Listening to Masnavi While Reading the Persian
Those who would like to hear the Masnavi as they are reading it in Persian on a computer, verse by verse, have a number of options, some of which are suggested here:
1. Order a DVD from Iran (which works on Windows) based on the edition of Masnavi by Mahdî âzâr Yazdî (similar to the editions by Este'lâmî, Soroosh or Sobhânî) with narrations of all six books by Hosayn âhî (Books 1 & 6) and Amîr Nûrî (Books 2, 3, 4, & 5) here.
2. Listen to Book 1, based on the Yazdî edition online, here and then open a second window for the text, based on the edition of Masnavi by Soroosh, here or here. Use the "Concordance of MP3 Audio Files" (PDF -- see below) to find other selections. The latter two websites have good search capacities, but some practice using them may be needed. Both are organized according to headings (story headings and sub-headings within stories), not according to verse numbers. Using the Persian text from the PDF concordance, type in, or paste, the first Persian words from a given MP3 recording into the search box. When searching on the rira.ir site, it may be necessary to click on the bottom of the page to see the next page, or the page after that, to find the word combination sought. Other peculiarites: the ganjoor.net search acccepts words with hamza as a superscript (such as "mû'min" [mû'mn]), whereas the rira.ir site does not (you have to type in "mumin" [mmn] for most cases, or "mûmin" [mûmn] for a few cases). If a search in one of the Masnavi websites is unsuccessful, try the other one.
THE LINK to the PDF "Concordance of MP3 Audio Files, Persian Text, and English Translation by Nicholson" is HERE.
Sometimes, a given MP3 recording begins with one of Mawlana Rumi's Headings, not the first couplet (bayt) listed in the concordance. The four editions of Masnavi mentioned here are all based on the earliest manuscript (the "Konya Manuscript"); occasional differences are based on differing scholarly judgments about which variants are best (the Konya Manuscript has "corrected" variants written in the margins, which some scholars accept while others do not). The edition that is most different is the one by Yazdî, because he accepted some later "improvements" that are not in the Konya Manuscript, but are in some later manuscripts (but still very early ones, including some variants adopted by Nicholson). For example, Yazdî adopted the well-known early "improvement" in Book 1: 1, "Hear from the reed-flute, how it is relating" [be-sh'naw az nay chûn Hikâyat mê-kon-ad], instead of the earliest text, "Listen to this reed-flute, how it is complaining" [be-sh'naw în nay chûn shikâyat mê-konad].
If you also wish to read Nicholson's English translation (very accurate, with a close correspondence of verses) at the same time, you can open a third window here. If you put the Persian text and English text windows next to each other and make the audio window small, you can keep the cursor on the audio start/pause link and proceed very easily, verse by verse.
Alternatively, you can listen to the Persian by reading the physical Persian text by Sobhânî, Este'lâmî, or Soroosh; or by reading the physical English translation by Nicholson (1926-34). You may also read the recent English translations of Book 1 by Jawid Mojaddedi ("Rumi: The Masnavi: Book One," 2004, based on the Persian edition of Este'lami), by Alan Williams ("Rumi: Spiritual Verses," 2006, based on the Persian edition by Este'lami), and by Victoria Holbrook (embedded in "Listen: Commentary on the Spiritual Couplets of Mevlana Rumi by Kenan Rifai," 2011, based on the Persian edition by Nicholson). Mojaddedi's translation of Book 2 is also available ("Rumi: The Masnavi: Book 2," 2007); further translations by Mojaddedi and Williams are in preparation. It should be mentioned that Este'lami's verse numbers differ by a small amount, compared to Nicholson's verse numbers, gradually increasing from 0 - 15.
3. Listen to Books 1-6 by downloading several hundred MP3s in four sections narrated from the Yazdî edition here. Use the Persian text websites above for reading the Persian text, and use the PDF concordance (see below) to find the MP3 section you want.
4. Order a DVD from Iran (which works on Windows) of the edition of Masnavi by Soroosh, which includes his narration of Book 2, here.
