DO WE REALLY NEED AN INTRODUCTION? == You probably came to this site through my main website, and you've probably looked at the Ghalib site already, so perhaps I don't need to say much by way of a general introduction. If you don't know much about the classical Urdu ghazal, please do start with the Ghalib site! It will be much better as a jumping-off point than this one.

'A GARDEN OF KASHMIR' == In the verse from which the name of this project is taken, I translate gulshan-e kashmiir as 'a garden of Kashmir'. S. R. Faruqi would prefer (August 2003) 'the garden that is Kashmir', since that would provide 'extra meaning' (by suggesting size, elaboration, and the combination of natural and man-made qualities) and would also correspond better to normal Urdu i.zaafat usage in cases like this. I agree with him that an equational reading would be the normal, least-marked usage in Urdu, but my reading is also grammatically sound. After all, Kashmir not only 'is' a garden, but 'has' gardens too (chief among them Jahangir's famous Shalimar Bagh), and the i.zaafat construction is easily multivalent enough to permit both readings. My reading also makes for a more evocative title, I think. Does it mean a garden that is located in Kashmir? A garden of a special type characteristic of Kashmir (with all the qualities mentioned by Faruqi)? A metaphorical garden that evokes Kashmir in some crucial way? In short, I hope the title can work somewhat the way 'a desertful of roses' does.

PRESENTING MIR'S GHAZALS == It's a very different problem from that posed by Ghalib. In the case of Ghalib, we have a small divan of 234 ghazals, handpicked and edited by the poet himself, discussed obsessively by many dozens of commentators for well over a century.

In Mir's case we have a huge body of primary-source material-- six divans [diivaan], totaling something like 1,916 ghazals-- from which no shorter selection was ever made by the poet himself. And though we have many later anthologies or selections [inti;xaab], we have no commentarial tradition at all. The only serious commentary that exists, as far as I know, is Shamsur Rahman Faruqi's four-volume one, which itself is based only on his own selection of the best of the poetry. This invaluable work is going to be the foundation of the commentarial part of this project.

Fortunately, some pages on the Ghalib site will not need to be replicated. In particular, the overview page called *About the Genre* (as it develops over time), and the page on *Transliteration*,  will serve for both sites. *Urdu Meter: A Practical Handbook* will be even more valuable for Mir, since he's far more metrically adventurous than Ghalib. The 'Names' and 'Terms' indices for the two poets will be linked, with the Ghalib ones treated as primary.

In general, the Mir commentary is going to assume that the reader already has some background-- the kind of background one would get from reading the Ghalib commentary. Far fewer names and terms in individual verses will be hyperlinked to the indices, and more references will be left unexplained. The basic reason for this practice is that the vastly greater amount of poetry means that the structure of the site has to be more complex, and moving up and down the layers is more cumbersome, so making hyperlinks will be more time-consuming. Moreover, since I'd never live long enough to do the whole kulliyaat , there can't be even the hope of any kind of systematic indexing of things.

So I've decided to be more free-form in dealing with Mir than with Ghalib. I'll translate large chunks of Faruqi's commentary, mostly quite literally but once in a while with a bit of flexibility; and I will add my own thoughts, and explain or not explain various terms and concepts as the spirit moves me. Remember-- if you don't understand something, look at the Ghalib website for many kinds of introductory help that will NOT be replicated in the case of Mir. Other decisions and policies I will have to make as I go along, and I'll report them here.

THE GHAZAL INDEX ITSELF == There has never been anything like a complete, well-organized index of all Mir's ghazals. So one of the purposes of this project will be to provide one. The *Ghazal Index* page for Mir is far more complicated, but apart from that, the two kinds of indices that are provided are the same as for Ghalib.

The indices on this site can thus help you find out whether a ghazal ascribed to Mir is actually his, according to the best available scholarship. And if it is, you'll have a bit of background information on it (meter, text sources, etc.), and you'll easily be able to locate it by number in the best current text.

For Mir far more than for Ghalib, a 'finding tool' is itself a real contribution. In the past, comparative study of Mir's similar ghazals, and comparison of his verses with relevant ones by Ghalib and other poets, has been possible only for the most serious specialists. Now, that kind of study will be within the reach of interested people who have much less background.

In fact, the whole ghazal tradition is not attuned to indices; it's sometimes even hostile to them. It favors memorization, oral recitation and discussion, deep intimacy with a smaller number of poets, rather than efficient, rationalized access to a large number of texts. In particular, the radiif (and qaafiyah ) index of Mir's poetry goes way beyond anything that has ever existed before, toward providing access for people who don't already know the poetry well. This democratization of access is something that I as a teacher value greatly. It's also a response to both new constraints (the supply of traditionally-educated ahl-e zabaan has virtually dried up) and new opportunities (who could have imagined the wonders of the internet as a knowledge-sharing tool?)

METER == introduce Mir meter page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS == I began designing this site in the spring of 2003, and starting to think of how it could develop; it first went on line in early July 2003. When I got hold of the new gold-standard kulliyaat in fall 2003, the indexing could begin in earnest. Let me put it on record that the indexing chore was a horrible combination of tedium and niggling attention to detail, and I'm passionately glad it's over, as of January 7, 2006. I know the present versions of the two indices contain many errors and I'll gradually be correcting them, but you have no idea what a burden it was to get it done in the first place. I worked on it mostly while visiting my mother in Little Rock, Arkansas, and it was her patience, love, and cheerful support that made it (barely) endurable.

The commentary part began on February 2, 2007, using CSS style sheets developed by my friend and software-designer Gary Tubb, and relying on the same script-display program created by Sean Pue for the Ghalib site. I'm altogether grateful to them both for making me such magnificent tools. Obviously this project would be nowhere without the fundamental work of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, and his ongoing help and observations are a precious resource. I am also grateful to Columbia University, my home and the home of this project.