical dialogue between Sage Vasistha and Sri Rama. It
unfolds profound teachings concerning the mind, Maya, Brahman, non-duality, and
liberation. It emphasises four essential qualities: Samo (quietude of mind), Vichara (inquiry), Santosha (contentment), and Satsang (company of the wise). True
happiness, it teaches, resides in one’s own nature beyond pain and pleasure.
Historically, even Sultan Zain-ul-Abdin (Budshah) of
Kashmir encouraged the reading of Yoga Vasistha in his court through the
scholar Srivara. Such currents reveal a long Indo-Persian engagement with
non-dual thought. Like Nagarjuna and Adi Shankara before them, Ghalib and Bedil
grappled with the mystery of reality.
Ghalib as
Metaphysical Thinker
To confine Ghalib to romantic lyricism is to overlook the
philosophical depth of his poetic consciousness. Beneath the sensuous surface
of the ghazal lies a mind preoccupied with existence, illusion, selfhood,
temporality, death, and ultimate reality.
The Upanishads ask: What is the Self? What is ultimate
reality? What is the relation between multiplicity and unity? Ghalib asks
poetically:
“Jab ki tum bin
koi nahin maujood,
Phir yeh hungama
ae Khuda kya hai?”
(When none exists but You, what then is this tumult, O
God?)
Here lies the central metaphysical paradox of Advaita
Vedanta: if ultimate reality is One,
how does multiplicity appear? Advaita distinguishes between Paramarthika satya
(absolute reality) and Vyavaharika satya (empirical reality). The world is
neither absolutely real nor absolutely unreal; it is mithya — dependent
appearance born of Maya. Ghalib expresses this ontological suspicion:
“Hasti ke mat
fareb mein aa jaaiyo ‘Asad’,
Aalam tamaam
halqa-e-daam-e-khayaal hai.”
(Do not be deceived by existence, O Asad;
The world is but a snare of imagination.)
This parallels the Upanishadic teaching that name and
form (nama-rupa) veil underlying unity. The Chandogya Upanishad compares
multiplicity to ornaments fashioned from gold — ultimately nothing but gold. Ghalib
deepens this insight:
“Juz naam nahin
soorat-e-aalam mujhe manzoor,
Juz wahm nahin
hasti-e-ashiya mere aage.”
(The forms of the world are nothing but names;
The existence of things is mere illusion.)
Consciousness
and Ego Dissolution
One
of Ghalib’s most profound couplets states:
“Hum wahan hain
jahan se humko bhi
Kuchh hamari
khabar nahin aati.”
(I am at such a station from where
even I receive no news of myself.)
The
Mandukya Upanishad describes Turiya — the fourth state of consciousness —
beyond subject and object, beyond waking and dreaming. Ghalib evokes precisely
such phenomenological dissolution. The observer collapses; the ego fades.
Witnesshood
and Action
The Bhagavad Gita teaches that one must act without
attachment to results and recognise the immortality of the Self. Ghalib
approaches this stance:
“Hoon main bhi
tamaashaai nairang-e-tamanna,
Matlab nahin kuchh
is se ke matlab hi bar aave.”
(I too am a spectator of the spectacle of desire;
it matters little whether it achieves its aim.)
Here
he gestures toward sakshi-bhava — witness consciousness — though he never
abandons emotional tension.
Death,
Knowledge, and Liberation
In
the Katha Upanishad, Nachiketa seeks knowledge of what survives death. Yama
teaches that the Self is unborn and undying; ignorance, not embodiment, binds
the soul. Ghalib writes:
“Main ne chaaha
tha ki andoh-e-vafā se chhūṭūñ,
Vo sitamgar mere
marne pe bhī rāzī na huā.”
(I wished to be freed from sorrow through death,
Yet even death did not suffice.)
Here, death appears as an imagined escape. The Upanishadic teaching counters: liberation
comes not from extinction but realisation.
Impermanence
and Equanimity
Ghalib
observes transience:
“Hai
sa’adgi-e-zehn tamanna-e-tamaasha,
Jaaye ke ‘Asad’
rang-e-chaman baakhtani hai.”
(Such is the naïve longing of the mind for spectacle,
Go, Asad, for the garden’s colour is destined to fade.
The Bhagwad Gita similarly teaches that pleasure
and pain are transient. Familiarity with suffering reduces its tyranny:
“Ranj se khugar
hua insaan to mit jaata hai ranj,
Mushkilein mujh
par padi itni ke aasaan ho gayeen.”
(When a person
grows accustomed to sorrow, sorrow itself disappears;
So many hardships befell me that they became easy.)
Love and
Non-Duality
“Mohabbat mein nahin hai farq jeene aur
marne ka…”
(In
love, there is no difference between living and dying.)
When
duality dissolves, fear dissolves, an insight found both in Vedanta and in
Ghalib’s metaphysics of love.
Buddhist
Philosopher Nagarjuna's Emptiness in Ghalib's Poetry
Nagarjuna’s doctrine of Emptiness (Śūnyatā) proposes that all phenomena are empty of inherent,
independent existence. Nothing possesses svabhāva — self-subsisting essence. Reality
arises only through dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda).
What appears solid dissolves under philosophical scrutiny.
In Mirza Ghalib’s poetry, a similar destabilisation of
existence repeatedly emerges. He questions the substantiality of the world. He
undermines the certainty of identity. He treats form as fragile and presence as
provisional. When Ghalib writes that the world is a “daam-e-khayaal” (a snare of imagination), he gestures toward
constructedness rather than intrinsic being. This parallels Nagarjuna’s
assertion that phenomena exist only conventionally. Ghalib’s suspicion of “Hasti”
(existence) echoes the Madhyamaka critique.
He refuses to grant ultimate solidity to appearances. Multiplicity trembles
before inquiry. Nagarjuna rejects both eternalism and nihilism. Emptiness is
not non-existence; it is relational existence. Likewise, Ghalib does not deny
the world; he questions its foundations. In verses where the self loses awareness
of itself, identity appears fluid rather than fixed. This resonates with the
non-essentialist view of self in Madhyamaka. Ghalib’s metaphysical astonishment
embodies philosophical deconstruction. He dismantles without preaching
doctrine. He destabilises without collapsing into denial. Where Nagarjuna
employs dialectics, Ghalib uses metaphor. Where Madhyamaka argues, Ghalib
wonders. Yet in both, existence is empty of permanence, and inquiry becomes the
path beyond illusion.
Western Parallels
Arthur
Schopenhauer described the world as representation, shaped by consciousness,
echoing Ghalib’s “daam-e-khayaal.” Albert Camus saw absurdity in the tension
between longing and silence. Jean-Paul Sartre denied metaphysical unity. Ghalib
stands uniquely between metaphysical affirmation and existential questioning, interrogating
multiplicity while presupposing unity.
Conclusion:
Ghalib as Poet of Being
Mirza
Ghalib emerges as one of the great poetic interrogators of ultimate reality.
Without constructing doctrine, he articulates experiential non-duality. Without
denying the world, he destabilises it. Without asserting certainty, he gestures
toward it. He does not declare that the One alone is real; he asks why
multiplicity exists. And so his question remains luminous:
If the One alone
exists,
What then is this
tumult?
( Avtar Mota )
.
.
