Mathnavi

 

Mathnavi or Mathnavi-e Maanavi is the best known work of Rumi consisting of 24,660 couplets in seven books. Rumi himself defined his work as a work of destruction, destruction of the worldly for the sake of embracing the Divine. He warns the reader in advance to be prepared to let go of everything:

Every venture one's life may replete
Mathnavi's purpose is the Great Defeat.
Set afire, burning with cleansing heat,
On the anvil, egos ply and beat.
This book, if you open, read, entreat
Your life, a mendicant's, in the street.

Translations from Mathnavi

Please click on the various numbers below to go to different poems:

bullet1: 1-35  The Reed Flute
bullet1: 2037-2047 Interpretating the teacher's couplet ...
bullet2: 135-140  Stealing a Snake...
bullet2: 446-457  Scaring the pious man of losing his sight...
bullet2: 1721 - 1816  Moses & The Shepherd
bullet3: 180-188  God telling Moses to...
bullet4: 2529-2540  Moses describing the four...

 

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This page was last modified on January 27, 2000