Gadāʾī
# Gadāʾī

Gadāʼī (ɡadaːˈʔiː), or Gadā (Chagatay: كدا, [ɡadaː]), was a 15th-century poet of Central Asia who wrote in the Chaghatay Turkic language. He is recognised by the better-known Ali-Shir Nava'i as a predecessor, whom he had $met.^{:p.1–2}$

## Life

Little is known about Gadāʼī's life. Based on information about him provided by Navaʼi in the third section of Majalis un-Nafāʼis (compiled in 1497 or 1498), which describes poets who were still alive and whom Navaʼi knew, it is possible to deduce that Gadāʼī was born around 1403 or $1404.^{:p.2}$ However, based on other evidence, Ergash Rustamov concluded in the 1960s that Gadāʼī must have been born no later than 1360 and later served at the court of Abul-Qasim Babur Mirza at over 90 years of $age.^{:p.2–3}$

## Name

The poet is referred to as Gadāʼī by Navāʼi, and in the one manuscript of his divans, as Gadā. This name, meaning "beggar", is understood to be a pen name. It is not known what his given name may have $been.^{:p.1}$

## Works

Gadāʼī wrote a divan, or collection of poems, in what would now be considered the pre-classical Chaghatay literary $language.^{:p.1}$ At the time, this language was known as "Türkī", meaning "Turkish" or "Turkic". Rustamov highlights the fact that Gadāʼī was not a Sufi poet, and incorporated aspects of the local Turkic literary traditions into his $work.^{:p.5}$

The single manuscript containing Gadāʼī's divan is housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and is composed of two halves: the first containing the Divan of Luṭfi (another 15th-century poet who wrote in Chaghatay), and the second containing the "Dīvān-i Gadā", on folios 96b through $161a.^{:p.4}$ The last folio is missing, and may have included metadata about the manuscript, such as the name of the copyist and when it was $copied.^{:p.4}$

The divan consists of mostly ghazals (229), but also five tuyughs, two qaṣīdas, and one mustazād.

## Research

The first mention of Gadāʼī in non-Chaghatay literature is thought to be in a 1914 work that mentions him by Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, a Turkish $historian.^{:p.4}$ Fuad provided more information about him in his history of Chaghatay literature in $1945.^{:p.4}$ The Uzbek scholar Ergash Rustamov provides the first "scholarly appraisal" of Gadāʼi's work in a source published in the $1960s.^{:p.5}$ János Eckmann published a translation of some of Gadāʼī's works in 1960, which formed the basis of Rustamov's $work,^{:p.2}$ and in 1971 published a complete transcription of Gadāʼī's divan, with facsimiles of all the folios, a glossary, and a brief introduction.

