Ghawwasi

Ghawwasi was a seventeenth-century Dakhni poet of the Deccan, also known as Gawwasi Bedri and in literary histories as Mulla Ghawwasi, court poet of Golconda under Sultan Abdullah Qutb Shah. His fame rests on the romance masnavi Saif al-Muluk wa Badi' al-Jamal — the tale of Prince Saif al-Muluk and Badi' al-Jamal — begun under Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah and completed in 1035 AH (1625–26), in over two thousand verses; literary histories also credit him with a Tutinama. As a court poet he was trusted enough to be sent as an envoy to Bijapur in 1045 AH, when the Adil Shahi court sent its own envoy to Golconda. His surviving ghazals, in plain Dakhni, turn on the saqi's cup, the beloved who is the heart's comfort, and a proud final claim: that no one has grasped Ghawwasi's manner. The takhallus itself — the diver — suits a poet of romance, descending for pearls.