The Journey Through the Kingdoms
From Mineral to Man
Masnavi IV.3637–3649 · tr. R. A. Nicholson, 1930First he came into the clime (world) of inorganic things, and from the state of inorganic things he passed into the vegetable state.(Many) years he lived in the vegetable state and did not remember the inorganic state because of the opposition (between them);And when he passed from the vegetable into the animal state, the vegetable state was not remembered by him at all,Save only for the inclination which he has towards that (state), especially in the season of spring and sweet herbs—Like the inclination of babes towards their mothers: it (the babe) does not know the secret of its desire for being suckled;(Or) like the excessive inclination of every novice towards the noble spiritual Elder, whose fortune is young (and flourishing).The particular intelligence of this (disciple) is derived from that Universal Intelligence: the motion of this shadow is derived from that Rose-bough.His (the disciple’s) shadow disappears at last in him (the Master); then he knows the secret of his inclination and search and seeking.How should the shadow of the other’s (the disciple’s) bough move, O fortunate one, if this Tree move not?Again, the Creator, whom thou knowest, was leading him (Man) from the animal (state) towards humanity.Thus did he advance from clime to clime (from one world of being to another), till he has now become intelligent and wise and mighty.He hath no remembrance of his former intelligences (souls); from this (human) intelligence also there is a migration to be made by him,That he may escape from this intelligence full of greed and self-seeking and may behold a hundred thousand intelligences most marvellous.
- First attested
- 1278No autograph survives. The oldest witness is the Qoniya manuscript (G), dated 677 A.H. = A.D. 1278, which Nicholson judged “the most authoritative text of the Mathnawi”; he wrote in April 1930 that his text “from Book III, v. 2836, to the end of Book IV is founded on that ancient and admirable MS.”, so these lines, at IV.3637–3649, stand in the stretch he edited from the oldest copy, as does the first-person ladder at III.3901–3906.
Rūmī had set out this ladder once already. At III.3901 the speaker says “I died to the inorganic state and became endowed with growth”, and at III.3902 asks, “When have I become less by dying?” In Book IV the same rise is told in the third person as forgetting: man “did not remember the inorganic state”, keeping only an inclination.
Mathnawī III.3901–3902 and IV.3637–3641, Nicholson's translation (1930)
Man rose from mineral to plant to animal, forgetting each state, and has one more migration to make.
Mathnawī IV.3637–3649, under Rūmī's heading “The diverse modes and stages of the nature of Man from the beginning”. It follows lines (IV.3628–3636) on a man who dreams of another city and forgets his own, as the spirit forgets its ancient abodes. Man came first into the inorganic, passed to the vegetable, then to the animal, remembering none of them; the trace left is an inclination, like the babe's towards the breast or the novice's towards his Elder. The Creator led him on to humanity, and from this intelligence too there is a migration to be made. The lines after (IV.3650–3656) make this world a sleeper's dream from which death is the dawn. The same ladder, in the first person, stands at III.3901–3906: “I died to the inorganic state and became endowed with growth”.
Light
It explains a nostalgia: the pull of spring and green things (IV.3640) is the trace of a state one has forgotten, and the present mind is only a stage, with “a hundred thousand intelligences most marvellous” still ahead (IV.3649).
Shadow
The ascent runs through submission: the novice's shadow “disappears at last” in the Master (IV.3644), and the lines can be read as bodily transmigration, which Nicholson's commentary rules out.
