Religion and Spirituality:
Full of Symbolism
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Full of Symbolism |
Like all sufism, the Mevlesi Order and its ceremony described so far is full of symbolism. A small manuscript of the fifteenth century which can be considered the first complete treatise on dancing in Turkey, reveals a symbolic explanation of Sema. The author of this old manuscript traces the development of dance from its spiritual birth at the creation of the world. He states that when God created the Universe, divine energy resounded and from that sound arose the twelve tonalities of music; this gave birth to four different types of dancing; Carh, Raks, Muallak and Pertav. Out of this creation emerged a sufi dressed in blue who started whirling. Carh is a Persian word meaning 'wheel' or 'revolving object, and these dances of this group of a whirling and circling nature; Raks, generally meaning 'dance' in this context is used to mean more specifically movements of the arms, hands legs and head with the trunk of the body remaining static; Muallak, in Arabic meaning 'handing object' denotes leaping and jumping, classified as the vertical movements: Pertav, another Persian word, meaning 'physical projection', covers the group of dances of horizontal movement.
The author goes on to link the physical movement of the body in dance with the spiritual experience of the dance itself. It is here that he mentions the word of SEMA. It is obvious how the ideal of listening, dancing and spiritual experience became intermingled. Indeed the religious side of the people's life was closely linked to dance, for the religious leader and the leader of the dance SEMA were the same person.
The room in which this dance was performed symbolised the year, the leader himself represented the sun, the life-giver of the earth, and dancers turned around him like the stars and moon.
The four dances symbolised the four seasons, which are born of the twelve months, represented, no doubt, by the twelve tonalities of music from which the four dances were born. The four dances were linked not only to the four seasons but also to the four elements, and also the four ages of man.
We have no room to comment on all the symbolism of this MS, only on the essential points. From the foregoing summary we can conclude that the whole cosmos is a dancing mystery, and mysticism recognises dancing as a symbol of the cosmos. All the creatures carry out their function in the way fixed by and through the power of the leader (the sufi clad in blue) who represents God, and therefore are dependent, because he would not be able to realise his power without them.
In the same way man is dependent on God and God on man. And the ceremony we have described above, divided into four sequences of whirling which are symbolic of the cyclic sequence of the seasons. The whirling itself symbolises the celestial motions as the earth turns on its axis as well as revolving round the sun, so the dervishes pivot on their feet while making a revolution of the hall, which is considered the hall of celestial sound. Mevlana himself in the following verse describes how during the dance the semazen feels himself like the movements of the stars:
Each atom dancing in the plain or on the air,
Behold it well, like us, insane
It spinneth there.
Each atom, whether glad it be
Or sorrowful,
Circleth the sun in ecstasy
Ineffable.
In the ceremony described we find other symbolic elements. A Mevlevi dervish's garments have the following symbolism: his hat represents the gravestone, his cloak his coffin, and his white shirt is his shroud. The NEY symbolises the mythological trumpet called Sur the trumpet-blast of the Seraphim (Israfil) which wakes the dead on the Day of Resurrection.
In the hall, which is divided axially by an invisible line or equator, the right half is the tangible world the visible world, the left half is the invisible world, the Angel's world. With the sound of the Ney the dead are resurrected from their tombs and attain eternal life through the guidance of the shaikh; they are the divine truth, the truth of unity.
In the 'Grand Cycle' the march round thrice, the number three is symbolic. The first orbit represents knowledge of God, the knowledge of certainty, the second represents seeing God, the eye of certainty and the third is the stage of being, truth of Unity. One end of the equator where the shaikh sits is Divine nature, the opposite end is human nature, this way the right semi-circle represents the descent from Divine nature from the absolute to human nature; the left semicircle ascends from human nature to Divine nature. In other words the right represents the descent to material perfection, and the left ascends to spiritual perfection, to contemplative life.
The semazen, or dancer, extends his arms full length and horizontally while spinning, and sometimes the right hand is raised with the palm turned upwards, and the left lowered with the palm turned downwards.
The symbolic explanation of this posture is that influence from heaven received by the upturned palm is handed down to the world below by the other. Also his outstretched arms and his body in between makes in the Arabic alphabet the words La and lila, a form representing the unity of God.
Source : Turkish Treasures - A Culture/Art/Tourism
Magazine
by Prof. Dr. Metin And, Ankara University
