# Layla and Majnun

- Link: https://writersworkshopindia.com/2016/03/25/layla-and-majnun/
- Published: 2016-03-25T01:36:46+00:00
- Author: shuktara

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**Author:** Narsingh Srivastava[⌊WP_20160324_15_22_12_Pro⌉](https://writersworkshopindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/WP_20160324_15_22_12_Pro.jpg)
**
Pages:** 200 **Year of Publication:** 2015 (Second edition, revised and corrected)**
Price:** Rs 350 **ISBN:** 978-93-5045-108-3 (9789350451083)

_**About the Author**_
 Born in 1931, Dr Narsingh Srivastava taught English at the
University of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, from where he retired in 1993. His academic
books include _The Flames of Faith: Lectures on Religious Poetry_ (1970), _The Impersonal
Agony: A New Approach to T.S. Eliot_ (1970), _W.H. Auden: A Poet of Ideas_ (1978),
_The Mind and Art of Raja Rao _(1980) and _The Poetry of T.S. Eliot: A Study in 
Religious Sensibility_ (1990). He has published two collections of ghazals, nine
volumes of poetry in Hindi and four in English: _Layla and Majnun and Other Poems_(
1984), _The Dance of Shiva _(1985), _Nachiketas _(1987) and **_A Few Days in Bombay_**(**
WRITERS WORKSHOP**, India, 1990). He has translated Eliot’s poems into Hindi and
Urdu ghazals and rubais into English. The Hindi Sansthan of Uttar Pradesh has conferred
two awards on him.

_**About the Book**_
 Dr Srivastava’s deep and layered scholarship in Sufi literature
informs his rendition of this famous Islamic story of true and ideal love. In his
preface to the book, Dr Srivastava writes:

“A book or a long poem on Layla and Majnun I had never conceived of till a memorable
morning of April 1982, when an eminently exalted saint, my friend, philosopher and
guide, commanded me to take up this work which he had entrusted to one of his dedicated
devotees, Lakhpat Rai, M.A. (Oxon), former Chief Conservator of Forests, Madhya 
Pradesh, who had already brought out, under the guidance of the Master, a laudable
book: _Sarmad: His Life and Rubais_ (1978). Lakhpat Rai breathed his last in March
1982, before he could start the work, and that is why the great saint commissioned
me to do the work. I joyfully accepted the task, taking it as a service to my Master
and also as a way of self-purification. To the blessed soul of Lakhpat Rai I am 
deeply indebted because the books on Layla and Majnun in English, Persian and Urdu
he had collected proved of immense value and use to me… Considering that a book 
on Layla and Manjnun in prose would go nothing beyond an imitation of the English
translations of the great Persian and Turkish poets, Nizami and Fuzuli which I found
in the small collection left by Lakhpat Rai, I decided to write a long poem of epical
design.”

_**Layla and Majnun**_ is prefixed by a comprehensive analysis on the meaning and
nature of true love. In the introduction, he observes, “In fact, true love can be
fully and properly understood only when it is interpreted as a manifestation of 
the Divine love which attracts all souls to Itself and unites the whole cosmos in
a unity and harmony. In the human world it operates as an embodiment of the Divine
play of love which is eternally active both in the visible and the invisible world.”

_**Contents**_
 Preface / 7 Introduction / 11 Invocation to Lord Krishna / 45 Invocation
to Goddess Saraswati / 47 Layla and Majnun / 49 Glossary / 199