Studying the prose style of Dastgiri Rules

Abstract

Abstract Dastgiri Rules is a valuable work in the field of Persian grammar and rhetoric which has remained in manuscript form. In case of an exact and scientific editing of this title, a precious source will be added into the legacy of Persian language and literature. The manuscript belongs to the thirteenth century and the early Qajar period. It was writtenin two volumes by Maulana Gholam Dastgir in order to teach Persian grammar to non-Persian speakers of the Indian subcontinent. Like most of the subcontinent grammarian, the author wrote his work in Arabic grammar style and based on this fact, the word is divided into the three types of verb, noun and letter and expressions are divided into full and partial compound statements. There is no significant information about the biography of Gholam Dastgir, the author; although his work is well known, his condition and life story is unclear, like many other author in the subcontinent. But relying on his work, some aspects of his life is revealed including date of birth, creed and religion, some masters and so on. This work is written in eight chapters, based on the 8 doors of heaven, and every chapter has some parts. The first volume consists of 4 chapters and the first chapter is about the definition of morphology, past tense and its eight types, present tense in 9 rules, future tense, imperative mood in 7 rules, negative imperatives, verbs, pseudo-verbs and infinitives, Amale, reduced muthana, plural, genus name, genus alam and person alam of a word which sometimes considered as single and sometimes plural, makharej and attributes of letters, dictation and definition of handwriting, merge, combining two words, some rules and advantages of Turkish dictation and spelling. The second chapter is dedicated to the definition of noun and its types and the third chapter is about history of literature including the first Persian poet, the 7 various branches of the Persian language, and it explained the nature of the letters and its three types which are written, verbal and masrouri. In chapter4 he explained about the letters in detail including metaphor letter, conjunction letter, conditioning letter and so on. Finally, he stated infinitive constructions, the names of Allah in Persian and specific names of kings and volume I ends in this way. The prose style of this manuscript can be studied from the formal and content point of view. Examining stylistic features of Dastgiri Rules first of all indicates literary knowledge of the author, his awareness of Persian grammar and dictionaries during his time. Although this work, like other grammarians works in the subcontinent, is written in Arabic language style, but in many cases he observed moderation and have applied Persian language syntax. In formal Stylistics of the book, abundance of Arabic words is seen which was influenced by the common literary style of return period. Special use of some Arabic words and combination of Persian and Arabic words in the syntactic structure of sentences are also noteworthy. These combinations are mostly simple, short and literary. Compound verbs have been applied more than simple and prefix verbs. Orthography of this manuscript was influenced by the common style of these periods, which are eleventh to the thirteenth century. In this work some cases like writing the letter of "ک" instead of "گ", and the letter of "ج" instead of "چ", inarticulate omission when making plural, use of "مَر" for putting emphasis on object and application of "را" as object sign can be seen. The pros style of this work is simple and scientific except the introduction, however the author shows us his literary talent and ability by applying literary figures of speech everywhere in his work including rhyme and pun, symmetry, simile, metaphor and metonymy which are applied very artistically in the introduction. The author's great attention to mention poems by Persian and Hindi poets indicates his admirable understanding of Persian poetry and Iranian and Hindi Persian poets. Of course, ethical issues which were at the heart of these lyrics were not far from the author`s point of view. Verses, sayings and proverbs can be seen everywhere in accordance with the subject. Another important point is the knowledge and domination of author in sciences such as logic, astronomy wisdom and that’s why the terms related to these sciences can be seen in the context. In the content section of this book, the most important thing is the scientific basis of content and his integrity in citations and references; also detailed expression of grammar, structured text and author`s critical attitude toward some grammatical issues can be considered as other benefits of his work. Finally, based on the fact that this work was written in the Indian subcontinent, Persian language and literature became known in this area, at the same time of Qajar period; and because of having some evidence from Indian popular culture and comparing it with Iran, this study can also be helpful in sociology and anthropology studies.