ਹੀਰ · ہیر · Heer
Waris Shah, 1766 — the opening invocation of Punjab's greatest qissa, in an annotated edition where every word answers when you tap it.
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Stanza 1 · The invocation
awwal hamd khudā dā vird kīje
First, make remembrance of the praise of God —
ishq kītā sū jagg dā mūl mīā̃
who made love the root of all the world, sir.
pahilā̃ āp hī rabb ne ishq kītā
First God Himself loved —
te māshūq hai nabī rasūl mīā̃
and His beloved is the Prophet, the Messenger, sir.
What the poet is doing
Waris Shah opens the way Persian romances open — with a hamd, praise of God — but he makes the convention do Punjabi work. Before a single field or ferry of Jhang appears, the whole story is re-framed: love is not a plot device but the founding act of the universe. God loved first; creation followed.
This is the Sufi doctrine of the two loves in miniature: ishq-e-haqīqī, love of the Divine, and ishq-e-majāzī, love of a human being — the second a doorway to the first. Every reader now knows how to read Heer and Ranjha: as lovers, and as the soul and its Beloved.
Notice ਸੂ sū — an old clitic meaning "he did," gone from modern speech. Heer is close enough to feel familiar and old enough to need a reader like this one.
Stanza 2 · The station of love
ishq pīr faqīr dā martabā hai
Love is the station of saint and dervish;
mard ishq dā bhalā ranjūl mīā̃
blessed is the man whom love has marked with sorrow, sir.
khullhe tinhā̃ de bāb dargāh andar
For them the gates stand open in the divine court —
jinhā̃ kītā hai ishq qabūl mīā̃
for those who have accepted love, sir.
What the poet is doing
Having made love cosmic, Waris Shah now makes it a spiritual rank. The martabā — station — is Sufi technical vocabulary: the degrees a seeker climbs toward God. To be wounded by love is not misfortune here; it is promotion.
ਦਰਗਾਹ dargāh carries a deliberate double meaning: the divine court where souls are judged, and the earthly Sufi shrine where lovers and pilgrims actually gather. The gates that "stand open" are both at once.
The theology is quietly radical. Not the ritually correct, but those who accepted love — with every cost attached — are the ones admitted. The entire tragedy to come is justified in advance: Heer and Ranjha's ruin will be their credential.
More of Heer, and the other great qisse — Sohni Mahiwal, Mirza Sahiban, Sassi Punnun — will join the Parallel Reader in future updates.
Sources & further reading
- Waris Shah, Hīr (1766) — public domain. Text follows commonly printed editions; recensions vary.
- Christopher Shackle, “Transition and Transformation in Vāris Shāh's Hīr” and related essays on the Punjabi qissa.
- Sant Singh Sekhon & Kartar Singh Duggal, A History of Punjabi Literature (1992).
- English translation and annotations above are Punjabia's own, made for learners — plain prose, not verse.