Chessquest

When is a bird not a bird?

Discovered among the Jiroft games, those showing the image of regal appearing "birds of paradise" suggest a variety of religious, mythical and nationalistic ingredients. Although circumstances surrounding the legitimacy of some Jiroft artifacts point towards fraudulent manufacture, in the fragile field of archaeology, even counterfeits may serve a kind of purpose.

Myths, legends and compelling metaphors take flight from icons faked or true and board games often make use of a mixed bag of ideographic elements drawn from both mythical and factual stores of the human imagination. Among the literary annals of board game history, legend and fact combine to produce an amorphous view of "reality".

In early games, visual embellishments appearing as various types of boards or incised onto a playing surface qualify a combination of votive, divinational and mythic questing activities that help define the game. As a result, imaginative flight into the void of creative decision and ritual time-space becomes a common concern of forgers, copyists, legitimate craftspersons and the players to whom their craftsmanship was intended to appeal. On occasion, inquiry into constructive elements can help reinforce known facts about a specific game or culture and open new questions regarding indigenous as well as crossbred realities implicit in the character of items being unearthed - or, in some instances, those being "planted".

Migrating Legends and Other Information:
Like history itself, old legends shift shape while adding or shedding plumage. As older race games evolved, their visual scenarios may have appeared to alter dramatically but were essentially the same game with the same questing spirit. While keeping up with colloquial variations however, few games shed so much of themselves that they fall totally out of touch with their original categorization. In some ways, even the least descriptive and unpretentious appearing retain important consistencies that draw our attention towards meanings and messages implicit in their use. Within certain contexts, such as Egyptian senet, Persian backgammon, games of twenty squares, the practical use of cultural icons and their similarities, point towards the possibility of a trans-national diaspora of these same mythic structures and emblems, many of which retreat into the mists of prehistory and pari-literacy.

Birds in particular offer a romantic view of the shaman's alter-ego which is bound by profession to enact fluid responses to evolving realities though the application of various questing practices. Shamanic reentry into the "womb" or "flights" into the void depict an inductive means of remembering and retrieving "lost" knowledge, which, in some cases, allows the practitioner to acquire a prophetic reputation or confirm hereditary inscription into the ranks of "holy men". Integrally, birds, boards and bards are tasked with the role of objectifying the interwoven complexities of one vast tutelary regime that is penetratingly "Hermetic" or "Gnostic" by practical nature and supposition.

Many ancient games wrap their wings around different forms of primordial Hermeticism, an evolutionary matter that clings as much to older games as it does to more modern games such as chess. While we find recollections of Hermetic transformation occurring in the pawn's promotional venue as well as repeated use of bird imagery in ancient promotional games such as Chinese liubo, Egyptian senet, all tolled, the Persian epic of the Simurgh attempts to historicize facets of "hiddenness" and unknown destiny implied in competitive games. With them comes a flock of sacred, long venerated views of a multi-layered cosmos and the "airy" means required to transit back and forth between the curtain-like membrane dividing pristine energies of the void (or temple naos) from the materialistic plane. This is done in order that what is hidden can make some formal impression via scientific objectivity and consensual verification. All impressions do not nest totally on the board however, as the overall process of a game's emergence relates directly to human faculties and the equally "energetic" world of individual consciousness. Within that topos may appear the reflective processes which allow some to seize hold of "ideas" and strategies summoned in response to contingencies of information or patterns developing from the void.

In A Bird's Eye:
Thought to be the relative or ancestor to the "rukhs" or rooks of chess, the Persian Simurgh's vital allusions relate severally to "breath", "air" and "invisibility". However, it's characterization within the context of a material environment offers the same possibility of affirmation as the sacred owls, falcons or phoenixes embedded into the promotional structures of liubo and senet. Also, amid the convergence of abstract "qualia" with non-abstract "quanta", the game of chess shows materialization of forms and patterns emerging from the void due to the press of duality, a matter the two headed varieties of Jiroft board game birds tend to state explicitly through the artistic use of "negative space" - or the ultimate abstraction of the central void as it appears to expand or contract in response to dialectical tensions. Out of such basics we can be assured that "hidden" intermediary functions of play invite participants on a tour behind the curtain of appearances in order to activate and appraise the instance of a developing totality up until the climax of its final offering, endgame, or conclusion and again, beyond, through post-game analysis. As a rule, it is precisely because cooperative two party functioning brings about the appearance of a "third party" - that is, the game being played - that any accurately objective assessment of what chess "does" contributes to its reputation as "the vizier's game" in China.

As a compliment to the legendary Persian Simurgh and its cultural facilitators, the phrase "he of the curtain" defines the ancient Egyptian arch-vizier and Ibis-headed Thoth and we find characteriztions of his advisory relationship with the falcon headed Horus sprinkled liberally over senet boards and sacred texts. In Indian games, the divine intermediary also puts in repeated appearances as Ganesha, "al pil", or the flying elephant, Airya, whose name practically speaks it all. Such board game throwbacks, which include the Persian "mantri" ("giver of mantras") and the modern chess queen all relate in some way or another to primordial visions of a divine or "hidden" abstract, its means of discovery and the migratory junctions that cause players to identify positively with pawns - the embryonic eggs with unknown destinies, who, on the chessboard and under favouring conditions elsewhere, may crack open to reveal the rich inner qualities of Merlins, Maji, djinn, knights, rooks and queens. Rare birds indeed, these promoted pawns - and all the more so in chess since the entire issue of their promotion rests upon the trembling perch of player reciprocity, which is, no less, the very axis of the game itself.

Underlying the types of symbols chosen to depict abstract inquiry, many types of games offer a powerful means of conveying forms of universality we can easily append to contemplative attitudes, dedications and flexible ritual performances implicit in all learning experiences. While learning and change appeal to sudden as well as gradual transitions, such things endlessly unfold through the symbolic play of chess and various other board games. Neither inert nor inactive, the virtual aspect of games addresses a significant number of subjective issues in ways that allow us to summon them forward within the context of a direct theatrical or objective experience we may actively reflect upon during the process of a game, or afterwards, at leisure.

Although it can be said that it lies within the potential of all games to deliver a reflective pool of wisdom, with the compulsion to repeat an inaugural gaming event comes the veteran's understanding of how, even before the first die is cast or the first pawn moved, a multilayered and interconnected assembly of ideas and suggested emotions lies in waiting. With the trials and balances of ritual encounter being the cardinal feature of many games, in general, the overall principles and practices of game board questing employ the same rudiments to discovery as divination media and other highly personalized learning exercises, simulations and experiences. All such experiencs remain consistent with varying degrees of successful involvement similar to the ones depicted within the hierarchies of various board game cultures - shogi, chess and wei-qi among them - each of which retains functional qualities or "rites du passage" reminiscent of a priest or psychopomp's repeated trails en route to admission to a sacred inner circle - a grandmaster's literal "parliament of birds".

I think - therefore, I fly...
Ancient board games styled according to conventional heraldic themes - be they laid out on palm trees, double axes, birds, boats, the coils of a serpent, or variously decorated squares - seldom fail to impress a trail of facts, near facts and epic associations on the student. In various ways all games tend to evoke prayers of their own and fit tidily within competitive and comparative structures resonant within the mirror-like arrangement of a reflective human consciousness. On various positive footings, board games offer a boost to individuation processes and the development of specialized skills. In older games, emphasis placed upon the capacity to reflect and extemporize reflexively coheres with heroic, often mystical and supernatural portions of religious canons dealing specifically with latent powers of "transformation" or "self-transcendence". In whatever setting agreement between board game themes and religious scripture have been ascertained to follow a common path, experts have no choice but to define this calling as "sacred".

Owing to the antiquity of precepts which fall into sacred categorization, in the long run, we must ask ourselves where and how certain key board game symbols and triggers were born and why representational aspects of them offer such an unbroken chain of evolution over the course of not just centuries, but millennia. Obviously, there are as many possible dynamics of exchange from which to chose as there are prime heraldic symbols, claims of original invention and provenance to study and retrace. And yet, the sheer antiquity of so many contributing factors tend to mock our ability to do this from the distant darkness of prehistory. Some historians will hear a Simurgh, some an owl, a Garuda or a falcon, even though it may be all the same bird to the ones who assemble around the great branching regimes and fountains of chess and other board games.

Board game "mathemagic":
Clearly,the common specialty of sacred birds and sacred board games appears in bedrock themes that have oral, theatrical, ritualistic and iconic pasts known to lean heavily upon important magico-religious ideals. Some of these quasi-mythic ideals and the various types of media that published and extended them to illiterate audiences relate directly to the pari-literate genius of chess and other more ancient games. As a result, we can say that through the fabulous adventures of humanity's search for truth, beauty, balance and justice, folkloric and other fanciful appearing epics amplify our shared appreciation for utopian quests and ritual confirmations of success. It is therefore totally appropriate that, while cloaked in the pragmatism of "signage", symbolic emblems also relate to penultimate achievement and attainments of a mystical variety. Joining practical knowledge with self-knowledge shows the propensity of games to embrace not only the rudiments of mathematics but also the sacred aspects of various interrelated heoric myths, legends and media.

The combined stance of allied media demonstrates humankind's compulsion towards increasingly integrated, compressed and compacted forms of self-expression. The search for "touchstone" devices that say more with less underscores our complete history of mathematics and formalized communications while confirming humanity's collective drive towards deeper integration. Examples of compression emerge according to common themes that issue equally through the semiotic construction of ancient votive stands, board games, divination materials, their collective paraphernalia as well as the various types of "reward" structures used to define numerous cross-referenced, culturally and religiously interwoven purposes. Solipsistic, self-referential, unbendingly holistic and universal, in many cases, basic myths, ideas and attitudes associated with games in general appear to have been defined from the heights of human self awareness. The hierarchies and similarities they insist upon are reflected in meaningful iconic symbolism embedded the actual structure of game boards. In addition, dice and the various types of pieces used in play serve some direct purpose in locating the type of mediation required to penetrate the core of a game's heritage. As "messengers of the gods", dice are no less indicative of the intermediary hand that lies heavily upon many ancient race games and one of the various factors involved in determining how certain games evolved along a specifically sacred and ritualistic track.

World-wide Wings:
Whereas the use of birds and winged emblems is a worldwide feature of heraldic expression, their occurrence in board games provides similar attestation of a soaring spirit and the desire to close the gap between potentiality and practical accomplishment. Without ignoring the natural migratory pattern of birds or divination practices inspired by the movement of flocks, ancient literary sources draw frequent attention to venerable species of fowl dwelling in the midst of various games and if we look penetratingly into the roots of ancient mass media, the early shamanic traditions of Persia, Egypt, India, Siberia, China, Japan, North and South America, Africa and Europe and many places elsewhere offer several standard avenues of inception and interpretation - with the results all being fairly consistent with the conclusions of board game authorities. These state that the habits of religious understanding, proseslytization and ritual indoctrination are inseparable from many games. Not merely the symbol but also the antiquity of processes engaged by "sacred" games often give the impression that the earliest forms evolved as harbingers of complex theological systems.

Owls, falcons, hemp birds and various other "ideal types" flock to the sacred games of many primary cultures. Examples abound. Flourishing in the midst of 3rd millennium kunst and culture, the Egyptian Ibis and Horus falcon play signature roles not only in the religious realm of board games, but also in theocratic contexts of an almost impenetrably obscure nature. Noticeably, the heraldic stamp of Jiroft's birds of prey evoke Egyptian icons as well as the standard form of "profile view" apparent in hieroglyphic contexts. The cup holes say "mancala" but the structure offers a different outlook that aligns favourably with Egyptian "aseb" ("tau") or Enkomi style games of 20 squares. So, if nothing else, the complete collection of Jiroft media, both forged and legitimate, suggest the hybrid blending of game structures may not necessarily follow a purely indigenous pattern of reconstitution and that the epic development of sacred birds and birdlike icons remains a matter that resists pinning to one deterministic time or place.

Better determined and more deterministic however, the hatching of perennial themes that repeat similarly across several board game cultures belies the cunning craft of the tutelary's working charm as well as the distinct possibilty that the inventors of various games may have been more independently concerned with the expression of universal truths and less subject to culture bias than most other individuals. In former times they may have flocked to the great city states of Egypt, Mesoptamia, Greece and the orient. This was demonstrably the case during Alexandria's prime and continues to be a hallmark of ecumenical gatherings the world over. In effect, the unitary dynamics of religiously based syncretism allows that the huge variety of icons used to perform the same ritual deeds will appear almost incidental to the topics of transcendence, transformation and supercession. So, despite that board game icons also bear the ethnographic fingerprints of culture barons, we can identify some ancient games and their offshoots as having evolved in concert with the primeval workbooks of shamanic forces. Always verging towards the singular impression they may leave upon an individual's struggle to encounter, receive and accommodate new skills, deeper knowledge, or what, during ancient times, might easily pass for higher forms of experiential learning, within the realm of mystic games we may seek and find tutorial feathers of truth, until perhaps at last, within the gilded cage of human imagination, an entire bird starts to take on a life of its own.

Drawn into board game dreams of high flight and flocking, a player will be invited to suspend belief in all normal sets of limitations in order to attain and capitalize upon successively loftier goals, ambitions and personal plateaus. Ascension to the top of any tree or ladder of success takes wing on our capacity to combine opportunity, reflective activity and personal choice with the desire to entertain and accommodate the possibly of positive change. Board games - even games of chance - signify what happens when random events engage the subliminal vastness of the sublime according to an accurately restated microcosm. Within clusters of events, we may also see how primordial tutelaries still preside and prevail upon today's experiences with tactical judgement by invoking the questing spirit of trial balances, adhoc mathematics and mini-max decision making. As defined by the tutelary, these practiced concepts, ideals and expectations help demonstrate the profound connection between abstract perfection and devoted practice. Thus, given our leeway with choices and decison, in various board games, even those of a dice driven variety, the spirit of the laws governing how we learn is made flexible and powerful enough to triumph over the constitutional letter. In effect, as messengers of the gods, the dice inclined many sacred race games towards the notion that the will of intervening entities appearing to us from across the void may help override common barriers to success in fabulous ways that respect neither the more skilled opponent nor rational expectation. In this regard, cracking open the comic egg parallels the cracking open of human consciousness and the tutelary function of board games are excellent devices for arriving at both events almost simultaneously.

State vs the Individual - the oldest wargame
Altogether, the pragmatic implementation of board games, divination and votive structures provide us with an opportunity to commune with utopian ideals and the "impossible dream". In the process, invitation to engage a ritual plane that accords well with randomness, unconsciousness, pre-consciousness as well as conscious stages of decision making charges the individual with ambitious sets of expectations and the desire to seek what is "unknown" about themselves and the world through mini-max sieving of informational material. As such things addresss the full scope of player concerns, both the promotional and overall triumphal aspects of play portend to make players symbolic kings and queens in their own houses and thereby give credence to perfectionistic accomplishments implicit in tutelary principle as well as traditional practice.

Like the "birds", whose signification of relative heights clings to royal headresses and other emblems of heroic attainment, the subjective processing of these forms remain numinous, highly personal matters over which "normal" or empirical grounding in material reality as well as pragmatic extensions of empirical "justice" vital to laws and judgements passed down by the state may rely upon for sanctification but over which they have very little control. This entire notion of an inviolable individual comes to a reckoning with the philosophical split that continues to hover around debates regarding whether or not chess depicts an actual war game rather than a retraditionalized offshoot of pagan techniques of individuation and the summation of arcane wisdom lying at the foot and in the hand of ancient coronation ritual as well as its determined survival over the span of millennia. Consequent to the subject of what it takes to formulate the essence of one great and enlightend man or woman, from modern day contention over this subject and the heat it draws during symposia, we can easily imagine why "games of the gods" and the "proto-gnostic" attitudes that support combined expressions of divinity, kingship and ritual "promotion" should have invited so many taboos and legal restrictions over the course of the game's known lifetime.

From the gnostic side of any fence, sacred board games do not render very much (if anything) to a warlike caesar. In fact, as the power of augury and divination traditionally took hold of caesar's self-reflection on career and destiny, the very opposite seems to be true. In a manner of speaking, the transcendent nature of emblematic birds of paradise attending coronation rituals as well other key symbols that provide them with their royal perches become symbolic representatives of unseen forces that will help carry kings and pharaohs across their respective Rubicons and Niles rather than the other way around. Alleged to contain a fearful power that speaks truth to the powerful about the inherent limitations and dangers of materialistic "illusions", birds decry the many pitfalls involved in presuming subjugation of the "will" of the gods towards amoral ends while retaining the capacity to outwit the unwitting and serve justice where judgement is lacking.

From this gnostic standpoint, views regarding what is "virtual" and what is "real" may take on two different, yet very codependent meanings, with the formal state proving to be the more abstract, artificial and supplicant in most instances and the individual more immediately connected to the revelatory aspects of divine principle. On ther other hand, gaming structures such as senet and chess do more than imply how both the state and human condition are essentially in accord with one another via alchemic axioms dealing expressly with malleablity and transformative potentials. Auch as we find these topics scaled within the miniature self-containment of board game ritual. at the very least, these games demonstrate how ambiguity and interchangeably are significant factors that play out at various levels and during all moments of our mortal existence. Their expression of a living consciousness also states that no man, woman or institution is immune to either divine or natualistic laws of change from which the measure of whatever theocratic forms of justice we find depositied onto chess boards of all nations takes its cues.

Incognito - ergo sum - or, "The play is the thing..."
Inasmuch as the flight of inspiration, intuition and other anticipatory notions precede the formation of clear ideas that may subsequently define human actions and their possible consequences, board games and the strange birds we find nested in their native game trees tend to offer the first and final word about the mediating junction between idealistic projections (prayers offered) and their actual realization (wishes granted) and do so from a very obectivizing, tactile and democratic point of view. Ideas and implements concerned with human individuation, spiritual migration, transformation and the somewhat magical momentousness of various games being what they are, we should not be surprised to find paradisic birds arranged in various styles of parliamentary gatherings or coronation celebrations. Nor does it seem in any way fanciful to assume that parliamentary meetings of actual persons engaged in helping define colloquial rudiments associated with various promotionally oriented gaming structures may be listed among those who also helped discern, preserve and elaborate upon a stable practicum leading towards evolutionary change and self-transcendence early on in the history of ritual assembly and did so with enough frequency, consistency and communicative success that the basic contents, pattern, reward and symbolic structures of several types of promotional games remain fairly consistent across a wide range of foundational cultures. Thus it would appear as though board games accomplished recreational as well as tutelary objectives through shared use of ancestral wisdom common to many sacred traditions and may have accomplished this feat even before the use of token, hieroglyphic and other communicative symbols made awareness of sacred knowledge, its canon and accompanying scientific imperatives infinitely more secure, portable, detailed, compacted, synctretized and accessible to successive stages in the human cavalcade of civilized history.

The "Rook" in medieval heraldry

While we are well aware that such ecumenical gatherings occurred in Alexandria and many cosmopolitan centers of antiquity, the idea of pilgrimage to a sacred center grips historical as well as virtual reality like an iron talon. The legendary strength of mystical birds of prey and paradise are among the emblems known to many peoples and are held responsible for superhuman feats of cosmic integration that draw all aspects of culture and culture creation together beneath a common aegis. Amorphous in style but not their basic substance, should we choose to track these many birds to their various nests, we may be astounded to find them gathered around a convincingly vast number of shared traits and ideals. As ever and always, they may respond to our questions by throwing us back in historical time with the cawing insistence that we search out today's answers without losing touch with yesterday's truisms. As a collection, their wings continue to point toward totemistic devices that preserve many of our answers securely in place regardless of how our current view of the world and its cosmic beginnings may have altered over the course of millennia.

Odd birds already familiar with the "rooks" of chess may find the accompanying Mandaean legend an important mooring for continued research. Similarly, for those who find the wings of chess a particularly revitalizing source of inquiry, the following excerpt may breathe new wind into some wings. Considering the mythic context of a splendid narration and in light of Jiroft's tenuous perch upon things known to aseb, senet, liubo, chess and other traditional board games, Hirmiz bar Anhar helps identify a few poetic truths about mystical birds. His masterful retelling of an imaginative tale should appeal the rukh or the migrating hopoe in all of us.

As an added note of caution, to discover ourselves being spirited away by the holographic splendor of the Persian Simurgh or any important bird of paradise seems as much a matter of choice as chance. And yet, what some mystics claim to know as a reliable path leading to the phoenix's flame upholds much of what we need to know about a set of rules to a separate kind of reality that never fails to speak directly to the heart about the possibly of dramatic transmissions, transformations and renewals. Offered from the heart, this flight of Persian fancy is for those who would dare to become the paradisical bird of their dreams. This is the very transformation mystics assure us is neither impossible, nor haphazardly relegated to the domain of patchwork fantasy. In fact, other than through the conveyance and contrivances of traditional metaphor, there is really no telling where mindful dedication and heartfelt entertainment of these possibilties can lead - except upward!

a bientot
DMc

---

Excerpt from:

The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran
By E.S. Drower

Clarendon Press, Oxford,1937
(Reprint Leiden: E.J. Brill 1962) pages 393-399
Narrator: Hirmiz bar Anhar

"Rook" (rukh), Ferghana. Eighth to ninth centuries (?) Ivory, 5 cm. Hermitage, St. Petersburg: "The Art of Chess," I. M. Linder, H.G.S. Publishers, Moscow, 1994, ISBN 5-7588-0386-3, p. 66.

The Simurgh is a 'hidden' bird, her ways are mystery. She lives like a queen in the mountains, but every Sunday she likes to go forth and visit sons of Adam--kings of the earth. When she approaches she is like a cloud, for she is big, and as soon as she is perceived coming in the sky, they play the big drum, the women utter joy cries, and all are glad because of her coming.

This was in the old time. Especially did the ruler to whom she made visit rejoice. Zal, Rustam, Kai Khosru, Sarhang, Afrasiab, all hoped that she might pay them a visit one Sunday, and used to say, "O God! Let the Simurgh visit me." These were the days of the Pehlewan.

It happened one Sunday that the Simurgh came to visit Hirmiz Shah, who had prayed to his Lord that she might come, and had prepared a castle for her reception on a hill, which was set with trees and watered by clear rivers, and adorned with a garden. She alighted on this place, and when Hirmiz Shah saw her, he rejoiced greatly, and went to her saying, "Be welcome! God causes you to live! A thousand joy-cries for you (Elf halla bik).

In the lower room of the castle he had built for her --and from this room one looked out on the garden and upon a fountain--Hirmiz Shah had prepared a throne upon which the Simurgh could seat herself, so that she might rest and need not stand upon her two legs. It had a mattress covered with velvet, against which her breast might repose, and was like a nest in shape--her tail came out behind. The fountain of water was as clear as a lump of ice, and the water leapt straight up into the air white and pure, and spread out like a tree. Hirmiz sat before the bird, and, seeing that she gazed at the fountain, he looked at it, and saw in the water something, which resembled a being of light. The Simurgh knew that Hirmiz Shah had seen something. When she turned away her head and did not gaze at the water, the appearance died away. The Simurgh aware that Hirmiz Shah was observing this, smiled and Hirmiz Shah smiled, too, far his heart felt rejoiced at that which he had seen.

Then the servants of the Shah brought fruits of the mountain country-peas, quinces, and apples, and set them before the Simurgh in baskets. She thanked him and began to eat of what he had offered her.

Said Hirmiz Shah, "I should like to kill a sheep and bring it to your honor, 50 that your honor may eat of it."

She smiled and replied, "l do not eat that which has breath I eat fruit only."

After she had eaten in the beautiful place which had been prepared for her, Hirmiz Shah said, "If your highness permits, I should like to show you how our women dance."

She answered, "As you please! Favour me!'

Now Hirmiz Shah had some maidens whom he had brought up from their earliest years. They were beautiful girls, intelligent, and carefully trained, and their voices were melodious and sweet. He sent for them and said, "I want you to dance and sing for the Simurgh."

They replied, "Gladly!" and musicians were brought who played on the pipes, which in Iran they call ambubi. If two or three musicians play on them in concert, the sound is delightful. Six pipers were brought who played with the utmost skill and sweetness. The girls began to dance. Lady! So well did they dance that you would have thought them made of a piece. If they turned, it was at the same instant. They bent together and rose together, and turned together; all exactly in unison, not one was behindhand. As the Simurgh witnessed their performance, she exclaimed, "How cleverly they dance!" and was delighted with them. When the girls had finished and were resting, she said to Hirmiz Shah, "I am extremely grateful to you for the pleasure and delight you have given me, and, in return, I will grant you your heart s wish!" Hirmiz Shah was glad and said to himself, "God brought her here, and now I shall ask her the dearest wish of my heart!" To the Simurgh he said, "I only ask an answer to one question."

Replied the bird, "Speak! What is your wish?"

Said Hirmiz to her, "Simurgh the sons of Adam are nor persuaded of truth if they cannot see proofs with their eyes! We are children of Adam, and if nothing is revealed to our eve cannot speak with certainty about anything!" She smiled, for she knew what Hirmiz was thinking and wishing. Said Hirmiz, "We want to see the King of Light, with the melki and the 'uthri, so that our souls may receive certainty even in this world."

The Simurgh replied, "How do you know that I have knowledge enough to grant your request?"

Said Hirmiz, "When I saw you gazing at the fountain, I knew it, for when you turned your eyes upon the water, I saw a Being in it, a shape of light, crowned with light, in the water. Sometimes it was colored red, the color of flowers, at which my heart rejoiced. Sometimes it was yellow, but a yellow of great beauty, sometimes green, sometimes turquoise and exceedingly lovely, and sometimes blue like the robe of Ruha--a most beautiful blue. Sometimes it was black like a cloud, but even in the deepness of that black I could perceive a Shape, for my eyes were not dazzled by light. I saw this when you gazed at the water, and I was persuaded that you have knowledge, and that nothing can be hidden from you."

The bird, the Simurgh laughed and said, "Aferim! Bravo! You have understood! I have visited many kings, but never before have I seen one as intelligent as yourself!"

Said Hirmiz, "I ask you for this boon, that we may see the King of Light, with the melki and the 'uthri, so that seeing, our hearts may believe, and rejoice and rest!"

Answered the Simurgh "Later on I will show you!" Hirmiz Shah was delighted and said to the dancing girls, "I will give you money! I will give you all the money in my treasury!"

The dancing girls were overjoyed and said to him, "We will bring our birds to dance before the Simurgh." For the girls had birds which they had trained from nestlings to dance together as if they were human. They brought the birds, which were white, sky-blue, red, and other colors, and the birds stood in a row, one beside the other as their mistresses had trained them. The pipers began to play the pipes, the girls began to dance, and the birds struck their wings together in unison, like a drum, taq-taq-taq! It was very pretty.

The Simurgh was astonished at the training of these birds and the cleverness with which they struck their wings together in unison, and, indeed, it was a strange thing.

Thus the night passed in pleasant amusement of this kind, in dancing and eating fruit and conversation: the Pehlewan and nobles and other guests sitting together with the Shah and his guest.

At last the morning star, Ubreyha-her other name is Merikh-appeared in the sky. When she appears, the nomads go to milk their cattle, for she is seen shortly before dawn. The Simurgh when she saw the star said to the Shah, "The time has come, and I will now show you melki, and permit you to hear their voices and their incantations (lit. how they read). You shall see how they appear." She ordered two small bowls to be brought, and in the middle of each bowl was a small receptacle. She caused a thread to be passed through the receptacle of each bowl, and secured in the middle. Then the Simurgh put one bowl to her ear, and told Hirmiz to put the other to his ear and she rose and gazed at the fountain.

Hirmiz looked, and, behold! seven personages appeared in the midst of the water, each of his own kind color and shape. When they conversed with each other, their colors intermingled, and the play of color was exceedingly beautiful. Their voices, like a melody in sound, chanted,

Ya tali Ziwa (O rays of Light)
Sharaghi Ziwa (Lamps of Light)

Hirmiz Shah gazed and was amazed and cried, "Can there be those in the world who deny the existence of spirits?"

After Ubreyha had gone, the moon appeared, and Hirmiz, looking, beheld one sitting in the water who had seven heads. Voices came from these seven heads, and they were very lovely and melodious. The seven-headed Personage sat thus--(the narrator sat upright with his hands on his knees).

Then the sun appeared in the east, and the Simurgh began to smile and Hirmiz rejoiced, saying to himself, "Now I shall behold that which is the best of all!"

The bowl was at his ear and the other bowl was at the ear of the Simurgh. As she gazed at the water, he gazed also, and he heard and perceived rounds, voices of great beauty and music like the rounds of flutes, a music far better than anything he had ever heard before. He thought he saw in the midst of the water a woman of such beauty and sweetness that he was entranced and exclaimed,

Aka hei (Aka hiia) (There is Life)
Aka marwy (Aka marai) (There is my Lord)
Aka Manda t Heil (Aka Manda d Hiia0 (There is life Incarnate)

So great was his joy that his understanding almost flew from him, and be cried,

"Greater than this surely does not exist!"

But the Simurgh said to him, "Simat Hei (Simat Hiia, Treasurer of Life) is great indeed! She is the Mother of all Life, the mother of all. All life in this world proceeds from her. The birds when they twitter, utter her praises; the fishes praise the Mother of All Life and are her dervishes; cocks chant at dawn in her praise, and delight when she appears. Bulbuls, doves, sparrows, and all birds utter their joy at her presence!"

Said Hirmiz Shah, "l cannot confess or admit that there can be greater than this She. It would be difficult for me to do so."

The Simurgh laughed. But Hirmiz Shah said, "Yet I wish to see further"

She replied, "You shall see further" The sun turned, and arrived at the North Star. Then the Simurgh prostrate herself, and began to pray, saying:

"Then, from the Life (I ask) your mercy, your healing power, your radiance, your compassion, yours, Great First Life! Forgive me, make me whole, awake me, have compassion on this my soul, mine, Nimrus Zaina, for whom this prayer which I have prayed and these devotions shall bring forgiveness of my sins.

When the bird uttered the name 'Nimrus Zaina', Hirmiz Shah understood that she was none other than Ruha herself for Nimrus Zaina is one of the names of Ruha. And he fell before her, crying, "l crave your protection and that of your son"

But she said to him, "Behold, I have more things to show you!"

After he had prostrated himself, he arose and saw a King of great Brilliance, all of light, surrounded by many 'uthri and melki. He who was I their midst was so dazzling to the sight that Hirmiz could not gaze upon him, but cast down his eyes.

Said the Simurgh, "You have seen Melka d Anhura the King of Light, Melka Ziwa, the Radiant Lord. The likeness of Simat Hei appears in the sun, but none can gaze upon her, none. Only I can show you--it"

And from that time, Hirmiz Shah abandoned all things (jazz) and left the world and went into the wilderness and became a darwish.

When commenting upon this tale, I said to the narrator, Hirmiz bar Anhar, "In your story the planets and Ruha are honored, and yet the Ginza Rabba says that they are the portion of darkness."

The old man replied, "Lady, the enmity between Ruha and her children and the world of light does not exist in reality. Between the Darkness and the Light there in no enmity, because both are the creations of One and the Same. The enmity that you read is the creation of priests, and those who wrote the ginzi (treasures, holy books). Why should there be enmity between us and the powers of darkness or powers of darkness and those of the light? There is only love!"