The Madhumalati (The Night-flowering Jasmine) is regarded as one of the four great medieval Indian Sufi romances. Through the meddling of nymphs, Prince Manohar meets Princess Madhumalati from another kingdom. They fall in love but are prematurely separated. In pain, Manohar wanders the countryside as a yogi while Madhumalati is turned into a bird. She roams the world in search of Manohar. The original Madhumalati, based on the Persian masnavi (couplet form), was composed by Mir Sayyid Manjhan Rajgiri in Awadhi, an Eastern Hindavi language, in 1545. This manuscript copy, written as a Hindi caupai (couplet) in Devanagari script, was reproduced by Pandit Hastisagara, pupil of Pandit Harshasagaraji, in samvat 1824 (1768 AD).
