NOTES TO PAGES 81-87 205
his original interlocutor." See Diane P. Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer,
eds., Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 35.
- Fathnama, p. 12.
- Ibid., p. 13.
- Ibid., presumably referring to Rg, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva.
- Ibid., p. 29.
- Precisely as the astrologer uses the four quadrants of the sky to predict the
rule of Dahar, so does Hajjaj bin Yusuf later in the text. Chachnama recounts
that Hajjaj bin Yusuf had just received word that his campaign to conquer
Sind had failed and that his commander Budail had died in combat. At that
point another commander, 'Umar bin Abdallah, sends a message asking that
the campaign in Hind be given to him, but Hajjaj bin Yusuf replies, "You are
full of greed. I have asked the astrologers (manajuman) to calculate, and I
have myself drawn lots from the Book (qur'at andakhtah), and the polity
(vilayat) of Hind will be conquered at the hands of Amir 'Imaduddin Mu-
hammad bin Qasim Thaqafi," (Fathnama, p. 67).
Divination via the drawing of lots and geomancy are integral to advice
literature. Its presence in Chachnama helps orient the reader to its genre.
For a general survey on divination in medieval Islam, see Toufic Fahd, La
Divination Arabe. Etudes Religieuses, Sociologiques et Folkloriques sur le
Milieu Natif de l'Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966); and Emilie Savage-Smith
and Marion B. Smith, Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century Divi-
natory Device (Malibu, CA: Undena Publications, 1980). As with Dahar, for
Hajjaj there is a matter of succession after the death of Budail, and this matter
is approached by locating divine will.
- Fathnama, p. 39. The word used for leaders (imaman) is critical because al-
though it is normally reserved for spiritual leaders-for both Shi'a and Sunni
Muslims-here it applies to poets, writers, and Brahmins.
- Ibid., p. 39.
IO. Ibid., p. 40.
- For example, the body is explicitly made social: "Knowing this, that teeth,
claws and men, removed from their place, appear not to advantage, a prudent
man should not quit his own station," (Ludwik Sternbach, "Ca1_1akya's Aph-
orisms in the Hitopadesa (I)," Journal of the American Oriental Society vol.
76, no. 2 [Apr.-Jun. 1956], p. 124).
- Fathnama, p. 40.
- Ibid., p. 42.
- In various parts of Chachnama, we have some indications of the material
reality of these letters. For example, during the initial phase of Qasim's
campaig~ a letter arrived from the capital every day and then every three
days, and finally one letter took nine days to reach the capital (Dar al-
Khilaf ah, which refers to Baghdad). Also, the text indicates that the letters
between Dahar and Qasim were translated by a scribe (munshi).
- Fathnama, p. 93.
- Ibid., p. 93.
- Ibid., p. 94.
