The present-day language of Ariana is
the latest evolutionary form of "Dari" and is known as
"Farsi" or the Dari language. The people of Ariana
themselves, however, have always employed the word "Dari"
for whatever languages have flourished in the country. In the
past the two languages under discussion which flourished
simultaneously have been known as the "Dari Dari" and the
"Pahlawi Dari."
The Dari language of today, namely,
Dari, originated, as mentioned above, during the Muslim period in the
east of Ariana. The important centres of this language were the
cities of Transoxiana and Khurasan, to wit, Samarqand, Bukhara,
Balkh, Merv, Herat, Tiis, and Nishapiir. These centres
extended even to
Sistan. This explains why the most eminent poets of this language
down to the Salj 5q period hailed from these particular cities.
Gradually, Dari expanded from Khurasan and Transoxiana to other parts
of Ariana, so that by the Ghaznawid period it had extended to Gurgan,
Damg_han, and Rayy, and by the Saljdq era it had travelled as far
away as AharbAijan, Isbahan, and Hamadan. In the province of Fars it
did not achieve the status of a popular language even in the days of
Sa'di and Ilafiz. That is why these two great poets have revelled in
the mastery of this language and in the expression of their
poetic genius through it. Both of them also composed verse in the
Pahlawi dialect of Fars, popularly known as the Shirazi language.
The rules of prosody
of Arabic poetry were formulated by Khalil ibn Abmad. These were
assiduously observed by the Aryan writers in their Dari works.
Considerable literature was produced on the subject both in Ariana
and in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent. Consequently, the same Arabic
names were retained for Dari metres and rhymes, so much so that even
the same Arabic word a/d`il was employed for purposes of scansion.
Metres can be classified into three groups, i.e., metres common to
both Arabic and Dari, metres which were the outcome of the Aryan
genius and did not exist earlier, and metres which were, on the
reverse, typical of and exclusive to Arabic poetry.
Amongst the exclusively Dari metres the
most well-known is the one employed in the quatrains of Baba Tahir
`Uryan of Hamadan. In the preIslamic times right up to the
Achaemenian period the only verse known was the blank verse.
Specimens of poetry preserved in the Avesta and Old Dari are all
composed in blank verse. This type of poetry was also in vogue in
Pahlawi and Dari, the two languages so closely related to each other.
The forms of Dari
verse have also an independent character and they have not always
followed the Arabic pattern. The "mathnawi," "tarjs'-band,"
"tarkib-band," "musammat," "muthallath,"`
"murabba`," "mukhammas," "mustazad,"
and "rubd`i" are all exclusive to Dari poetry, and they
have originated solely in the Dari genius. Dari verse has also
influenced Urdu and Turkish poetry. Similarly, the rhymed verse and
many figures of speech owe their origin to the creative genius of the
Aryan mind. "Muwashs_hah" and "mulamma"' are also
Dari in origin.