Showing papers in "Iran and the Caucasus in 2020"

Light, Time, Motion and Impulse in the Zoroastrian Pahlavi Texts

Abstract: The present investigation concerns the category of “Time” in its dialectical relation between a limitless eternity and the limited period of the direct antagonism with Ahreman’s forces. The eternal time being co-substantial with God is an ontological force a priori, which results determinant in the preventive fight against Ahreman, whose perception of time, on the contrary, seems to be absent, at least until he does not enter into the visual space of Ohrmazd. In particular, the article deals with the metaphysic development of the idea of time in the Zoroastrian theological tradition with special regard to the treatment of the relation between the beginning of the cosmic motion and the aggression of Ahreman, discussing some different, sometimes contradictory, doctrines attested in the sources. These alternative, sometimes antagonist, solutions reflect archaic Iranian traditions, but also the reception of new Western philosophical doctrines. The problem of the “visibility” of the limited time (in terms of its measurability) only after Ahreman’s invasion shows that the limited time in its mēnōg dimension had the same character of the eternal time, because it was perceived only by Ohrmazd, and despite that absence of any celestial motion, it was advancing as an abstract tempus mathematicus. The study also emphasizes the close relation among time, space and light as co-present in the divine ontology.

Two Passing Clouds: The Rainy Season of Mīrzā Bīdil and Amānat Rāy's Persian Version of Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.20

Abstract: This paper deals with a chapter of Amānat Rāy’s Persian verse translation of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, completed in Delhi in 1732-33, and a section of the Ṭūr-i maʿrifat by his poetic and philosophical mentor Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Qādir Bīdil (1644-1720), a mathnawī describing the monsoon in a hilly region of present day Rajasthan. The aim of our brief analysis is to introduce a debate on the poetics of physis in early modern Persian literary culture, in the context of a wider project on Bīdil and nature. Through a guided reading of the two authors’ description of the cloud (abr), its interactions with the Sanskritic literary practices and conventions, and the diverse intertextual ties, we show how the connected analogical and metaphorical procedures employed create two complementary ways of dealing with the phenomenology of (natural) existence.

Archaeological Evidence for Persian Elites in the Fifth Century B.C.

Abstract: An analysis of a group of the administrative texts from the Persepolis Fortification Archive gives the impression that the Fahliyān region in northwestern Fārs was probably the heart of the territory in which the Patischorian tribe and Gobryas family were centered in the Achaemenid period. This article attempts to examine hypothetically the connection between archaeological remains discovered in the Fahliyān region with the Patischorian tribe. Above all, the monumental building excavated in Jenjān and the well-known rockcut tomb of Dā-u Dokhtar might have been a tribal seat and a tomb of Gobryas respectively. An argument on the possible connection between the seals used on the so-called Gobryas texts and the Gobryas family is also of especial significance with the interesting result that the stamp was a favorable type-seal for this family. Both of this evidence seems to suggest the Elamite and Greek personal trends of Gobryas, a fact inherited in his role in the political events of the age.

Evidentiality in the Rikvani Dialect of Andi

Abstract: This paper presents a description of evidentiality marking in the Rikvani dialect of Andi. As a language spoken in the Caucasus, Andi is situated in the center of a large area within Eurasia where evidentiality is frequently expressed with a perfect or resultative form of the verb (general indirective), and special particles marking hearsay (and sometimes also inference). Both are attested in Andi and form independent evidential paradigms. I will explore the way these forms are used in natural texts and elicitation and how they interact with each other. An important issue is to what extent evidentiality can be considered grammaticalized as part of the verbal paradigm in Andi. I will compare my observations on Andi to the systems found in other East Caucasian languages.

What is the Bundahišn?: Genre and Zoroastrian Literature

Abstract: The Bundahišn (meaning primal or primordial creation) is one of the most important Zoroastrian texts. Redacted in the 9th century, though containing earlier, Sasanian material, the Bundahišn deals with a wide variety of topics ranging from spiritual and material creation to the resurrection of the body and the restoration of the world. This article will address a number of previously underexplored scholarly questions: What type of text does the Bundahišn constitute? To which genre does it belong? How does it relate to the literary context of its own era? In the attempt to answer these questions, the article will compare this Zoroastrian book with two contemporary Islamic and Jewish texts: the Epistles of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ and Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer.