ABSTRACT
Mulla Nusrati’s Gulshan-i ‘Ishq is similar to the north Indian masnavi Madhumalati of Mir Sayyid Manjhan Rajgiri, written in the 16th century in Hindavi. To Nusrati, a Deccani masnavi combined Persian eloquence and Sanskrit idiom or, in garden terms, combined the Persian garden plot with the flower-filled trellises of the Sanskrit tradition. The correspondence between garden and poem is a common element of poetry written in Persian and Deccani. The analogy of the garden with the world and/or cosmos in Deccani poetical works has been traced to Persian court poetry from the 10th to 13th centuries. The Gulshan-i ‘Ishq testifies to a civilisation made possible by the triumph of love, a reordering of peace, justice and prosperity that, as the poet states, ensues in the union of Venus and Jupiter. Nusrati’s Gulshan-i ‘Ishq was completed in ad 1657, a year after ‘Ali ‘Adil Shah’s accession to the throne following the death of his father Muhammad after a 30-year reign.
