The Great Invocation to Hrakhsh of Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi

The Great Invocation to Hrakhsh of Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi

HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahab_al-Din_Suhrawardi" \t "_blank" Translation from Henry Corbins French

The Splendor of the Godhead be upon Thee, O Sun, in every moment, before every moment and after every moment! the Essence of the Seven Letters, the Bab.

Introductory Note

The original Arabic text of this hymn by Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi (d. 1191) appears in his The Descents and the Sanctifications or the Book of Hours (al-waridat wa al-taqdisat), a version which was published by Henry Corbin in LArchange Empourpr (The Crimson Archangel) (Paris: Fayard, 1976), pp.483-498. Neither the original or a critical text of this Book of Hours has as yet been published, although manuscripts are known in Istanbul and Zurich. According to Corbin, in the Book of Hours two invocations to Hrakhsh can be found: 1. Hrakhsh al-kabr (the great invocation to Hurakhsh) and 2. Hrakhsh al-saghr (the lessor invocation to Hurakhsh). The lessor one has been published by Muhammad Mo'in in the journal Yaghm I, 2 (1327 h.s.), pp. 88-89. The text here in En islam iranien, vol. II (Galimard: 1974), is from Mull Sadr's monumental gloss on Suhrawardis Hikmat al-Ishrq (Theosophia of Illumination), which Corbin says is the better text, viz. Gloss 430 on the Hikmat al-Ishrq, 159, Teheran lithograph, p. 357 (in the margin). A full, critical text of Mulla Sadras text of this prayer by Suhrawardi is forthcoming from the Mulla Sadra Institute in Tehran pending the publication of the first ever critical text of this abovementioned super-commentary on the Master of Illuminations opus magnum by the great Safavid theosopher sage.

Hrakhsh = Sol Splendidus, the Resplendent Sun, i.e. the Sun in its active Archangelic theophanic modality, which the Avesta hails as the most beautiful manifestation of Ohrmazd, the Godhead, the Light of Lights (nur al-anwar). Suhraward designates Hrakhsh as the theurgy of the Archangel Shahrvar (in the Avesta one of the Holy Immortals or Amahraspands known as Xshathra Vairya, Desirable Reign,precisely identified as having the appearance of the Sun). What is especially interesting about this piece, as well as the others in Suhrawardis prayer book, is that, while in Arabic, it invokes both ancient Mazdaean motifs, imagery and symbolism together with Biblio-Quranic ones, but as re-conceptualized through his own Islamic and Neoplatonic-Hermetic, or Illuminationist (ishraqi), lense. Through the angelicity (fereshtegani) of the Sun as the primary celestial mediator, or gateway, here the entire vertical hierarchy of the Angelic-Intelligences i.e. the luminous emanations of the Necessary Being (wajib al-wujud) - are ecstatically invoked as Eternal Persons proceeding up the ladder of being all the way up to the Godhead Itself, the Light of Lights (nur al-anwar). In sixteenth century Moghul India this hymn, together with those others in his collection of the Book of Hours, constituted the daily liturgy of the syncretic Zoroastrian Sufi order, or Sepasi sect, founded by the prophet-dastur from Istakhr, Azar Kayvan (see entry Adhar Kaywan by H. Corbin in Encyclopedia Iranica). It is held that this sect of Sepasian Sufis attached especial importance to this hymn.As it is specifically addressing the Sun, this hymn/prayer needs be be used either at noon, on Sundays (i.e this days traditional planetery designation) or whenever a given astrological sign enters its highest solar aspect.

Finally, on this Easter Monday it should be noted that Christian Hermeticists hold as one the symbolism of the Risen Christ and that of the Rising Sun, noting the two as amphibolous yet interpenetratingsymbologies of the virilityand fecundity of the triumphant Light of the PureSpirit forever rising! In fact certain Gnostic sects in antiquity are known to have worshiped the Sun as the symbol of Christ Risen. Likewise it is the casein the Kabbalah where the Sun is simultaneously the symbol of the Shekhinah (the feminine presence of G-d) as well as the Messiah whom She will embodyin a male human vehicle. In esoteric Shi'ite Islam, once again, we meet the Sun asboth asymbol for Muhammadas well as 'Ali. Here below now is Suhrawardis Great Hymn to the Sun.

In the Name of the Godhead the Light of lights! *

Blessed be the Most Luminous of beings endowed with life and thought, the Most Manifest of Persons, the Brightest of Stars! Hail to Thee! May the salutations and benedictions of the Godhead be upon Thee, Sublime Luminary, Most August of the moving stars; You who obey the One from Whom You originate; You Who are moved by the ardor of love for the Inaccessible Majesty of Your Creator! You are Hrakhsh, the Most Powerful Vanquisher of darkness, Prince of Heaven, Author of the Day, through the order of the Most High Godhead! You are the King of the Stars, Prince of Persons on High! You reign through the power and the obeyed divine force over the Lights incarnated into bodies! You are the Body that dispenses Light, the Vanquisher, the Brilliant One, the Sage, the One surpassing in Excellence! You are the Most Magnificent of the offspring from the spiritual world through your incandescent splendors! You are the Caliph of the Light of Lights in the world of bodies, Who encircles You with a Light that culminates in Its victory! You are an Image of Its Grandeur, an exemplification of Its beauty, Its proof for the eyes of the faithful! Glory to the One who gives You Your Form and Your Light, Who has made You a Mover through ardent desire for Its Inaccessible Majesty and Who has enshrined You in the Fourth Heaven! Oh Holy Father! I pray to You that You may pray to the One who displays the Splendor of Your thinking Soul to His Orient, who is Your Father, Your Cause, the object of Your Love and the Principle of Your movement, Whose Shadow and Theurgy (of the Archangel Shahrvar) You are! Pray with Him to all Archangelic Lights, the immaterial Intelligences, that they may pray in their turn, in that form of prayer that belongs to the eternal world bereft of change and alteration, to the One who is their Father, their cause and the object of their Love; the Most August of Beings, of Primordial Birth, the Light closest to the Principle Intelligence of the Universe (the Archangel Bahman)! May He pray this same way to His God, the God of Gods, eternally subsisting Light of Lights, God of every Intelligence, of every Soul, of every ethereal and elementary body, simple or composed, the Necessary Being! May He pray It to illuminate my soul with the brightness of the spiritual world, with theosophic knowledge and superior powers! May He pray It to account me as amongst those who have that nostalgia for Its Light and make me immune to all infirmities of soul and body, to make the faithful of the Light and the mystic Orient triumph! May It bless them and make Them holy and us also, for ever and ever. Amen!