Mytho-Mystic Literature
Year:2013 | Volume:9 | Issue:31|Papers Count:10

In history, the life of some thinkers are different from the other people. This difference comes from their personality complexities which by its turn have given rise to many different perspectives about them given by many people. The consequence is that, knowing these thinkers truly is not an easy task. In the field of Persian literature, one of these great men is the contemporary writer, Sadegh Hedayat, whose problems, wanders, and doubts are visible in his stories. Fairly similar to Hedayat in Arabic literature is Abulala Maa'ry since the same complexities can be seen in his thoughts. One of the reasons of these complexities in these two writers cab be attributed to the impact of Gnositic doctrine that is a mixture of Jewish, Egyptian, Babelian, Greek, Syrian, and Iranian philosophical and religious creeds. This research tries to clarify some of these mutual believes like avoiding women, abstaining eating meat and inclining to vegetarianism, believing in ascetic life, interweaving body and soul to evil, originated from the Gnostic ideas as Manichaeism, Mazdakism and Marcionism.

Interpretation of Roomi's Masnavi has a long historical background. But the important point in the way these interpretations are explained is a kind of mystical tendency in content explanation of the poems. A difficulty that has come up in the interpretive method has been resolved in this article. To settle the difficulties, I have made an attempt in this paper to suggest a new interpretive way, based on which, the meaninf of each verse would limited as much as possible to its literal meaning. That is to say, the meaning of verses in this way would be explained correctly on the basis of figures of diction and poetic imagery. This method is called “formalistic interpretation” to challenge the presupposition common among the interpreters of Roomi that the literal and formal aspect of the language has not been important comparing to the precious thoughts of Roomi. In this method, the main criterion for interpretation and explanation of the poems of Roomi is the language of Masnavi and the power of Molana as a poet, a criterion that can be too influential in understanding the mysticism of Molana.

According to most of the Iranian narratives, Jamshid is a mythical character who lost his power, kingship, charisma, and immortality because of committing a sin which its nature is not known exactly; and at last, he was wandering for a while and then was killed by Zahhak. According to whatever mentioned in old sources, Jam's era represents a time of pure happiness. However this everlasting dignity and power is deteriorated due to committing a sin by him, and he who once considered as one of the best mythical kings, lost his face, in a way that his golden age came to a bitter end. In various stories remained about his fate and downfall he and his life are portrayed very differently. While in a number of stories he and his dynasty are considered as the God worshipers, others refer to him as a deviant and unbeliever in God. It is claimed that he have committed two types of sins, among them eating and feeding animal flesh, disobeying Urmazd and also claiming to be God. In the present study we try to reveal some of the dark aspects related to this ancient king, and by comparing existing stories, this study tries to shed light on these differences. Besides, we try to answer this question that whether or not Jamshid has really committed a sin, by comparing different viewpoints provided about the problem.

In thoughts of ancient Iranian tribes, divine elements have a special place. These elements in Mithraism were considered sacred. The believers of Mithraic mysteries suggested that spirits came from heavens to the earth and dwelled in the bodies. In order to be purified, these spirits were to go through seven stages. Mithraism makes mention of a seven steps ladder as the symbol of the seven layers of heavens that must be past for being able to reach to the supreme position. Shahnameh makes mention of Kavus attempt for building seven homes on the mountain of Albourz of gold, silver, glass and granite. The present article shows that these seven palaces are the reminders of the ladder of the believers of Mehr.

Mystical stages in Yoga Sutras are eight stages, and in Manteq-altayr of Attar are seven places. The pilgrims of both of these paths begin their works with religious law, ethics and discipline rules to reach to the more subtle stages of mysticism. After passing these stages, the pilgrims achieve the “unity”, or a kind of “Fana” (i.e. annihilation) in Manteq- altayr, and “Samadehi” in Yoga; the difference between them lies in the fact that the pilgrim of Islamic mysticism seeks unity with God, but the pilgrim of Yoga seeks unity with himself. This article tries to compare mystical doctrine in Yoga Sutras and Manteq-altayr to show their similarities and differences.

Creation of the first human- the primary ideal human- is one of the most important steps in the creation of archetype in various cultures. The fundamental example of the first human is based on an old pattern, which emerges as a giant or godlike human, or as the first couple. The goal of this paper is describing examples and mythological qualities of the first human archetype in mythic cultures, and in the myths of ancient Iran, especially in the Pishdadis section of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. The research method of this paper is qualitative with analytic mythological approach, based on which we have considered three features as the basic characteristics of the archetype of first human: first his divine origin, then a twin couple, and finally a cultural function- symbolic hero producing civilization in the history of a nation. In Shahnameh, these tree kinds of functions are distributed among some kings of Pishdadis each of them can be considered as an example of first human. In this paper, we study examples of these functions about Kayumarth, Hooshang, Tahmooreth, Jamshid, Fereydoun and Manoochehr.

In Persian classic literature, Sanai is considered as one of the first innovative poets who have helped to expand poetic theme in various aspects such as panegyric, mystical and especially didactic and philosophical ones. Having mystical and ethical insights, he has had a new attitude to various poetic contents and elements, including lyric, epic and so forth. In this research, we are going to answer this question: how has Sanai applied the epic and mystic elements of Shanameh in Hadighat-al-Haghigheh and his Divan; and in what way did he look at these elements? On this basis, we conclude that Sanai has employed these elements on aesthetic, didactic, mystic and panegyric bases respectively.

The way symbols and characters- as the two important elements of a story- are presented in Masnavi Manavi, comes from Molana’s viewpoints about human. This study intends to investigate some of the mystical and hidden aspects of Masnavi Manavi based on psychological and mythical concepts. Therefore a number of the narrative elements of the story of Romiyan–o–Chiniyan (Romans and Chinese) are studied here regarding psychological concepts provided by psychologists like Jung, Murray, Freud and Adler. Some of these concepts are analyzed in relation to mystical and mythical elements. In this story, Yung theories about characterization, collective beliefs, and archetypes are more visible than the theories of Fraud and Adler.

The fundemental and most important issue in Sufism and Islamic mysticism is welayah and knowing wali. Nearly all of the subjects in Islamic mysticism are formed and developed in relation to the problem of welayah. Questions and discussions about wali and walayah has became more salient and complicated as Sufism moved from mere worshiping stages into more complicated phases. Over time, different and additional issues have emerged about walayah some of them have really been controversial among scholars for several centuries. One of these controversial issues is the theory of “badayat-ol- owlia, nahayat- al- Anbia”. In this theory the superiority of walayah over nabovah (prophethood) is the key proposition. It seems that, this theory stands against the theory of “nahayat- al- owlia, badayat- ol- anbia”, in which nabovah has superiority over welayah. In this article, in addition reviewing the history and the way of formation of this theory we study ideas provided by both groups about these concepts. In an attempt to put an end to the controversies, we also try to provide a kind of explanation for the relation between the followers of the two views.