Friday 31 March 2017

Gorakh dhanda

Expelled from Divinity School coz God ate my Homework
Again, in the Tavern, I re-tool to fight that Shirazi Turk
Whose dagger yet disdains
The cow in my veins.



Notes
1) Gorakh refers to Gorakshanath (Cow protecting Lord) or Saint Gorakhnath. 
Gorakh dhanda can mean a puzzle or a murky or tricky piece of business. The great Qawwal singers, like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Aziz Mian, have recorded a poem of this name by the late Pakistani poet Naz Khialvi.

2) Hindus studying Divinity gather kusha grass as part of their 'homework'. Lord Buddha attained Enlightenment while seated meditating on a mat of this grass. 
Cows- which are an embodiment of the Divine Vatsalya or maternal nurturance- can eat this grass.

3) The great Persian poet, Hafiz has a famous poem  which includes the line 'If that Shirazi Turk but takes my heart in her hand/ For her Hindu mole I'd give up Bukhara and Samarkand'. 
It ends with an esoteric reference to a hierosgamos or sacred marriage to the Pleiades in the Milky Way. 


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