Work · Philosophy in the Islamic World
The Confluence of the Two Seas
Short Persian treatise that sets Sufi and Hindu terms side by side – the elements, the senses, the divine names, the soul, the stages of creation and liberation – and argues that the seekers of truth in both traditions differ in words rather than in substance.
Introduction
Dara Shikoh wrote “The Confluence of the Two Seas” (Majmaʿ al-baḥrayn) in Persian in 1655; the title takes up a Qur’anic image (18:60). In twenty-two short sections he compares the vocabulary of the Sufis with that of Hindu thinkers – the elements, the senses, the divine names and attributes, the soul and the spirit, the stages of creation and of liberation – and concludes that the knowers of both traditions differ in words rather than in substance. The treatise rests on the Sufi doctrine of the unity of being and on conversations with Hindu ascetics and scholars. A Sanskrit version, Samudrasaṅgama, was also made, and M. Mahfuz-ul-Haq edited and translated the Persian text in 1929.
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