Iranian Studies
Year:2020 | Volume:9 | Issue:2|Papers Count:12

Onomastics, a branch of historical linguistics, is of great significance for historical, historico-geographical, and anthropological studies. In the field of ancient Iranian studies, onomastics serves as a means to respond to a broad range of questions. For example, study of Median history and culture, suffering a lack of written evidence in Median language, has always been dependent on onomastic data recorded in non-Median sources. The present article focuses on the etymology of Ἁ ρ μ α μ ί θ ρ η ς , an originally Median personal name attested in the list of Assyrian kings by Ctesias of Cnidus, and attempts at explaining the presence of a Median name in that context, that may lead to a better understanding of the narrative history of Assyria and Media in ancient time.

In the formulaic phrase aivam parū vnā m xš ā yaθ iyam, which is repeated in the beginning of a number of inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings, all scholars have supposed aivam as a numeral pre-modifier and translated the phrase as “ one king of manyˮ . However, exact examination of the syntagmatic relationship of parts of this phrase and its comparison with the phrases such as haya Dā rayava um xš ā yaθ iyam akunauš “ who made Darius kingˮ , explicitly indicates that in the above-mentioned formulaic phrase, the verb, i. e. akunauš , has been deleted; in other words, the structure of the phrase was originally as aivam parū vnā m xš ā yaθ iyam (akunauš ). The present article deals with defining the syntactic role of aivam and xš ā yaθ iyam and justifying the syntactic role of paruvnā m. It has been also attempted to show by citing evidence from Avestan and Old Persian texts that, contrary to the common notion, aivam is not a numeral pre-modifier but it is an unspecified adjective which has been used as direct object of the factitive verb (i. e. akunauš ), and the xš ā yaθ iyam is its predicate, so the phrase can be safely translated as “ who made one (person), king of manyˮ .

Private inscriptions are an important part of corpus of Sassanid inscriptions that lasted until the first centuries AH. An important part of these inscriptions are the funerary inscriptions that contain important information about the burial ceremony in the late Sassanid and early Islamic era in Iran. The majority of these inscriptions have been found in Fars, then in Yasuj, Xian China (China) and Istanbul. Some of these inscriptions are dated and have a definite temporal assignment. One of these important inscriptions is the Eqlid inscriptions, dating to the late Sassanid period, and contains important information about two important titles and burial diversity in the late Sassanian era. This inscription is the last dated inscription before the fall of the Sasanian dynasty: the day Xwar (11 ) of the month Ā bā n of the year 6 of Yazdgerd III (February 638 AD).

Among the historical books written during the Mongol era, Tā rī kh-i Jahā ngushā (The History of The World Conqueror) by Aṭ ā Malek Joveynī and Jami‘ al-Tawā rikh (Compendium of Chronicles) by Rashid al-Din Hamadā ni stand out as superior to other books for a variety of reasons and are typically regarded as distinct and privileged sources. About five hundred years after the Mongol invasion over much of Asia, in nineteenth-century Europe, where philological researches were prevalent in the circles of orientalists, these two books were favored by some French scholars. The reason for such acceptance was that, on the one hand, they had not forgotten reminiscences of the relation between their kings and the Mongol rulers during the Crusades and, on the other hand, the narrative of Iranian historians about the Mongol invasion and conquest was interesting to them. Thus, based on the numerous manuscripts available at the Royal Library of Paris, they launched an extensive research on the content of these two books and their authors, and published the results of their studies, along with excerpts from the books and translations into French. The present article attempts to critically analyze these studies while introducing them. Familiarity with such research studies, if accompanied by consideration of the works done in recent decades, can provide a clear picture of the approaches of Western Orientalists in dealing with the historical texts of Iran and Islam in the last two centuries.

This article has sought to find an answer to the question of whether, as Walter Bruno Henning thought, Harzani is a variant of Taleshi language moved through the migration of Taleshi-speaking people to the region Harzan in Azerbaijan. Secondly, if there has been a migration to Harzan, which dialect of Taleshi language was the dialect of immigrants? In this article, 13 cases of phonological changes and lexical differences seen in our sources, namely the poems of Sheikh Safi al-din of Ardabil, the language variant of Harzani, three dialects of Taleshi, and Tati dialect spoken in Khalkhal, have been studied. The phonological rules of the Proto-Iranian language are our scale to determine the differences. The statistical results obtained lead us to a qualitative analysis that if we accept the anecdote of migration, the origins of these immigrants cannot be, as Henning said, somewhere in the southeastern part of Talesh. As an alternative, we propose here they probably belonged to the northwestern regions of Talesh.

There are some verbs in the early Persian texts in which instead of the normal verb endings, the enclitic personal pronouns are attached to the past stem; therefore they have been termed as ‘ pronoun-constructed’ verbs by researchers of Persian grammar. The main usage of these verbs are optative or conditional and there are reliable evidence of 2 person singular and plural and also 1 nd person plural. Although some suspicious evidence is available from other persons, one cannot be sure of their accuracy and relevance to these verbs. The only accepted explanation on the antecedent of these verbs is G. Lazard’ s view that the existence of the pronoun in these constructions is related to some of the ergative verbs in Middle Persian in which instead of a pronoun preceding the past stem, the enclitic pronoun is attached to it. In this paper first the weakness of this view will be shown and then it is proposed that the enclitic pronoun has been attached through a reanalysis of the of the first person singular verbal ending as the first person enclitic pronoun. Such a reanalysis has also examples in Sogdian.

Mā dayā n ī Hazā r Dā destā n or the Collection of Thousands of Judgments is a legal text, which has been written in the late Sassanid era, early 7th century AD. There are many themes and terms in this text that can help us to understand the legal rules of the pre-Islamic era as well as its terms. Among the juridical issues of this text are slavery, guardianship, warranty, partnership, marriage, divorce, and so on. The terms in this text are sometimes highly specialized and complex, indicating that it has been written for legal professionals. One of these terms is aziš mā nd. Various translations have been given since the beginning of translation of this text. The purpose of this article is to examine all the materials and judgments about aziš mā nd in order to answer the question what is the best translation and definition for the term and what topics are used and what laws are in place. Our study shows that it occurs in issues such as possession (property, slave, woman), theft, pledge, alteration of testimony, and so on. Whenever aziš mā nd occurs, the punishment was the fine, to take a pledge and etc.

In 1238-1243 AD, during the reign of Mohammad Vali Mirza in Yazd, the Zoroastrians were accused of blasphemy and infidelity. And finally, the Qajar prince asked them questions about the basis of religion and in this way, their religious legitimacy was proven and cleared of accusation. Mobed Khodabakhsh son of Forud, Dastur Kheikhosro son of Khodabakhsh and Herbed Jamasp were the ones who answered the questions. This important event led the Zoroastrian community to formulate and sustain these questions and answers. In 1207 Y., Herbed Khodabakhsh son of Herbed Jamasp Mubarake composed them in a treatise entitled Din Mas’ ala (Problem of The Religion). A manuscript of it, No. 358, is kept in the Manekji Collection of the Cama Library. This treatise was published in Mumbai in the year 1949 AD by the efforts of Soroush Azarmi son of Tirandaz. The defense and passive expression of Zoroastrian theology comprise a significant portion of Zoroastrian texts in Persian. This texts begin with the famous treatise of ‘ Ulama-ye Islam at late sixth century AH/ Y. The authors of the above texts are trying to introduce the Zoroastrian religion in a way as there is no difference between it and Islam. In this article, the concept of passive and defensive theology is discussed and introduced on the basis of the mentioned treatise.

We recognize Sā sā n V with the help of some lexicons and books. We know that he had translated and interpreted Dasā tī r, the book which is God revelation to Mahā bā d, from a “ Heaven Language” which was ununderstandable for everyone into Persian. The only evidence, by which we can recognize this Sā sā n in the history are Shahname and some historical books. As much as we know, in the books before 10th century AH there is no evidence of Dasā tī r and Mahā bā d and Sā sā n V. After revealing the name of Sā sā n V in Dasā tī r and the other books of Azarkayvani’ s school, we confront Sā sā n V as the translator of Dasā tī r in the lexicons and the other books which was written in India. For example, a view of him is described in the “ Sasan-e-Panjum” , by Naiyer Masud, the Indian author and researcher. In this article, Sā sā n V as the translator and interpreter of Dasā tī r is represented at first, and then his background in the literature and historical books before the 10th century AH is searched and the reflection of this personality in the late 4 centuries is studied.

Ayā dgā r ī Zarē rā n (Memorial of Zarē r) is a text that in its original version has been composed in Parthian language. This text has been amended and distorted in the process of transcription into the Middle Persian alphabet and language. This makes it difficult to read some of the words and sentences and scholars have taken different ways in reading them. In this paper, these readings are first reviewed and criticized, and then some new suggestions are put forward. The basis of these suggestions is the adaptation between Ayā dgā r ī Zarē rā n and Draxt ī Ā sū rī g (Assyrian tree), an originally Parthian text, and the evidence of the Parthian Manichaean texts. The reading of two passages from the New Persian texts written in Ray, Qumis, Gorgan, and Herat also provides some testimonies. In some phrases, some emendations have been made and in others we have been able to present a new reading by identifying a kind of elegy which is evidenced in the Parthian Manichean texts.