Journal of Literary Studies
Year:2013 | Volume:45 | Issue:4 (179)|Papers Count:7

Shahnameh researchers have not made enough attempts to find the correct forms of its toponymy. The variants of these names are frequently incompatible and sometimes incorrect. Obviously the copiers of manuscripts have made little effort to record such names correctly and even at times they have inadvertently replaced the original names with the ones sounding more familiar to them. Based on the record of manuscripts and regional and geographical information, this paper intends to specify the correct forms of two toponyms (i.e., “Archang” & “Narahoo / Payahoo”) which have been recorded incorrectly in all accessible manuscripts and printed copies of the Shahnameh. The first (i.e., “Archang”) is certainly a variant of Archangan, a village in Kalat Naderi area in Khorassan Razavi province. The second one, with some reservations, can be the name of a battle ground near the border of ancient Zabolestan and Touran, located in present Afghanistan.

Anvari is a great Iranian poet whose poetry has influenced both his contemporary and subsequent poets. His divan has been published several times in Iran and India. The two recensions made in Iran have received widespread public acceptance. It was first Saeed Nafisi who gathered Anvari’s poems and later Mohammad Taghi Modarres Razavi corrected his divan. However, both editions reveal some errors so much so that a more comprehensive and meticulous recension seems to be inevitable. While emphasizing the necessity of a critical correction of Anvari’s divan, the present study also introduces an old copy dating back to 680 A.H. which was found in the library of Iranian Consultative Assembly. This copy, ignored by the two mentioned scholars, includes two qazals, 6 qit’ehs and 84 newly-found ruba''is which were missing from the previous editions of Anvari’s divan.

Mohammad ebn-e Mobarak Shah Ghazvini (d. 996), known as Hakim Shah, was a sage, orator, philosopher and well-practiced physician in the Ottoman court. He enjoyed the apprenticeship of great masters namely Jalaloddin Davani and Sadroddin Dashtaki. Due to his mastery of Persian, Arabic and Turkish and because of his access to ancient books, he has managed to write books on a variety of sciences. One of these books is called Javahernameh or Ma’refat al- Javaher which deals with describing the nature, attributes, types, mines, defects and preservation methods of jewels as well as some stones. Prior to the tenth century A.H., numerous other works on jewels had been compiled in the Islamic world. However, Ghazvini’s work shows some features which distinguish it from the works preceding and following it. One of these features is the variety of the jewels and stones introduced in addition to the large number of the types referred to in this book. Another feature of this book is its prose style. An investigation into the style of this book reveals that despite its author’s distance from the center of the Persian language and thanks to his poetic nature and literary taste as well as his mastery of the works of great authors in different areas of knowledge preceding him, his book is free from many lexical and syntactic errors and is also devoid of the prevalent sophistication of the time. Adopting the simplicity and brevity necessary for a scientific text, this book has well been able to communicate its message to the readers.

The story of "Yazdgerd Shahriar" in the Shahnameh refers to a kind of camphor named "Kafour-e Manthur" whose records vary in the Shahnameh manuscripts and printed editions. Considering the cultural background of the story, this kind of camphor has first been traced in Islamic and Arabic texts and then, using the information derived from geographic and medical texts, "Kafour-e Fansur" has been suggested as a more likely record.

Bostan ol-Arefin va Tohfat ol-Moridin is one of the mystical prose texts of the Khorasan area in the fifth century A.H. Among the many Persian literary texts, it is considered as a precious ancient source for many of the anecdotes, miracles and sayings of the Sufis. Furthermore, the linguistic features of this book such as numerous special vocabularies, stylistic aspects and prose similar to the spoken language of the fifth century are among the other values of this book. Bostan ol-Arefin va Tohfat ol-Moridin, Montakhab-e Ronaq ol-Majalis and the attachments whose second edition has recently been released was published by Dr. Ahmad Ali Rajai Bukharaee in 1354 S (1975). In this article the author is going to investigate this printed text by using the known and accessible manuscripts of Bostan ol-Arefin and other ancient sources to point to numerous errors in the text calling for a new recension.

Chin-nameh has been edited and annotated recently. There are many Persian words in this book which have undergone semantic transformation in Hindi. Without knowing their new meanings, one can hardly, if ever, understand the text. As there is no dictionary defining such words, the researcher is obliged to refer to other sources for correction and annotation to find the words here and there. The present study has tried to single out, categorize and define such terms. Dealing with these words help us study, investigate, annotate and edit the work more effectively. It can also be of great help in the process of selection and recension of the original manuscript.