Drinking, Drunken with, and Drowning in Love

The Islamic and Sanskritic Double Roots of South Asian Emotion Metaphors

Bibliographic Data

ID21293312
AuthorsGerrit Lange (0000-0001-5674-9633, Center for Religious Studies , Ruhr-Universität Bochum , Universitätsstraße 90a, 44789 , Bochum , Germany, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume80
Issue2
Pages569-592
Publication date2026-05-26
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-4717 • E-ISSN: 2235-5871
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/asia-2025-0036
OpenAlexW7167813238
LanguageEN
References cited18

South Asian Sufi traditions emerged from a milieu deeply colored by both Islamic and non-Islamic traditions, by Persian and Arabic literatures as well as by texts in Sanskrit and in Indian vernaculars. The qawwālī songs performed at the shrines of Sufi saints, such as the dargah of Amir Khusrau (d. 1325 CE) in Delhi, abound with synesthetic metaphors for divine love as dissolving like a drop in the ocean, as “sweetness” or “intoxication” ( madwa ). This double meaning was already present in Sanskrit mādhava , a key term in Krishna-devotional texts like the ninth-century Bhāgavatapurāṇa . While the Old Indian understanding of emotions as the “color” ( rāga ) of music or as the “taste” ( rasa ) of a piece of art was readily adopted into South Indian Sufi songs as well, similar descriptions of love as intoxication, worldly life as the (physical) pain of separation from one’s lover, and union with God as “drowning” or “immersion” were certainly not absent from the Persian and Arabic literatures Indian Sufis also drew from. Their metaphors of drinking, being drunken with, and drowning in love, in turn, made an impact on later Hindu and Sikh traditions. Such metaphors of emotions as being fluid imbue not only religious discourses but also academic discourse about religion

Arabic · Hinduism · Islam · Meaning (existential) · Persian · Sanskrit · South asia · Sufism · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History of Emotions Research · Indian and Buddhist Studies

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