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VAEΘĀ

MAHNAZ MOAZAMI a short Avestan text with Pahlavi translation; each Avestan sentence is followed by its Pahlavi translation and sometimes with additional explanatory glosses.

VAḤŠI BĀFQI

PAUL LOSENSKY

, Kamāl-al-Din (or Šams-al-Din Moḥammad), Persian poet of the Safavid period (b. Bāfq, ca. 1532; d. Yazd, 1583).

VANDEN BERGHE, LOUIS

ERNIE HAERINCK

(1923-1993), Belgian archeologist who devoted almost all his research to Iran’s history.

VATATZES, VASILIOS

EVANGELOS VENETIS

Greek scholar, merchant, traveler, pioneer explorer, and diplomat.

VĀYU

WILLIAM W. MALANDRA

“Wind, Atmosphere, Space,” name of a deity and the natural phenomenon.

VAZIRI, ʿALI-NAQI

HORMOZ FARHAT

(b. Tehran, 1887; d., Tehran, 9 September 1979), composer, virtuoso tār player, musical theorist, and educator.

VENDĪDĀD

MULTIPLE AUTHORS the common name given to the Avestan text widaēwa-dāta-, Pahl. jud-dēw-dād “The Law repudiating the Demons.”

VENDĪDĀD I. SURVEY OF THE HISTORY AND CONTENTS OF THE TEXT

WILLIAM W. MALANDRA

Of the three major divisions of the 21 Nasks of the Sasanian Avesta, the Vendīdād was the last of those called dādīg “dealing with law,” and 19th overall. The summary of its contents given in the 9th-century Dēnkard accords closely with the extent of the received text. This Article Has Images/Tables.

VENDIDAD II. TRANSMISSION OF THE VĪDĒVDĀD IN INDIA

ALBERTO CANTERA

The number of Pahlavi Vīdēvdād (PV) manuscripts that have been copied is quite high, but their distribution in time is irregular. Among these manuscripts, we have noticed that only a few are dated for certain before the 18th century.

VETCH

CROSS-REFERENCE

See ʿADAS.

VETERINARY MEDICINE

CROSS-REFERENCE

See DĀM-PEZEŠKĪ.

VIOLET

CROSS-REFERENCE

See BANAFŠA.

VIOLLET, HENRY

NADER NASIRI-MOGHADDAM

(b. Paris, 1880; d. Paris, 1955), French archeologist and architect.

VIS O RĀMIN

DICK DAVIS an 11th-century verse romance by Faḵr al-Din Asʿad Gorgāni (s.v. Gorgāni).

VISPERAD

WILLIAM W. MALANDRA name of a lengthy Avestan text divided into 24 chapters; the name derives from Av. vīspe ratawō meaning “all the ratus.”

VISRAMIANI

JEMSHID GIUNASHVILI title of the Georgian translation of the Vis o Rāmin, a versified romance by Persian poet Faḵr-al-Din Asʿad Gorgāni.

V~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CROSS-REFERENCE list of all the figure and plate images in the V entries

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VAEΘĀ a short Avestan text with Pahlavi translation; each Avestan sentence is followed by its Pahlavi translation and sometimes with additional explanatory glosses.

VAEΘĀ, a short Avestan text with Pahlavi translation; each Avestan sentence is followed by its Pahlavi translation and sometimes with additional explanatory glosses. Vaeθā took its name from the first words of the text: vaeθā daēniiå māzdaiiasnōiš ahurahē mazda mraōt̰ “the knowledge of the Mazdayasnian religion, Ahura Mazdā said.” The text represents a fragment of the Nikātom Nask (one of the dādīg “law-related” nasks; for a list of the nasks, see AVESTA, Table 1), according to a note in Persian, in manuscript B, used by James Darmesteter (1886, p. 183) and also in ms. F8bis (Humbach and Jamaspasa, pp. 12, 58).

The text has the following sections: questions on religious conduct and disposal of the dead; parallels to some quotations found in Frahang ī ōīm; questions regarding intercourse between a Zoroastrian man and a non-Zoroastrian woman, children born from that relation, and the question of their inheritance; supplementary note on atonement and repentance; a collection of incomplete Avestan quotations from the Pahlavi Vidēvdād; supplementary quotations taken from the Avestan Vidēvdād; rituals pertaining to the fourth day; conversion to Zoroastrian religion from other faiths; the five watches (gāh) of the day; the formula/prayers recited before and after passing urine.

Vaeθā is preserved in two principal manuscripts from the nineteenth century, one of which has an interlinear Persian translation. (See list of all manuscripts in Humbach and Jamaspasa, eds., 1969, pp. 11-16.) These were found at Navsari by Martin Haug, who undertook a tour in Gujarat between 1863 and 1864 and examined several of the Parsi libraries; one manuscript is in Avestan, and the other is in Avestan with Pahlavi translation (Haug, 1878, p. 46). When Darmesteter was in India, Dastur Peshotan Sanjana brought to his attention the existence of Vaeθā (Kotwal, 1966, Preface, p. i), and he published a portion of it (Darmesteter, 1886).

Another portion of the text is preserved in a nineteenth-century manuscript in the Munich State Library—one of those collected by Haug (M35 in Geldner, 1896a, p. x). The Vaeθā fragment that it contains was identified by Karl Geldner as related to, but not identical with, Darmesteter’s text; Geldner made note of the text in his other 1896 review of manuscripts (1896b, p. 9, with n. 8).

Edgard Blochet made a copy of the whole text for Darmesteter from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (ms. Supplément Persan 1216; Blochet, 1900b, pp. 68 ff.; see Kotwal, 1966, Preface, p. ii; Humbach and Jamaspasa, 1969, p. 12). He studied and translated into French, but did not edit, the entire text of Vaeθā (Blochet, 1900). Christian Bartholomae in a 1901 article transcribed the Munich fragment and its heading (which contains the attribution “nask” applied to the text), noted correspondence with part of Blochet’s translation, and briefly discussed points of script and word formation. He subsequently cited the fragment in his 1904 Altiranisches Wörterbuch as Fragment Bartholomae (FrB; AirWb., p. xxvi).

At that time the text was treated as an authentic fragment. All eight manuscripts of the text (E20, F3, F8, F54, F55, T34, T38, T64) held at the Meherji-Rana Library at Navsari were attributed to the nineteenth century based on a dated colophon or on general evidence.

Later, B. N. Dhabhar described the text as “a modern production written in very incorrect Avesta and with equally incorrect Pahlavi” (1923, p. 147). F. M. Kotwal, after the examination of the Navsari manuscripts, came to the conclusion that the work as a whole was a nineteenth-century forgery; and he sent a handwritten copy of it to W. B. Henning, who concurred with his opinion (Kotwal, 1966, Preface, p. iii, n. 10). Kotwal then edited the text of Vaeθā from the eight Navsari manuscripts and published it (Bombay, 1966).

However, in the view of Helmut Humbach and Kaikhusroo M. Jamaspasa (1969, p. 16), who published a new edition of the text, the origins of Vaeθā might reach back beyond the eighteenth century. Humbach and Jamaspasa collated many more manuscripts, which were not available to Kotwal, and based their edition on the two undated manuscripts T38 and F54. In their edition, the Avestan and Pahlavi versions appear in transcription, with a facsimile of manuscript T38 at the back of the book.

Bibliography:

C. Bartholomae, “Arica XIV,” Indogermanische Forschungen 12, 1901, pp. 92-150, sec. “92. Ein Vaeθā-Fragment,” pp. 101-2.

Idem, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strassburg, 1904.

E. Blochet, “Le Vaētha. Fragment inédit de l’Avesta avec commentaire pehlvi. Traduction française annotée,” Revue de linguistique et de philologie comparée 33, 1900a, pp. 87-99, 187- 97.

Idem, Catalogue des manuscrits mazdéens (zends, pehlvis, parsis et persans) de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Besançon, 1900b.

J. Darmesteter, “Une page Zende inédite,” JA, 8ème Série, 8, 1886, pp. 182-86.

B. N. Dhabhar, The K. R. Cama Institute Catalogue, Part II, Classified Catalogue of Printed Books and Manuscripts, with Supplement and Indexes, Bombay, 1923. Idem, Descriptive Catalogue of all Manuscripts in the First Dastur Meherji Rana Library (Navsari), Bombay, 1923.

K. F. Geldner, ed., Avesta. The Sacred Books of the Parsis I, Stuttgart, 1896a.

Idem, “Awestalitteratur,” in Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, Fasc. II/1, Strassburg, 1896b, pp. 1-53.

M. Haug, Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings and Religion of the Parsis, 2nd edition, edited and enlarged by E. W. West, London, 1878 (3rd ed., 1884; 4th ed., 1907).

H. Humbach and K. M. Jamaspasa, trs., Vaeθā Nask; An Apocryphal Text on Zoroastrian Problems, Wiesbaden, 1969 (reviewed by P. Khoroche, BSOAS 35/1, 1972, p. 200).

F. M. Kotwal, Editio Princeps of the Vaeθā with Transcription of the Pahlavi Version, Bombay, 1966 (reviewed by M. Boyce, BSOAS 30/3, 1967, pp. 698-99).

(Mahnaz Moazami)

Originally Published: December 8, 2014

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VAḤŠI BĀFQI , Kamāl-al-Din (or Šams-al-Din Moḥammad), Persian poet of the Safavid period (b. Bāfq, ca. 1532; d. Yazd, 1583).

VAḤŠI BĀFQI, Kamāl-al-Din (or Šams-al-Din Moḥammad), Persian poet of the Safavid period (b. Bāfq, ca. 1532; d. Yazd, 1583). Vaḥši was born in the agricultural town of Bāfq, southeast of Yazd, where he received his earliest training in poetry from his elder brother Morādi and the local literary luminary Šaraf-al- Din ʿAli of Bāfq. He continued his education in the provincial capital of Yazd before moving to Kashan, the great center of literary activity in the early Safavid period. He was working here as a schoolteacher when his poetry first attracted the attention of the regional governor. Vaḥši seems to have been welcomed on the scene by many local poets who were tired of the laurels showered on Moḥtašam of Kashan, and he quickly became embroiled in the bouts of poetic flyting that were a prominent feature of literary culture of the time, exchanging invectives with rivals ,such as Fahmi of Kashan and Ḡażanfar of Koranjār. His panegyrics (qaṣidas) in honor of shah Ṭahmāsp I probably also date from this stage of his career. From Kashan, he traveled to other cities of western Iran such as Arāk and Jārun (Bandar ʿAbbās) before making his way back to Yazd.

Vaḥši was free of the wanderlust that would possess Persian poets over the next fifty years, and he spent the remainder of his life in Yazd and the nearby palace-town of Taft. Although he sometimes complains of his poverty, he seems to have enjoyed a fairly prominent position as the foremost poet at the court of the hereditary rulers of the region, Ḡiyāṯ-al-Din Mir (-e) Mirān and his son Ḵalil-Allāh, who were descendants of the Sufi shaikh Shah Neʿmat-Allāh Wali and in-laws of the Safavid royal house. Vaḥši also dedicated praise poems to the governors of Kerman (in particular Bektāš Beyg Afšār) and wrote two short chronograms on the enthronement of Esmāʿil II. Vaḥši seems to have been retiring by nature, and there is no evidence that he ever married. According to his eventual literary executor, Awḥadi of Balyān, Vaḥši died of a strong dose of drink in Yazd in 1583 at the age of 52. He was buried in this city, although tombs built in his honor have regularly fallen victim to political upheaval.

Awḥadi gathered some 9,000 verses of Vaḥši’s poetry after his death, and this divan contains poems in all the classical genres. Vaḥši’s qaṣidas include not only panegyrics to the patrons mentioned above, but also several devotional poems in honor of the Shiʿite Imams. The qeṭʿa genre served Vaḥši primarily as a vehicle for panegyric and other occasional themes. Invective, praise, and architectural description also provide the topics for some ten short, untitled poems in rhymed couplets. But it is in the various strophic forms, the ghazal (ḡazal), and his longer maṯnawis (poems in couplet form), that Vaḥši most distinguishes himself. His sole tarjiʿ-band (stanzaic poem with a refrain) is an extended celebration of mystical intoxication with the full-verse refrain: mā guša-nešinān-e ḵarābāt-e alastim / tā bu-ye meyi hast dar in meykada mastim, "We are recluses in the primordial tavern / while there’s even a scent of wine in this wine-shop, we are drunk." This poem was quoted in full by Faḵr- al-Zamāni in his Taḏkera-ye Meyḵāna and set an important precedent in the new genre of the sāqi-nāma (wine server’s song), which was followed by many later poets (see Ṣafā, Tāriḵ-e adabiyāt, V/1, pp. 620-21). Like Naẓiri of Nishapur a few years later, Vaḥši used the stanzaic poems (tarkib-band) effectively as a medium for personal eulogy in poems lamenting the death of his brother, his teacher Šaraf-al-Din ʿAli, and his student Qāsem Beyg Qesmi Afšār. In the mosammat partially translated by Browne (Lit. Hist. Persia IV, pp. 238-40; Divān, ed. Naḵāʾi, pp. 293-95), the five-line strophes take on a ballad-like quality, as the speaker tells how his attentions to a young and inexperienced male lover eventually emboldened him to seek out lovers on his own.

This poem ends with the speaker washing his hands of the relationship, and such a note of confident willfulness is often found in Vaḥši’s ghazals as well. This attitude, so different from the long-suffering self-effacement typical of the classical lyric, came to be known as vā-suḵt, the rejection or repudiation of the beloved: čo didam ḵᵛār ḵod-rā az dar-e ān bivafā raftam / rasad ruzi ke qadr-e man bedānad ḥāliyā raftam, "When I saw myself humiliated, I left that faithless lover / a day will come when he or she may recognize my worth, but for now I’m gone"(Divān, ed. Naḵāʾi, p. 132). Vā-suḵt is one dimension of the larger movement of the maktab-e woquʿ, "the realist school," which was much in vogue in 16th-century Persia. It examined anew the amatory origins of the ghazal and reduced the idealization of the beloved in the interest of depicting the full range of the psychological negotiations of mundane love. In other lyrics, however, Vaḥši’s lamentations have a quality of passionate yearning and despair that is reminiscent of Bābā Fāḡāni (d. 1519), with whom he has often been linked by contemporary and later critics. In any case, the emotionalism of Vaḥši’s lyricism left little room for the philosophical or ethical themes that figure so prominently elsewhere in the ghazal tradition.

Such themes, however, do appear in the shortest of Vaḥši’s titled maṯnawis, Ḵold-e barin ("The highest heaven"). This poem follows the structure and meter of Neẓāmi’s Maḵzan al-asrār and, at less than 600 verses, may be unfinished. Vaḥši also wrote two narrative romances in rhymed couplets. Nāẓer o Manẓur tells the tale of the passionate relationship of the prince of China, Manẓur, with the son of the king’s vizier, Nāẓer. To avoid scandal, the vizier packs his son off to Egypt when his ardor for Manẓur causes him to misbehave in school. When Nāẓer reveals his secret love in a letter, however, Prince Manẓur set off in pursuit, and after many adventures and exploits, the two are reunited in Egypt, where Manẓur marries the princess of the country, becomes king, and appoints Nāẓer as his prime minister. Some 1,500 verses long and completed in 1588-89, this poem has received little critical attention, but offers an ingenious re-combination of older motifs, and its story of the mutual, platonic passion of two men is somewhat unusual in the tradition of Persian narrative romance.

Like Nāẓer o Manẓur, Vaḥši’s Farhād o Širin is also written in the meter of Neẓāmi’s Ḵosrow o Širin, but draws more directly on its model for its narrative material. Vaḥši focuses on one episode of Neẓāmi’s story—the tragic affair between the sculptor, engineer, and architect Farhād Kuhkan (Mountain-Cutter) and the Armenian princess Širin. Although the work was left unfinished at the time of Vaḥši’s death, with the introduction and barely 500 verses of the story completed, Farhād o Širin has been recognized as the poet’s masterpiece from the time of its first appearance until today. Nearly a hundred manuscripts of the work have been catalogued around the world. In a systematic comparison of Neẓāmi’s and Vaḥši’s treatment of Farhād, Parviz Ḵānlari has argued that Vaḥši elevated the character into a symbol of the proud, strong-minded artist whose life and work are driven by the same creative passion. At the beginning of the tale, Vaḥši famously identifies his own experience explicitly with that of his hero: man-am Farhād o Širin ān šekar-ḵand / k-az-ān čon kuhkan jān bāyad-am kand, "I am Farhad, and that sweetly smiling girl, Shirin / for whom I, like the Mountain-Cutter, must chip away my life"(Divān, ed. Naḵāʾi, p. 520). Two poets of Shiraz, Weṣāl and Ṣāber, took on the task of completing Vaḥši’s poem in the 19th century.

Unlike other poets of the Safavid period, Vaḥši has enjoyed a consistently positive critical reception from his own day to the present. His poetry has little of the allusive or metaphorical complexity found in either his model Neẓāmi or in the “fresh style” poets of the following generations. Perhaps the greatest master of the plain style of the maktab-e woqu ʿ,Vaḥši’s artistry lies in his ability to turn the rhythms and language of everyday speech into a precise and elegant medium for capturing a wide range of emotions from a bitter sense of betrayal to helpless yearning. In this regard, Vaḥši’s style, like that of his great predecessor Saʿdi, has been described as sahl o momtaneʿ -a style whose apparent simplicity belies an inimitable and almost translucent immediacy.

Bibliography:

For listings of the manuscripts of Vaḥši’s works, see Monzawi, Nosḵahā, III, pp. 2597-8 (Divān), 1898 (Kolliyāt); IV, pp. 2800 (Ḵold-e barin), 3023-27 (Farhād o Širin), and 3260 (Nāẓer o Manẓur). For the many lithograph and early print editions, see Mošār, Fehrest, I, cols. 1274-75 (Ḵold-e barin), cols. 1566, 1592-3 (Divān); and II, col. 2413 (Farhād o Širin). There has recently been a spate of new editions of Vaḥši’s collected works: Tehran, 1983 (ed. Moḥammad ʿAbbāsi); Tehran, 1984 (ed. Neʿmat Aḥmadi); Tehran, 1994 (ed. Parviz Bābāʾi); Tehran, 1995 (ed. Ḥasan Moḵāber); Tehran, 1995 (ed. Moḥammad Ḥasan Sayyedān). However, these editions lack editorial annotation, and Divān-e Vaḥši-ye Bāfqi, ed. Ḥoseyn Naḵāʿi, Tehran, 1960, remains the most fully documented text of the poet’s works; its introduction also provides the most complete study of the poet’s life. This edition should be supplemented with Oways Sālek Ṣadiqi, “Ašʿār-e čāp našoda-ye Vaḥši,” MDAT 18, 1971, pp. 105- 16. A useful selection of Vaḥši’s poetry with explanatory notes and a survey of the poet’s critical reception has been prepared by Ḥoseyn Maserrat (Gozida-ye ašʿār-e Vaḥši-e Bāfqi, Tehran, 1999). The oldest taḏkera sources are published in Meyḵāna, pp. 181-4 and Golčin-e Maʿāni, pp. 616-18; others are listed in Ṣafā, V/2, p. 761.

See also:

Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia, IV, pp. 238-40.

Aḥmad Golčin-e Maʿāni, Maktab-e woquʿ dar šeʿr-e Fārsi, 2nd ed., Mashhad, 1995, pp. 616-32 and passim.

Parviz Nātel-Ḵānlari (pseudonym: P. Māziār), "Farhād-e Neẓāmi wa Farhād-e Vaḥši,” Soḵan 3, 1946, pp. 214-21; reprinted with the title “Yek moqāyesa-ye adabi: Farhād-e Neẓāmi wa Farhād-e Vaḥši,” in idem, Haftād Soḵan: III – Az guša wa kenār-e adabiyāt fārsi, Tehran, 1990, pp. 166-75.

Moḥammad-ʿAli Ḵazānadārlu, Manẓumahā-ye fārsi-e qarn-e 9 tā 12, Tehran, 1996, pp. 603-7.

Paul Losensky, "Waḥshī Bāfḳī,” EI2, XI, 2000, p. 53.

Meyḵāna, ed. Golčin-e Maʿāni, pp. 181-97.

Saʿid Nafisi, “Zendagi-ye Vaḥši,” introduction to Divān-e Vaḥši, Tehran, 1956.

Rypka, Hist. Iran. Lit., p. 297-8. Ṣafā, Tāriḵ-e adabiyāt V/2, pp. 760-77.

Aḥmad Tamimʾdāri, ʿErfān va adab dar ʿaṣr-e Ṣafavi, 2 vols., Tehran, 1994, I, pp. 172-215, 404-17.

Rašid Yāsami, “Vaḥši-ye Bāfqi,” Āyanda 1, 1925, pp. 186-90, 257- 65, 346-50, 424-28, 539-43.

(Paul Losensky)

Originally Published: July 20, 2004

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VANDEN BERGHE, Louis

(1923-1993), Belgian archeologist who devoted almost all his research to Iran’s history.

VANDEN BERGHE, Louis (b. Oostnieuwkerke, West Flanders, 24 December 1923; d. Ghent, 17 September 1993), Belgian archeologist (with Flemish as his mother-tongue) who devoted almost all his research to Iran’s history (FIGURE 1). After his classical studies at Roeselare College in West Flanders, he went on to study history of art and archeology at the Hoger Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, sectie Oudheid at Ghent University (1944-48), where he obtained his licentie (equivalent to the M.A.). While studying at Ghent, he also took courses at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where after two years of study he obtained the degree of “candidate” in Oriental Philology and History. In 1949 and 1950, he studied Akkadian, Arabic, and Oriental archeology at the Universities of Amsterdam and Leiden in the Netherlands. In 1950, he obtained his doctorate from Ghent University, receiving the highest distinction and felicitations of the jury for his dissertation on “Painted pottery in Mesopotamia, Iran, and Pakistan from its origins to ca. 2000 B.C.E.,” written in Flemish (878 pp., with more than 8,000 drawings and photographs). Subsequently, part of this work was published, with a French summary, in three issues of the Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis (14-16, 1953- 56), the former journal of the Higher Institute for History of Art and Archeology at Ghent University.

In 1951 he was appointed as research fellow at the Belgian National Science Foundation, and in the same year he also became the assistant of Professor Louis Speleers, who taught Egyptian and Near Eastern Art and Archeology at Ghent. In 1953, on Speleers’ retirement, Vanden Berghe was appointed as “full time chargé de cours”; in 1957 he was nominated Professor, and in 1965 he obtained the highest grade as “Ordinarius” of the Chair for Near Eastern Art and Archeology. He had quite a heavy teaching load, particularly from 1958 onwards, when the Institute for Oriental Philology and History was established at Ghent. He was co-founder of that institute and was also its first secretary. Later, between 1960 and 1963, he was its director. In 1971, he created a separate unit, “Archeology and History of the Near East,” within the Institute for History of Art and Archeology. Besides his appointments as Professor at Ghent and Brussels, he was also appointed curator in 1966 of the Iran Section at the Royal Museums for Art and History in Brussels.

During his whole career of 36 years, until he had to retire at the age of 65 on 1 October 1989, in keeping with the university regulations, he taught courses on Near Eastern and Egyptian art and archeology, Islamic art, history and culture of ancient Oriental civilizations, and introduction to Persian. Although he taught a general course on Near Eastern Archeology for undergraduates, he concentrated his teaching in the two “license” years exclusively on Iran. During his career, students wrote some 90 M.A. theses and 5 Ph.D. dissertations under his supervision, mainly on Iranian topics. As well as his main appointment at Ghent University, from 1958 he also taught on a part-time basis at the Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where he took care of the courses on the history of ancient Iran and the history of art and archeology of ancient Iran. After obtaining his doctorate in 1950, he immediately went to Iran, where he spent the academic year 1950-51. He was the first Belgian student to be granted a research scholarship by the Iranian Government. This trip was his first contact with the Near East, and at the same time it gave a determining direction to his research. From then onwards he concentrated almost all his research on Iran.

During Vanden Berghe’s stay in Iran, André Godard, then director general of the Iranian Archaeological Department, asked him to undertake an archeological survey of the Persepolis plain. In summer 1951, for one and a half months he traveled alone through the southern part of the Marv Dašt plain and undertook small soundings at Tall-e Jāri, Tall-e Moški, and Tall-e Čogā. In the summer of 1952 he returned to Fārs and surveyed the northern parts (second survey). Some soundings were done at Tall-e Qalʿa, Tall-e Kamin, and several other sites. These two surveys allowed him to sketch a chronological chart of prehistoric development in Fārs province. The difficulties of his task were considerable, since he was alone with almost no resources or technical help, and he usually had to travel by bicycle or mule. However, the pottery sequence he established still largely holds. At the same time he not only located unknown prehistoric cultures, but also discovered several other monuments such as ossuaries or short inscriptions in Pahlavi.

Since he was appointed at Ghent in 1953 and necessarily had to prepare his courses, he only returned to Iran in the winter of 1954, where he undertook some excavations from 26 November to 5 December at Ḵorvin, approximately 80 km northwest of Tehran. Due to bad weather and snow, he only excavated 14 tombs of the Early Iron Age. The third Fārs survey was conducted in the winter of 1955-56, with excavations at Tall-e Teymurān, Tall-e Kamin, and Tall-e Qalʿa. During the fourth Fārs survey (18 May-19 June 1957), Vanden Berghe visited the rock carving at Guyum, which had been discovered by Ernst Herzfeld in 1926. Undoubtedly, the most impressive result of this survey was the discovery of the fire temple of Tang-e Čak Čak, between Rostāq and Furg. Between 23 December 1959 and 24 February 1960, a fifth field trip was undertaken in southern Iran. Again, several Sasanian monuments were discovered. By following the ancient road between Firuzābād and Sirāf, the present-day Bandar-e Ṭāheri on the Persian Gulf coast, he discovered the impressive fire temple complex at Kunār Siāh, with well-preserved architecture (FIGURE 2). A sixth Fārs expedition (18 November 1960-17 January 1961) led to the discovery of four fire temples. However, the most sensational discovery of that season was the freestanding house-like tomb at Buzpar, which resembles the tomb of Cyrus II at Pasargadae, but is smaller in size. (This monument appeared on a Belgian postage stamp in 1971 on the occasion of the 2500-year Celebrations in Iran.) The seventh survey took Vanden Berghe back to Fārs and into eastern Ḵuzestān (29 July-1 October 1962). Again, important monuments and inscriptions were discovered. His stay at Malāmir proved particularly fruitful; he was the first to photograph the Elamite (see ELAM) and Elymaean rock carvings (particularly Hang-e Nowruzi) in that region. During the eighth campaign (14 May-30 August 1964) he traveled on mule through ancient Elymais, in the Baḵtiāri mountains. He visited and recorded all major rock carvings, and discovered two additional ones at Kuh-e Tinā and Kuh-e Ṭarāz. In sum, the eight surveys that he undertook, mainly in Fārs and eastern Ḵuzestān, produced major discoveries of early pottery assemblages, as well as monuments of later date. His publications of this research appeared in various journals (see Bibliography).

The Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels own a major collection of Bronzes of Luristan, which were acquired from 1928 onwards. The scholarly debate over the objects, and the difficulties in establishing a clear chronology of developments in the area of Luristan (Lorestān), undoubtedly prompted Vanden Berghe to embark on a determined search to obtain reliable data on “Luristan Culture.” The only way to do so was to mount an expedition to locate burial grounds and undertake large-scale excavations. The Belgian Ministry of Education provided the necessary funding, but it was only in 1965 that he was able to set out on his first excavations. He had previously made a trip to the Ḥolailān plain in 1959 (with Mme. Yolande Maleki, art collector and Belgian wife of the radiologist at the shah’s court), and witnessed clandestine excavations at Čašma Māhi; he had concluded that the whole of Luristan province was no longer worth excavating, and that no intact sites remained for exploration due to the massive plundering. Therefore, he decided to turn his attention to neighboring Pošt-e Kuh, Ilām province, which he considered as less touched by the devastating activities. No fewer than fifteen expeditions set out under the auspices of Ghent University and the Royal Museums for Art and History at Brussels. The teams he took to the field were limited in number, but generally comprised of one or two assistants, a photographer, and an architect. The difficulty of access to the region at that time obliged the teams to spend two to three months in the field, lacking conveniences and having little contact with the outside world. Transport on roads and tracks was by a gendarme with a four-wheel drive army vehicle allocated by the Iranian Government. Where no vehicle could pass, local mules and drivers were hired. The hired labor sometimes had to walk long distances to reach the excavation sites, and the excavation equipment was limited to the very basics. Although the circumstances were far from ideal, these excavations and soundings undoubtedly provided a wealth of information. Not only was a secure chronology established, but it also became clear that the vast region of the Pošt-e Kuh is far more complex than anticipated. It is evident, particularly by working over the excavation files, that certain areas remain underrepresented. Particularly the southern region of Ābdānān, and the more eastern and northern parts of Badr remain unknown for certain periods. Indeed, most of the excavation work was done in the areas of Aivān, Ilām, and western Badr. Vanden Berghe regularly published preliminary results and some overview articles, particularly in the journal, Iranica Antiqua, and in the more general French monthly, Archeologia. His premature death in 1993 prevented him from producing final reports. However, his successor at Ghent University, Ernie Haerinck, and his former student, Bruno Overlaet, are in the process of producing the final excavation results. By 2004, five volumes had been published (see Bibliography: final reports), and another four to five volumes are needed to complete the work.

During his excavations in Pošt-e Kuh, sites of the Chalcolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages were researched, and 5,000 objects were registered and processed. Only a limited number of typical Luristan Bronzes were discovered in context, a fact which makes it likely that Pošt-e Kuh was situated on the southern edge of the distribution and production areas of these bronzes. However, bronze spiked axes, standards of ramping animals or of the “master of animals” type (FIGURE 3), whetstone handles, maces, and decorated vessels are among the recovered items which are rarely found during controlled excavations. Also the discovery of the Assyrian rock carving at Šekāft-e Golgol was a major result of the continuing efforts. In 1979, the Belgian Luristan Mission came to an end due to the political situation in Iran and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). In any case, deteriorating eyesight would have prevented Vanden Berghe from going on for much longer. Since then, fieldwork has not yet resumed. However, the results of the explorations in Pošt-e Kuh were presented to the larger public in an exhibition in Ghent in 1982, which later traveled to Munich and St. Petersburg.

Vanden Berghe published numerous articles and books on topics dealing with ancient Iran. His fundamental book, L’Archéologie de l’Iran ancien (Leiden, 1959, 2nd ed. 1966), has for years been the basic publication on pre-Islamic art and archeology, for students and scholars alike, as well as for a more general public. Published when Vanden Berghe was young, this book brought him esteem and recognition. Of course, the numerous excavations and other researches in the 1960s and 1970s necessitated a full revision of this monumental publication, and it has to be judged against the background of its time, when only limited research had been done. Vanden Berghe fully realized that it would be impossible to write a new book dealing with all the new information and a steadily rising number of publications. To deal with this problem, he published a Bibliographie analytique de l’archéologie de l’Iran Ancien (Leiden, 1979), followed in 1981 and 1987 by Supplément 1: 1978-1980 and Supplément 2: 1981-1985. This work is continued by E. Haerinck and K. G. Stevens: Supplement 3: 1986-1995, and Supplement 4: 1996-2003 (see Bibliography).

At a time when Iranian archeology was limited to fieldwork by only a few teams, he initiated, together with Roman Ghirshman, the international journal, Iranica Antiqua, in 1961. This leading journal on mainly pre-Islamic Iranian art, archeology and culture in general is still published today. Additionally, Louis Vanden Berghe published numerous articles on fire temples (an inventory of these monuments was published in Iranica Antiqua 19 in 1984), and on rock carvings, several of which he had discovered himself. In 1975, Vanden Berghe, Erik Smekens, photographer at Ghent University, and the author spent some four months in Iran, visiting and recording all rock carvings known at that time. This exploration, which brought us to remote places such as Shimbar (Šembār) or Tang-e Sarvāk, resulted in a 1983 exhibition in Brussels titled “Reliefs rupestres de l’Iran ancien”; it also traveled to Munich and Graz. In 1985, also as a result of our 1975 visit, he and Klaus Schippmann published the monograph Les reliefs rupestres d’Elymaïde (Iran) de l’ époque parthe. A short time before his death he took the initiative for the international exhibition “Splendeur des Sassanides. L’empire perse entre Rome et la Chine,” on display in 1993 in Brussels.

His work and dedication to Iran’s past brought Louis Vanden Berghe many honors. On 14 November 1959, he received the Sepās distinction by the Ministry of Education in Iran, and on 12 May 1960 he was made Officer of the Iranian Order of Homāyun. The University of Tehran awarded him an honorary doctorate on 12 September 1964. In 1963 he was elected a corresponding member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences, Literature and Fine Arts, becoming a full member in 1968, and its president in 1973. He was also an associated member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences from 1978 onwards. In addition, he was foreign member of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften from 1985, corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, full member of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut from 1962, Fellow of the Explorers Club (New York) from 1980, Honorary Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London from 1980, and from 1986 he was a corresponding member of the Istituto Italiano per il medio ed Estremo Oriente (Ismeo). In 1987 he received the Prix Ghirshman of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris, for his life’s work on Iranian archeology. He was also a member or on the board of several other learned societies such as the Foundation assyriologique Georges Dossin, Societas Iranologica Europaea, La Fondation egyptologique belge Reine Elizabeth, as well as a grantee of the Ancient Persia Fund (in memory of Vladimir Lukonin), London.

Bibliography:

Short reference: Phoenix = Phoenix, Bulletin uitgegeven door het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux.

Obituaries.

J. Curtis, “Obituary: Professor Louis Vanden Berghe,” Iran 32, 1994, pp. V-VI.

G. Gnoli, “Louis Vanden Berghe. 1923-1993,” East and West 43/1-4, 1993, pp. 317-20.

E. Haerinck, “Biographie du Professeur Louis Vanden Berghe,” in Archaeologia Iranica et Orientalis. Miscellanea in Honorem Louis Vanden Berghe, ed. L. De Meyer and E. Haerinck, Ghent, 1989, I, pp. XII-XLV. Idem, “In Memoriam Louis Vanden Berghe (1923-1993),” Iranica Antiqua 27, 1993, pp. VIII-XII.

B. Overlaet, “In memoriam Louis Vanden Berghe,” Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis/Bulletin des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire 64, 1993, pp. 349-51.

Works.

General publications:

“De stand van de archeologische onderzoekingen in Iran,” Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux 13, 1953-54, pp. 347-93. Archéologie de l’Iran Ancien, Documenta et Monumenta Orientis Antiqui, vol. 6, Leiden, 1959; 2nd ed., Leiden, 1966; tr., Bāstānšenāsi-ye Irān- eBāstān, Tehran, 1966; 2nd. ed., Tehran, 1968.

Oud-Iraanse Rotsreliefs/Reliefs rupestres de l’Iran ancien, Brussels, 1983 (with E. Haerinck and E. Smekens). Alt-Iranische Felsreliefs. Ausstellungskatalog des Grazer Stadtmuseums, Graz, 1985.

“Les scènes d’investiture sur les reliefs rupestres de l’Iran ancien: évolution et signification,” in G. Gnoli and L. Lanciotti, eds., Orientalia Iosephi Tucci Memoriae Dicata, Serie Orientale Roma LVI, 3, Rome, 1988, pp. 1511-31. Surveys and excavations, Fārs:

“Archeologische opzoekingen in de Marv Dasht vlakte (Iran),” Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux 12, 1951-52, pp. 211-20.

“Gozāreš-e gamānazani dar Marv Dašt,” in Gozārešhā-ye bāstānšenāsi, Tehran, 1952, pp. 129-39.

“Monuments récemment découverts en Iran méridional,” Bibliotheca Orientalis 10 1953, pp. 5-8.

“Archeologische navorsingen in de omstreken van Persepolis,” Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux 13, 1953-54, pp. 394-408.

“Reconnaissance archéologique dans le Fars méridional et au Laristan,” in Akten des XXIV. Orientalistenkongresses München 1957, Wiesbaden, 1959, pp. 485-88.

“Gozāreš-e gamānazani va kāvoš dar čand tappa-ye māqabl-e tāriḵ-e Marv Dašt-Ḵafrak-Tavābi va gurestān-e Ḵorvin,” Gozārešhā-ye bāstānšenāsi 4, 1960, pp. 279-331.

“Neuentdeckte archäologische Denkmäler in Süd-Iran,” ZDMG 111/2 (= Akten des XV. Deutschen Orientalistentages Göttingen, 1961), 1961, pp. 410-12. “Archeologische prospectietochten in onbekende gebieden van Zuid-Iran,” De Brug. Tijdschrift Universiteit Gent 6/1, 1962, pp. 9- 33.

“A la découverte des civilisations anciennes dans l’Iran méridional,” Annuaire des amitiés belgo-iraniennes 1, 1963, pp. 5-43.

Surveys and excavations, Ḵorvin:

“Opgravingen te Khorwin, één der oudste necropolen der iraniërs in Iran,” in Handelingen van het 21e Vlaamse Filologencongres, Leuven, 1955, pp. 117-21.

La nécropole de Khurvin, Publication de l’Institut historique et archéologique néerlandais de Stamboul 17, Istanbul, 1964.

“La découverte d’un château-fort du début de l’époque islamique à Puskan (Iran). Survivance d’éléments architecturaux sassanides,” Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 28 1989, pp. 1-85; sep. publ., as Iranica Antiqua. Supplément IV, Ghent, 1990.

Surveys and excavations, Pošt-e Kuh, Luristan, preliminary reports. (a) 1st and 2nd campaigns, 1965-66; excavations at Tappa Kalwali and Var Kabud:

“Belgische opgravingen in Luristan,” Phoenix 12/2, 1966, pp. 337-52.

“Le mystérieux Luristan livre ses secrets,” in Trésors de l’Iran Ancien, Geneva, 1966, pp. 29-32 (with Y. Maleki).

“Mission archéologique belge en Iran,” Iran. Revue publiée par la Mission du Gouvernement Impérial de l’Iran, auprès des communautés européennes (Brussels) 5, May-June 1966, 3 pp.

“La nécropole de War Kabud ou le déclin d’une civilisation du Bronze,” Archéologia 18, 1967, pp. 48-61.

Het archeologisch onderzoek naar de Bronscultuur van Luristan. Opgravingen in Pusht-i Kuh. I. Kalwali en War Kabud (1965 en 1966 (with French summary), Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren 30/4, Brussels, 1968.

(b) 3rd campaign 1967; excavations at Bani Surmah (Sorma) and surveys in the Čavār district:

“Belgische opgravingen en navorsingen in de Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan; 3e campagne: oktober 1967-januari 1968,” Phoenix 14/1, 1968, pp. 109-27.

“La nécropole de Bani Surmah. Aurore d’une civilisation du Bronze,” Archéologia 24, 1968, pp. 52-63.

“Bani Surmah,” Iran 7, 1969, pp. 170-71.

“Ban-e Sorma,” in EIr. III/6, 1988, pp. 664-65.

(c) 4th campaign, 1968; excavations at Kalleh Nisar (Kalla Neṣār) and Sar Kabud; surveys in the district of Ṣāleḥābād:

“Belgische opgravingen in Luristan. Opgravingen en navorsingen in de Pusht-i Kuh. 4e campagne: oktober 1968- januari 1969,” Phoenix 15/2, 1969, pp. 267-84.

“La nécropole de Kalleh Nisar,” Archéologia 32, 1970, pp. 64-73.

“Kalleh Nisar,” Iran 9, 1971, pp. 170-72.

“Excavations in Luristan. Kalleh Nisar,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 3, 1973, pp. 25-56.

“La glyptique de Kalleh Nisar, Pusht-i Kuh-Luristan,” Iranica Antiqua 29, 1994, pp. 9-45 (with A. Tourovets). (d) 5th campaign, 1969; surveys in the district of Badr at War Kabud Mihr (Var Kabud Mehr), War Pil Mihr (Var Pil Mehr), Tabl Khanah (Ṭabl Ḵāna), Dar Tanha (Dar Tanhā), Khush Qadam (Ḵuš Qadam), Shurabah (Šurāba):

“Belgische opgravingen in Luristan. Archaeologische navorsingen in de Pusht-i Kuh. 5e campagne september- december 1969,” Phoenix 16/2, 1970, pp. 351-66.

“Luristan. Prospections archéologiques dans la région de Badr,” Archéologia 36, 1970, pp. 10-21.

“Pusht-i Kuh Luristan: 1969,” Iran 9, 1971, pp. 175-76.

“Recherches archéologiques dans le Luristan. Cinquième campagne: 1969.

Prospections dans le Pusht-i Kuh central (rapport préliminaire),” Iranica Antiqua 9, 1972, pp. 1-48.

(e) 6th campaign, 1970; excavations at Bard-e Bal; surveys in the district of Ayvān at Darvand, Kazāb, Seh Pā, Imamzadeh Gilan Gharbi (Emāmzāda-ye Gilān-e Ḡarbi):

“La nécropole de Bard-i Bal au Luristan,” Archéologia, 43, 1971, pp. 14-23. “Recherches archéologiques dans le Pusht-i Kuh/Kavišhā-ye bāstānšenāsi dar Pošt-e Kuh-e Lorestān,” Bastan Chenassi va Honar-e Iran/Revue d’archéologie et d’arts iraniens (Tehran) 6, 1971, pp. 14-43.

“Belgische opgravingen en archeologische navorsingen in Pusht-i Kuh Luristan, 6e campagne: september-december 1970,” Phoenix 18/1-2, 1972, pp. 121-36.

“Recherches archéologiques dans le Luristan, sixième campagne 1970, Fouilles à Bard-i Bal et à Pa-yi Kal. Prospections dans le district d’Aivan (Rapport préliminaire),” Iranica Antiqua 10, 1973, pp. 1-79.

“Bard-e Bal,” in EIr. III/7, 1988, p. 761.

(f) 7th and 8th campaigns, 1971-1972; excavations at Hakalān and Kotal-e Golgol; surveys in central Pušt-e Kuh, districts of Arkavāz, Meyma, and Ābdānān:

“Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan,” Iran 11, 1973, pp. 207-9.

Hakalān: “Le Luristan avant l’âge du Bronze. La nécropole de Hakalan,” Archéologia 57, 1973, pp. 48-58.

“Le Lorestan avant l’âge du Bronze. La nécropole de Hakalan,” in Proceedings of the IInd. Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran, Tehran, 1974, pp. 66-79.

“Le Luristan à l’âge du Fer. La nécropole de Kutal-i Gulgul,” Archéologia 65, 1973, pp. 16-29.

Sardant, Taḵt-e Ḵān, Qabr Nahi, and Sarāb Bāḡ: “Le Luristan à l’âge du Bronze. Prospections archéologiques dans le Pusht-i Kuh Central,” Archéologia 63, 1973, pp. 24-36.

(g) 9th campaign, 1973; excavations at Dum Gar Parčina:

“Luristan. La nécropole de Dum Gar Parchinah,” Archéologia 79, 1975, pp. 46-61.

“Fouilles au Lorestan. La nécropole de Dum Gar, Parcineh,” in Proceedings of the IIIrd. Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran, 1974, Tehran, 1975, pp. 45-62.

“Pusht-i Kuh,” Iran 14, 1976, pp. 164-66.

(h) 10th and 11th campaigns, 1974-75; excavations at Čamži Muma:

“Mission archéologique dans le Post-e Kuh Lorestan. La nécropole de Camahzi-Mumah 1974,” in Proceedings of the IVth Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran, 1975, Tehran, 1976, pp. 337-67.

“La nécropole de Chamzhi Mumah. Une grande fouille de l’âge du fer au Luristan. Iran,” Archéologia 108, 1977, pp. 52-63.

(i) 12th campaign, 1976; excavations at Mir Khair (Ḵayr) and surveys in the district of Mishkhas (Mišḵās):

“La nécropole de Mir Khair au Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan,” Iranica Antiqua 14, 1979, pp. 1-37.

(j) 13th and 14th campaigns 1977-78: excavations at Djub-i Gauhar (Jub-e Gawhar) (1977) and Gul Khanan Murdah (Gul Ḵānān Morda) (1978):

“Des tombes de l’âge du Fer au Luristan. La nécropole de Djub-i Gauhar en Iran,” Archéologia 138, 1980, pp. 32-47.

(k) 15th campaign 1979; survey in Shirvan-Čārdāval:

“Prospections archéologiques dans le district de Shirvan- Chardaval (Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan),” Iranica Antiqua 27, 1992, pp. 1-73 (with A. Tourovets). Luristan, various publications:

(a) Chronology:

“Excavations in Pusht-i Kuh (Iran). Tombs provide evidence on dating ‘Typical Luristan Bronzes,’” Archaeology 24/3, 1971, pp. 263-71.

“La chronologie de la civilisation des Bronzes au Pusht-i Kuh Luristan,” in Proceedings of the 1st. Annual Symposium of Archaeological Research in Iran, Tehran, 1973, 6 pp.

“La chronologie des Bronzes du Luristan, basée sur les résultats des fouilles belges au Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan,” Bulletin de l’Institut d’Archéologie de l’Université de Cracovie, 1981, Krakow, 1983, pp. 84-104.

“Prospections et fouilles au Pust-i Kuh, Luristan,” Archiv für Orientforschung 331, 1984, pp. 200-09 (with E. Haerinck).

(b) Chalcolithic period:

“Luristan, Pusht-i Kuh au Chalcolithique Moyen (Les nécropoles de Parchinah et de Hakalan),” in Préhistoire de la Mésopotamie. La Mésopotamie préhistorique et l’exploration récente du djebel Hamrin. Colloque international du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Paris 17-19 décembre 1984, Paris, 1987, pp. 91-126.

(c) Bronze Age:

“La construction des tombes au Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan au 3e millénaire avant J.-C.,” Iranica Antiqua 14, 1979, pp. 39-50.

(d) Iron Age:

“Les fibules provenant des fouilles au Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan,” Iranica Antiqua 13, 1978, pp. 35-74.

“Les Bronzes du Luristan de l’âge du Fer III. Résultat des fouilles au Pusht-i Kuh,” in Akten des VII. Internationalen Kongresses für Iranische Kunst und Archäologie, München, 7.- 10. September 1976, AMI Ergänzungsband 6, Berlin, 1979, pp. 138-50.

“Les pratiques funéraires de l’âge du Fer III au Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan: les nécropoles “genre War Kabud,” Iranica Antiqua 22, 1987, pp. 201-66.

(e) Exhibitions on Luristan: Luristan. Vorgeschichtliche Bronzekunst aus Iran, Ausstellungskatalog der Prähistorischen Staatssammlung Band 8, Munich, 1981 (with Chr. Langeraert-Seeuws and G. Zahlhaas).

Luristan. Een vergeten bronskunst uit West-Iran, Ghent, 1982 (with Chr. Langeraert-Seeuws, B. Overlaet, and E. Haerinck).

(f) Miscellaneous:

“Les Bronzes des pasteurs et des cavaliers du Luristan,” Archéologie Vivante (Paris) 1/1, 1968, pp. 102-23 (Eng. and Ger. tr. in Archaeologia Viva (Paris) 1/1, 1968.

“Bronzes: Iran-Luristan, Caucase,” Evocations métallurgiques (Paris) 13, 1973, pp. 69-95 (with R. Joffroy).

“Archeologische missie in Iran,” Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, 43st.-44st. jaargang (1972/1973), Brussels, 1974, pp. 191-95.

“Les problèmes relatifs aux Bronzes du Luristan en voie de solution,” Barrasihā-ye tāriḵi 3, 1975, pp. 1-8.

“Archeologische onderzoekingen in Luristan, Iran/Recherches archéologiques au Luristan, Iran,” Esso Magazine, 1977, pp. 25- 34. Pošt-e Kuh, Lorestān, Final publications:

E. Haerinck and B. Overlaet, The Chalcolithic Period. Parchinah and Hakalan, Luristan Excavation Documents I, Brussels, 1996.

Idem, Chamahzi Mumah. An Iron Age III Graveyard, Luristan Excavation Documents II (Acta Iranica 33), Leuven, 1998.

Idem, Djub-i Gauhar and Gul Khanan Murdah. Iron Age III Graveyards in the Aivan Plain, Luristan Excavation Documents III (Acta Iranica 35), Leuven, 1999.

B. Overlaet, The Early Iron Age in the Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan, Luristan Excavation Documents IV (Acta Iranica 40), Leuven, 2003.

E. Haerinck, and B. Overlaet, The Iron Age III Graveyard at War Kabud (Chavar District), Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan, Luristan Excavation Documents V (Acta Iranica 42), Leuven and Dudley, Mass., 2004.

Pre- and proto-history of Iran: “Quelques vases thériomorphes iraniens,” Artibus Asiae 15, 1952, pp. 233-40.

“Les ateliers de la céramique peinte chalcolithique en Iran sud- ouest,” Revue archéologique 39, 1952, pp. 1-21.

“De beschilderde ceramiek in Voor-Azië, van de oudste tijden tot ca. 2000 voor onze jaartelling, deel 1: Mesopotamië-Syrië (with French summary),” Gentse bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 14, 1953, pp. 5-73.

“De beschilderde ceramiek in Voor-Azië, van de oudste tijden tot ca. 2000 voor onze jaartelling, deel 2: Iran (with French summary),” Gentse bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 15, 1954, pp. 5-84.

“De beschilderde ceramiek in Voor-Azië, van de oudste tijden tot ca. 2000 voor onze jaartelling, deel 2: Iran (vervolg) (with French summary), Gentse bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 16, 1955- 56, pp. 5-54. “Thema’s uit de oud-Iraanse mythologie op de gouden vaas van Hasanlu (with French summary,” Gentse bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 18, 1959-60, pp. 11-31.

“Some Ceramic Contributions to a Knowledge of Culture in Prehistoric Iran,” Ceramics and Man, ed. F. R. Matson, New York, 1965, pp. 248-53.

Oud-Iraanse Kunst: Prehistorie, Protohistorie/Art Iranien Ancien: Préhistoire, Protohistoire, Brussels, 1966.

Elamite, Urartian and Achaemenid periods:

“Les reliefs élamites de Malamir,” Iranica Antiqua 3, 1963, pp. 22-39.

“Le tombeau achéménide de Buzpar,” in Vorderasiatische Archäologie. Studien und Aufsätze. Anton Moortgat zum fünfundsechzigsten Geburtstag gewidmet, Berlin, 1964, pp. 243- 57.

Urartu. Een vergeten cultuur uit het bergland Armenië, Ghent, 1982 (with L. De Meyer): introd., pp. 15-16; Onderzoek en ontdekking: pp. 17-22; geografische situering: pp. 23-24; religion, pp. 38-43; religious architecture, pp. 52-56; breastplate, belt plaques, pp. 90-96; votive plaques, pp. 97-99; glyptic art, pp. 113-15; catalogue, bibliography, pp. 119-250 (with E. Haerinck). “Un carquois urartéen,” Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 13 (= Studia Paulo Naster Oblata II. Orientalia Antiqua), Leuven, 1982, pp. 245-57.

“Données nouvelles concernant le relief rupestre élamite de Kurangun,” in Fragmenta Historiae Elamicae (= Mélanges offerts à M.-J. Stève), Paris, 1986, pp. 157-73.

“Le relief rupestre de Gardanah Galumushk, Qir,” Iranica Antiqua 21, 1986, pp. 141-55. “Bozpar,” in EIr. 4/4, 1989, pp. 429- 30.

Parthian and Sasanian periods:

(a) General:

“L’héritage parthe dans l’art sasanide,” in Transition Periods in Iranian History (Actes du Symposium de Fribourg-en-Brisgau, 22-24 mai 1985), Studia Iranica, Cahier 5, Paris, 1987, pp. 241-52.

(b) Architecture:

“Récentes découvertes de monuments sassanides dans le Fars,” Iranica Antiqua 1, 1961, pp. 163-98. “Nouvelles découvertes de monuments du feu d’époque sassanide,” Iranica Antiqua 5, 1965, pp. 128-47.

“Les ruines de Bihisht u Duzakh à Sultanabad,” Iranica Antiqua 8, 1968, pp. 94-105.

“De vuurcultus in Oud-Iran,” in Syllabus. Maandblad voor Wetenschap en Kunsten, The Hague, March 1970, pp. 105-8.

“Les Chahar Taqs du Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan,” Iranica Antiqua 12, 1977, pp. 175-90.

“L’autel du feu de Qanat-i Bagh,” Acta Iranica 23, 2nd ser., vol. 9 (= Orientalia J. Duchesne-Guillemin Emerito Oblata), 1984, pp. 511-18.

“Le Chahar Taq de Qanat-i Bagh (Fars) et l’inventaire des Chahar Taqs en Iran,” Iranica Antiqua 19, 1984, pp. 201-25.

(c) Rock-carvings:

“Het rotsrelief te Guyum in het licht van de hofkunst van de Sassanidische koning Bahram II (with French summary),” Gentse bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 17, 1957-58, Ghent, 1959, pp. 1-25. “Le relief parthe de Hung-i Nauruzi,” Iranica Antiqua 3, 1963, pp. 155-68.

“De cultuurprovincie Elymaïs naar nieuwe gegevens,” Handelingen van het XXVe Vlaamse Filologencongres 18-20 April 1964, 1964, pp. 149-53.

De iconografische betekenis van het Sassanidisch Rotsrelief van Sarab-i Qandil, (Iran) (with French summary), Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België: Klasse der Letteren, Jaargang XXXV, no. 1, Brussels, 1973.

“Le relief rupestre sassanide de Sarab-i Qandil (Iran),” in Actes du XXIXe Congrès International des Orientalistes: section Iran Ancien, Paris, 1975, p. 58.

“La découverte d’une sculpture rupestre à Darabgird,” Iranica Antiqua 13, 1978, pp. 135-47.

“Nouvelles interprétations des reliefs rupestres sassanides,” Akkadica 14, 1979, pp. 41-42.

“Lumière nouvelle sur l’interprétation de reliefs sassanides,” Iranica Antiqua 15, 1980, pp. 269-82.

Les reliefs rupestres d’Elymaïde (Iran) de l’époque parthe, Iranica Antiqua Supplément 3, Ghent, 1985 (with K. Schippmann).

“Introduction,” “Historique de la découverte et de la recherche,” and “La sculpture,” in Splendeur des Sassanides. L’empire perse entre Rome et la Chine (224-642), Brussels, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 1993, pp. 11-12, 13-18, 71-88.

Royal Museums for Art and History, Brussels:

“Exposition de Bronzes du Luristan aux Musées Royaux (Cinquantenaire) de Bruxelles,” Bibliotheca Orientalis 14/3-4, 1957, p. 187.

Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis te Brussel: Oud- Iran, Brussel, 1967/Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire à Bruxelles: Iran Ancien, Brussels, 1967.

“Oud-Iran”/”Antiquités iraniennes,” in Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis te Brussel: Vooraziatische en Iraanse Oudheden: partim Oud-Iran/Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire à Bruxelles: Galerie de l’Asie Antérieure et de l’Iran Ancien: partim antiquités iraniennes, Brussels, 1967, pp. 15-24.

De Iraanse Kunst in de Belgische Verzamelingen. L’art iranien dans les collections belges, Brussels, 1971 (with A. Destrée- Donckier de Donceel). “Oud-Iraanse Rotsreliefs-Reliefs rupestres de l’Iran Ancien,” Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis/Bulletin des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, 1985, pp. 239-48.

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“Iran” (in Flemish, French, and English), Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis Brussel. Oudheid/Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Bruxelles, Antiquité/The Royal Museum of Art and History, Brussels, Antiquity, Musea Nostra 11, Brussels, 1988, pp. 80-85.

Bibliographies:

(a) Near East:

Bibliographie analytique de l’Assyriologie et de l’Archéologie du Proche-Orient, vol. I, section A: l’archéologie 1954-1955, Leiden, 1956 (with H. Mussche).

Bibliographie analytique de l’Assyriologie et de l’Archéologie du Proche-Orient, vol. I, section Ph.: la philologie 1954-1956, Leiden, 1957 (with L. De Meyer).

Bibliographie analytique de l’Assyriologie et de l’Archéologie du Proche-Orient, vol. II, section A: l’archéologie 1956-1957, Leiden, 1960 (with H. Mussche).

(b) Iran:

Bibliographie analytique de l’archéologie de l’Iran Ancien, Leiden, 1979 (with B. De Wulf and E. Haerinck).

Bibliographie analytique de l’archéologie de l’Iran Ancien. Supplément 1: 1978-1980, Leiden, 1981 (with E. Haerinck).

Bibliographie analytique de l’archéologie de l’Iran Ancien. Supplément 2: 1981-1985, Leuven, 1987 (with E. Haerinck).

Varia:

“L’apport des Iraniens dans les études d’archéologie orientale,” Bibliotheca Orientalis 8/2-3, 1951, pp. 109-11.

“La collection d’intailles de M. Franquet, à Bruxelles,” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie orientale 45/4, 1951, pp. 161-68.

“Réflexions critiques sur la nature de Dumuzi-Tammuz,” La Nouvelle Clio 6/5-6, 1954, pp. 298-321. “La divinité-oreille dans les religions antiques,” Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 29, 1955, pp. 177-97 (with P. Lambrechts).

“De studie van de “Kunstgeschiedenis en de Oudheidkunde van het Nabije Oosten” aan het Hoger Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Gent,” Gents Studentenleven, 11/7, 1956, pp. 7-8.

“L’éducation en Iran,” Bulletin d’informations du Centre pour l’Etude des Problèmes du Monde Musulman Contemporain, 1958, fasc. 7, pp. 16-24.

“Le quatrième congrès de “l’International Association for Iranian Art and Archaeology” tenu aux Etats-Unis du 24 avril au 30 mai 1960,” Iranica Antiqua 1, 1961, pp. 199-201 (with O. Grabar).

“L’Art en l’Anatolie. A propos de l’exposition “L’art des Hittites,” Le Flambeau, 7-8, 1963, pp. 492-506.

“Op het spoor van de Oud-Iraanse beschavingen,” Syllabus. Maandblad voor Wetenschap en Kunsten, The Hague, 1969, pp. 166-69.

“Cyrus le Grand et le Rayonnement de la Civilisation iranienne,” Terre d’Europe 40-41, 1971, pp. 21-36. “Cyrus le Grand et le Rayonnement de la Civilisation iranienne,” in Hommage universel. Première série: Commémoration Cyrus (= Actes du Congrès de Shiraz 1971 et autres études rédigées à l’occasion du 2500 anniversaire de la fondation de l’empire perse), Acta Iranica 1, 1974, pp. 60-67.

“Archeologie van het Nabije Oosten,” in Vijfentwintig jaar Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, Rijksuniversiteit Gent, Ghent, 1986, pp. 8-11.

“Thirty-Five Years of Archaeological and Historical Research in the Near East (University of Ghent),” in European Student Meeting at the University of Ghent, Belgium, 25-29 October 1987, Ghent, 1987, pp. 4-8.

“Archaeologische expedities in Iran en de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten,” in Gent en haar Rijksuniversiteit in de Wereld, Ghent, 1988, pp. 8-9.

(Ernie Haerinck)

Originally Published: July 20, 2009

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VATATZES, Vasilios Greek scholar, merchant, traveler, pioneer explorer, and diplomat.

VATATZES, Vasilios (b. Therapeia, near Constantinople, 1694), Greek scholar, merchant, traveler, pioneer explorer, and diplomat.

Life. Vatatzes was the sixth child in his family and his father, a Greek Christian Orthodox priest, served as steward of the Aya Sofia church in Constantinople. When he was 14, he migrated from Constantinople to Moscow and became a merchant. Vatatzes visited Iran at least three times. In 1713 he traveled by ship from Astrakhan port to Darband in the Caucasus, before visiting Širvān and Čamaḵi (Vatatzes, Voyages, I, pp. 332-64). In 1716 he again went to Širvān and traveled southwards to visit Gilān (Rasht), Qazvin, Sāva, Qom, Kāšān, and Isfahan. He returned to Moscow via Ardabil, Darband, and Astrakhan (Vatatzes, 1886, I, pp. 466-856). In 1727-28 he followed the route from Moscow, Astrakhān, the Aral Sea, Khiva, Bokhara, Khorāsān (“Barbart,” “Qalanqent,” Mashad), Mazandarān (Sari, Balforuš), Gilān (Rasht) (Vatatzes, Voyages, II, pp.1-953). In this trip he met Nāder Shah for the first time. While in Mashad, Vatatzes undertook a diplomatic mission to convey orally a message on behalf of Nāder Shah to the Russian General Vasili Levasov in Rasht (Vatazes, Persika, p. 148). By 1732-33 he had also traveled to central and western Europe (Prussia, France, the Netherlands, England, Denmark).

After 1733 there is no concrete information about Vatatzes’ life. In his Persika it becomes evident that he probably spent much time in the court of Nāder Shah, accumulating all necessary information before compiling Nāder Shah’s biography.

Map of Central Asia. In 1732 Vatatzes drew a map of the Caspian and Aral Seas that he turned over to the Bodleian library. Two copies of this map are today in the British Museum (10075 additional). The Bibliothèque nationale holds three copies (C2206, AD109, AD109 double). This first empirical mapping of the region includes also the eastern Caucasus, northern Iran, Transoxania, and western Chinese Turkestan. Most of the regions are presented as a shapeless vastness of desert lands. Vatatzes wrote the map in Greek and Latin, and it was drafted by the royal cartographer, John Senex. He uses only a minimal number of symbols, both in the inhabited areas and the natural environment.

Travel account.In the 2,000 verses of his Greek travel account titled Periegetikon, Vatatzes relates his travel experiences in Asian and European countries. Its manuscript tradition consists of four copies: the Lambryllos MS (Smyrna), the British Museum MS 10075, the Gedeon MS (Constantinople) and the Hidromenos MS (Corfu). Vatatzes states vaguely that he wrote it after Persika (1748).

This account is one of the finest examples of a first-person narrative in Greek geographical literature. Vatatzes’ literary model goes back to the Greco-Roman tradition and Dionysius the Traveler (2nd cent. CE). His style and choice to produce a versified account in heroic hexameter are unusual for his time. The language and style are simple with some archaisms. Regarding the Iranian world, Vatatzes cites his visits to Central Asia (Khiva, Bokhara) and Iran proper: Mashad, Rasht, Qazvin, Qom, Sāveh, Kashan, and Isfahan. He describes, for example, the nomadic life in Central Asia, the brightness of Bokhara, the importance of the Imam Reżā shrine in Mashad, and the glory of Safavid Isfahan (Čahār Bāḡ, the palace and the Naqš-e Jahān square).

Nāder Shah’s Biography. In 1748 Vatatzes completed Persika, a biography of Nāder Shah in Greek. At least two MSS of the same date have been preserved: the Greek National Library MS 1861 and the Cotnari MS in Bucharest. His language and style are simple. It is a biographical text with historical and ethnographical importance.

The author probably spent considerable time close to Nāder Shah, being at his court and even participating in Nāder Shah’s expeditions. Vatatzes knew Persian, and his work is important for the late Safavid period, the Afghan interlude, and Nāder Shah’s reign. He includes unique information about Shah Tahmasp and Nādir Shāh, for example, about the life of Nādir Shāh and the fatal conspiracy against Shah Tahmsasp (Vatatzes, Persika, p. 195).

The author’s worldview.Vatatzes was associated with the 18th- century Greek Enlightenment of the Danubian principalities. He was probably affiliated with the court of Greek Phanariot rulers, where he wrote his manuscripts or where these were reproduced en masse after his death. He was active in Iran at a time of increased Russian diplomacy with Iran. An admirer of Persian civilization and of Nāder Shah’s rule, Vatatzes, whose works have been largely ignored by modern scholarship, is an important author for Iranian history and Hellenic-Iranian studies.

Bibliography:

M. Axworthy, The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant, London, 2006.

G. Bernhardy, Dionysius Periegetes, Lipsiae, 1828, Hildesheim, 1974, pp. 222-57, 306-15.

Α. Μ. Idromenos, “Συμπληρωματικά περί Βασιλείου Βατάτζη,” Parnassos 5, 1881, pp. 801-4.

S.P. Lambros, “Kananos Laskaris and Vasileios Vatazes,” Parnassos 5, 1881, pp. 705-19.

L. Lockhardt, Nader Shah, London, 1938.

Ch. A. Minaoglou, “Οι περιηγήσεις του Βασιλείου Βατάτζη,” Parnassos ΜΔ’, 2002, pp. 233-46.

Idem, “Greek Travellers and Travel Literature from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Century,” in Greek Research in Australia: Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies, ed. E. Close, M. Tsianikas, and G. Gouvalis, Adelaide, 2007, pp. 305-12.

V. Vatatzes, Persika, ed. N. Iorga, Bucharest, 1939.

V. Vatatzes, “Voyages de Basile Vatace en Europe et en Asie,” Gr. text and tr., ed. Emile Legrand, in Nouveaux Mélanges Orientaux, mémoires, Paris, 1886, pp. 185-292.

(Evangelos Venetis)

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VĀYU

“Wind, Atmosphere, Space,” name of a deity and the natural phenomenon.

VĀYU “Wind, Atmosphere, Space,” name of a deity. Indo-Iranian religion recognized two wind gods: Av. vayu, Ved. vāyú, and Av. vāta-, Ved. vā́ta-. In Iranian the latter is both a deity and the natural phenomenon (cf. MPers., Parth. wād, Kušān coins OAΔO, SogdB wʾt, Khot. bāta-; see further, Bailey, p. 276). By contrast, in the Avesta vayu- is always a proper name, never an appellative. Further, the Middle Persian evidence suggests that, as an appellative, OIr. wāyu- included “atmosphere” as the realm of the wind’s activity. In Avestan the name appears as vayu- with shortened a preceding y (cf. Parth. wyw). The peculiar acc. sg. vaēm is a corruption of *vayum, while vayąn of Nyāyišn 1.1 as acc. sg. is perplexing (but see Schwartz, 1975). As H. Humbach observed, SogdB wyšprkr /wēšparkar/ is an EIranian form of an OIr. name plus epithet which is attested in Av. vayuš uparō.kairyō. This then explains the deity found on Kušān coins iconographically identified as Śiva, but whose name is given as OEŠO /wēšo/.

The name derives from the verb vā- “to blow” (IE *√H2weH1-) and is one of a few primary derivatives in -yu- in Indo-Iranian, the only other such word that is common being Ved. manyú-, Av mainyu- (AiGr II, 2, p. 842). Vedic vā́ta- and GAv. vāta- (Y. 44.4) are sometimes trisyllabic, va'ata- (< * H2weH1-n̥ t-o-; EWA II, p. 542, thus wrongly AiGr II, 2, p. 587). The tradition preserved in Yt. 15 attempted an etymology of the name vayu-. In stanzas 43- 44 Vāyu explains the meaning of his names, vayu, apayate, and vanō.vīspå, with the formula:

The reason that I am called vayu (apayate, vanō.vīspå) is that I pursue (attain, conquer) both creations, both that which Spənta Mainyu created and that which Aŋra Mainyu created.

awat̰ vayuš (apayate, vanō.vīspå) nąma ahmi yat̰ wa dąma vayemi (vayemi: to √way- “to pursue, chase”; apayemi, vanāmi) yasca daθat̰ spəntō mainyuš, yasca daθat̰ aŋrō mainyuš

The form yas° where one expects yat̰ ° is due to imitation of the phrase Y. 57.17, Yt. 13.76 yat̰ mainyū dāmąn daiδītəm yasca spəntō mainyuš yasca aŋrō. Vāyu is a complex, multifaceted deity. While the depiction of Vāyu in Yt. 15 is basically that of a martial deity capable of protecting the creation of Spənta Mainyu, elsewhere in the Avesta he appears as a feared god of death. In the Pahlavi books a very clear distinction is made between the Good Wāy (Wāy ī weh) and the Bad Wāy (Wāy ī wattar). Further, in the Avesta, he is superior not only to both Spənta Mainyu, the Beneficent Spirit, and Aŋra Mainyu, the Evil Spirit, but also to Ahura Mazdā, who must entreat him for aid. As Philip G. Kreyenbroek has shown (see COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY i. In Zoroastrianism/Mazdaism), ancient Iranians, like their Vedic counterparts, entertained a variety of conceptions regarding creation and the formation of the cosmos. On the basis of the much later Pahlavi sources, one can identify one scenario where there was a primordial condition of infinite Space (Vāyu) and infinite Time (Zruwan), from which the dualities of finite space and time evolved as the requisites of the creation of the world. The close association of Space-Time is already foreshadowed in the Avesta, where Vāyu shares the epithet darəγō.xwāδata- (Pahl. dagrand-xwadāy) with Zruwan. Thus, in the Sīh Rōzag (see below) Wayu, Θβāṣ̌a (Space; = Pahl. Spihr), and both Infinite Time (zrwan- akarana-) and Time of Long-dominion (zrwan- darəγō.xwaδāta-) are invoked together. Indeed, the cosmogonic priority of Time became the central thesis of Zurwanite theology during the Parthian and Sassanid periods (see Zaehner). In the Bundahišn account of creation, we read: “Between them (Ohrmazd and Ahreman) was the Void; some call it Wāy” (1.4). That is the primordial situation. Later in the account (1.26), however:

(Ohrmazd) created the form of the Good Wāy, since Wāy was necessary. Some say ‘Wāy of long- dominion.’ And He fashioned forth the creation with the assistance of Wāy of long-dominion, since when He created the creation Wāy was necessary as an instrument of His for the task.

ā-š kirb ī wāy ī weh frāz-brēhēnīd ciyōn wāy abāyast. ast kē wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy frāz-gōwēd. u-š dām pad ayārīh ī wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy frāz-brēhēnīd, cē ka-š dām-iz dād wāy-iz abzār- ē ī-š pad kār andar abāyast

The implication here is that the author of the Bundahišn is attempting to relegate what in another theology (Zurwānite?) was Wāy’s creative independence, to Ohrmazd’s sovereignty over creation.

In Zaraθuštra’s vision, it appears that Ahura Mazdā is the creator of the two Spirits as Twins (yə̄mā), an adaptation of the Indo- European cosmogonic myth of primal twins (see Lincoln). Martin Schwartz (forthcoming) has demonstrated that the duality of the two Spirits follows from the basic sense of Indo-Iranian manyu- as embracing intense mental activity that can manifest itself either in violence and destruction or in benign creativity. He has suggested that this should be regarded as parallel to the splitting of Vāyu, rather than agreeing with Georges Dumézil, who went so far as to see in Zaraθuštra’s two mainyu-s a sublimation of the two Vāyu-s of the inherited pantheon, though this was in the context of his tripartite theory (see also Widengren). Be that as it may, one can suppose that once Vāyu, as infinite space above the categories of good and evil, became finite, he split in two. As such, he assumed the part of the benevolent, if at times violent, Wind, on the one hand, and that of the evil bringer of death, on the other. Vedic Vāyu and Avestan Vayu appear to have few common traits. With some exceptions the former always is invoked together with Indra (vā́yū índrasca) and in the context of the ritual is the first to partake of soma. Yet, as noted by Wikander, in the Indian epic, the Mahābhārata, Vāyu’s nature is embodied, ambivalently, in the person of his human son, Bhīma (the Terrible), who is loving and protective of his family, on the one hand, and brutally violent with foes, on the other. So, it would seem that the Indo- Iranian deity was regarded with ambivalence as having both a benevolent and malevolent side of his personality.

Since Ahura Mazdā must request the ability to strike down Aŋra Mainyu’s creatures, Vāyu seems to exercise dominion over both creations. This suggests that in some circles Vāyu enjoyed a universality that overshadowed both Ahura Mazdā and Aŋra Mainyu. In fact, H. S. Nyberg imagined that Vāyu was the supreme deity of a particular community, just as Ahura Mazdā and Miθra also had their respective communities in which they reigned supreme. The idea of rival sectarian communities in pre- Zoroastrian Iran has been generally ignored by scholars.

In Yašt 15 of the Avesta, a picture of Vāyu’s nature can be painted mostly on the basis of his various epithets. His standing epithet is uparō.kairya- “having superior skill.” He is strong (uγra-), swift (aurwa-) and fleet (taxma-). In appearance he is broad-chested (pərəθu.wara-), broad-hipped (pərəθu.sraoni-), high-stepping (bərəzi.pāδa-) and high-girdled (uskāt̰.yāsta-) with golden helmet (zaranyō.xaoδa-), cape (-pusa-; cf. images of OAΔO, e.g., Rosenfield, p. 91 and coins 149, 150), necklace (- mina-), vestment (-wastra-), shoes (-aoθra-) and girdle (- aiβyåŋha-). He is a warrior who has a golden chariot (zaranyō.wāṣ̌ a-) with golden wheels (zaranyō.caxra-) whose yoke-straps are firm (dərəzi.yaoxəδra-). His weapons are golden (zaranyō.zaya-), and he has a sharp spear (tižyaršti-), whose (blade) is broad (pərəθwaršti-) and whose (thrusts) are impetuous (+wīžyaršti-: see Mayrhofer, 1979, no. 384). Given this image of the god, it is not surprising that in the Bundahišn he is the patron of the warrior or noble caste, the artēštārān (Bd. 26.28). On the epithet list in the Yašt, see below.

Although Yt. 15 paints a picture of a mighty, benevolent deity who protects the creation of Spənta Mainyu and who harkens to the entreaties of ašawans, there is the malevolent side of his nature that is only hinted at in the Yašt, but which has explicit expression in the Vendidad, Nyāyišn, and Aogəmadaēcā. Vendidad 5.8 and 5.9 have the repeated: astō.wīδōtiš dim bandayeiti wayō dim bastəm nayeiti, speaking of a dying man, “Astō.wiδāti binds him; Vāyu leads him bound. “ The Pahlavi gloss follows word for word the Avestan: astōwidād ōy bandēd wāy ī wattar ōy bast nayēd, and vs. 9 has the comment: ast kē ēdōn gōwēd ē wāy ī weh ān hamāg barēd, “Some say, ‘the Good Wāy bears them all.’” Apparently the commentator wished to distinguish, as we shall see, the Bad Wāy who leads away the soul, while the Good Wāy carries the righteous soul to heaven. The Bundahišn (27.43, 44) makes a related statement:

It is Astōwidād[/Astwihād, the demon of death, i.e.], the Bad Wāy, who takes the breath-soul.

astwihād wāy ī wattar kē gyān stānēd. ciyōn gōwēd kū: ka dast abar mardōm mālēd būšāsp, ka-š sāyag abar abganēd tab, ka-š cašm wēnēd gyān be zanēd. As He says, ‘when (his) hand strokes a man, it is lethargy; when he casts his shadow, it is fever; when he sees his eye, he slays the breath-soul; and they call (this) death.’” Verses 78-81 of the Aogəmadaēcā list paths of dire circumstances which one can escape, but not that “which belongs to merciless Vāyu” (yō vayaōš anamarəždikahe), meaning that death is inescapable. There are indications in Yt. 15 that lurking behind the ašawan Vāyu, is a sinister Vāyu. When Ahura Mazdā entreats Vāyu, the boon He asks for is “that I may strike down the creatures of Aŋra Mainyu, by no means what belongs to Spənta Mainyu” (Yt. 15.4: yaθa azəm nijanāni aŋrahe mainyəuš dāmanąm naēciš awat̰ yō spəntahe). And when the worshipers invoke Vāyu it is with the formula: “We worship that (nature) of thine, o Vāyu, which belongs to Spənta Mainyu” (Yt. 15.5; Sīh Rōzag 2.21: aētat̰ tē vayō yazamaide yat̰ tē asti spəntō.mainyaom).

Yašt 15, the Yašt dedicated to Vāyu, actually bears the Pahlavi title Rām Yašt, even though the minor deity Rāman is nowhere mentioned in the Yašt. In the order of the days of the month, Rām immediately precedes Wād. The Sīh Rōzag contains two litanies dedicated to the deities of the 30 days of the month. In many cases, subjoined to the deity of the particular day are invocations of other deities who do not have their own name day. To the 16th day of Miθra subjoined is Rāman. Yet, Rāman has also his proper day, the 21st, and to him have been subjoined Wayu, Θβāṣ̌a, and both Infinite Time (zrwan- akarana-) and Time of Long-dominion (zrwan- darəγō.xwaδāta-). It is curious that Vāyu occurs here and not under the 22nd day, Vāta. At Y. 6.2 miθrəm vouru.gaoyaoitīm … yazamaide is immediately followed by rāma xwāstrəm yazamaide. Similarly, at Vd. 3.1, Rāman follows Miθra: miθrəmca wouru.gaoyaoitīm jaiδyą rāmaca xwāstrəm. In these two cases, one finds a more natural order of ‘Miθra of wide-pastures’ and ‘Rāman of good pastures.’ The ultimate reason for the connection between Vāyu and Rāman remains obscure, though the Bundahišn (26.28-29) attempts an equation:

Rām, whom one calls Good Wāy of long-dominion, is himself Wāy of long-dominion who, among the Spiritual Deities, has as his the proper activity chieftainship of the Warriors. (29) And when the soul (gyān) of the righteous crosses the Cinwat-bridge, the Good Wāy takes his hand and brings him to his proper place. One calls (him) ‘Rām’ for the reason that he is the giver of pleasure (rāmišn-dādār) to the whole world. (30) But when the Bad Wāy strikes the life-breath (gyān) from the body, this Good Wāy receives it and gives it contentment.

rām ī wāy ī weh ī dagrand-xwadāy gōwēd xwad ast wāy ī dagrand-xwadāy kē andar mēnōgān artēštārān- sālārīh xwēškārīh dārēd. ud ruwān ī ahlawān ka pad cēhwidarag widerēd, wāy ī weh dast gīrēd, ō ān ī xwēš gāh barēd. ē rāy rām gōwēd cē rāmišn-dādār ō hamāg gēhān. ka-z wāy ī wattar gyān az tan be zanēd, ōy wāy ī weh be padīrēd ud hunsandīh be dahēd.

The Yašt itself is a late editorial compilation of various sources, much of which has been assembled by a redactor who understood little Avestan. Like others among the ‘Great’ Yašts, the stanzas are segmented according to the kardah system. The first stanza seems to have been taken from two different sources, in that the first two lines begin with the formula yazāi (name of deity) “I shall worship” (entities which have nothing to do with either Rāman or Vāyu), while the next two have the formula with the name of the deity (namely, Vāyu) followed by yazamaide “we worship” and zbayamahi “we invoke.” Stanzas 2- 41 are segmented according to the individual petitioner (see below). The final kardah, stanzas 42-57, is mostly concerned with Vāyu’s names and epithets, and occasions of distress when one should invoke Him by his names.

With stanzas 43-44 begin a series of names of Vāyu. These names appear to be citation names, that is, words, which have been taken from originally different contexts and inserted here. Thus, apayate appears to be dat. sg. of the part. pres.; wanō.wīspå might have originally been nom./acc. pl. fem., while wohwaršte could represent loc. sg. masc., nom./acc. du. fem., or even acc. pl. masc. The effort in these two stanzas is to etymologize the names. Stanzas 45-48 contain a list of epithets, which are rather perplexing. Whoever compiled the list seems to have had little idea what the words meant or how they should be cited; and the method of citation is reminiscent of the late Sassanid Frahang ī ōim). Words ending in a and ə are apparently vocatives, while those ending in ō and iš are nominative. Other items are hard to judge: for example xwarənå, aiβi.xwarənå and windixwarənə; or saocahi and bucahi, which may well be 2nd sg. act. verb forms. It is also curious that some epithets, which occur in the Yašt are absent from the list: uparō.kairya, wimanəkarə, and those in stanzas 54 and 57. Like the lists of Ahura Mazdā’s epithets (Yt. 1) this list probably had some apologetic purpose in addition to the magical properties of the names.

A feature which Yt. 15 has in common with other Yašts, namely, 5, 9, (16), and 17, is a formulaic series of supplicants who petition the deity for boons. The most extensive series is found in Yt. 5. The other Yašts, though much abbreviated, generally follow the order of Yt. 5, and it might be tempting to see in Yt. 5 the model, which the others imitate. Yt. 15 follows Yt. 5 in the initial series: Ahura Mazdā, Paraδāta Haošyaŋha, Yima, Aži Dahāka, Θraētaona, Kərəsāspa (for the latter four, see JAMŠID, AŽDAHĀ, FERĒDŪN, KARSĀSP) except that Yt. 15 inserts Taxma Urupi between Haošyaŋha and Yima. Between Kərəsāsp and Zaraθuštra in Yt. 5 are ten men omitted in Yt. 15, but where Yt. 15 inserts Aurwasāra (absent in Yt. 5). Further, in place of Zaraθuštra, Yt. 15 has Hutaosā, and then in place of Vištāspa, Zairiwairi, and Arəjat̰ .aspa (for whom, see KAYĀNIĀN ix. Kauui Vištāspa ..., AYĀDGĀR Ī ZARĒRĀN, ARJĀSP). Yt. 15 concludes with ‘maidens.’ Further, even where the names match up between the two Yašts, the wording is not always identical. For example, Yt. 5.17-18 “The Creator, Ahura Mazdā, worshipped Her in Arya Vaējah of the good Dāityā (river). Then He entreated Her, ‘Grant me this boon [o good, most strong Ardwī Sūrā Anāhitā], that I may instigate the son of Purušaspa, righteous Zaraθuštra, to think …, to speak …, to act according to the Religion.’” In contrast, Yt. 15 has: “The Creator, Ahura Mazdā, worshipped Him in Arya Vaēja, etc. He entreated Him, ‘Grant me this boon [Vāyu, who has superior skill] that I may slay the creatures of Aŋra Mainyu, but not that which belongs to Spənta (Mainyu).’” The conclusion to be drawn from this and other examples is that Yt. 15 is not simply appropriating material from Yt. 5, but rather, drawing on some common source.

Bibliography:

[AiGr] A. Debrunner and J. Wackernagel, Altindische Grammatik II, 2, Göttingen, 1954.

H. W. Bailey, Dictionary of Khotan Saka, Cambridge, 1979. G. Dumézil, Les dieux des indo-européens, Paris, 1952, pp. 87- 88.

H. Humbach, “Vayu, Śiva und der Spiritus Vivens im ostiranschen Synkretismus,” in J. Duchesne-Guillemin, ed., Monumentum H. S. Nyberg I, Tehran and Liège, 1975, pp. 402-8.

B. Lincoln “The Indo-European Myth of Creation,” History of Religions, 15, 1975, pp. 121-45.

M. Mayrhofer, Iranisches Personennamenbuch I. Die altiranischen Namen 1. Die avestischen Namen, Wien, 1979.

Idem, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen II, Heidelberg, 1996, pp. 542, 544.

H. S. Nyberg Die Religionen des alten Iran, Leipzig, 1938; repr., Osnabrück, 1966, p. 300.

John M. Rosenfield, The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967. M. Schwartz, “Proto-IE ġem,” in Monumentum H. S. Nyberg, Acta Iranica II, Leiden, 1975, pp. 195-211 (208-9).

Idem, “Indo-Iranian Manyu-, Gathic Dualism, and their Indo- European Root, “ in Gedenkschrift Mayrhofer (forthcoming).

G. Widengren Die Religionen Irans, Stuttgart, 1965, pp. 8, 17.

S. Wikander, Vayu I, Uppsala, 1941.

R. C. Zaehner Zurvan, a Zoroastrian Dilemma, Oxford, 1955, pp. 80-91.

(William W. Malandra)

Originally Published: September 17, 2014

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VAZIRI, ʿAli-Naqi

(b. Tehran, 1887; d., Tehran, 9 September 1979), composer, virtuoso tār player, musical theorist, and educator.

VAZIRI, ʿAli-Naqi (b. Tehran, 1887; d., Tehran, 9 September 1979), composer, virtuoso tār player, musical theorist, and educator.

Life. Vaziri was the son of Musā Khan Mirpanj, a high ranking army officer, and Bibi Ḵānom, a well-educated woman active in the cause of women’s liberation. From childhood, Vaziri was inured to the rigors of military life, which seem to have been well suited to his temperament. He was only fourteen when, through his father’s intervention, he was admitted to military service (Ḵāleqi, II, p. 38-39; Khoshzamir, p. 51). In the army, he distinguished himself enough to receive steady promotions. His youthful years coincided with one of the most turbulent periods of Persian history. The first decade of the 20th century saw the rise of a revolutionary movement which pressed for the establishment of a constitutional democracy and the curtailment of the monarch’s unlimited powers (see CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION). Vaziri openly sympathized with the cause of the revolution, which made his position in the armed forces rather precarious. In 1909, he was charged with insubordination and was at risk of being incarcerated (Mir ʿAli-Naqi, p. 577). Soon, however, with evolving political conditions and the ascendancy of the revolutionary order, he was promoted to full colonel and was sent, as the head of a security force, to Māzandarān and Gorgān. The period between 1911 and 1913 was the high point of Vaziri’s military career; thereafter, with the onset of the World War I and increasing intrusion by the British and the Russians in the affairs of the country, he became increasingly dissatisfied with a career in armed forces. In 1917, he resigned from the army, determined to devote his life to music. But, to the end of his life, he was known to his friends as the “Colonel” (Ḵāleqi, II, pp. 62-64; Sepantā, 1990, p. 137).

Vaziri’s musical education began rather late and in a singularly desultory fashion. At the outset of his military service, when he was assigned, in the company of his father, to a regiment in the province of Gorgān, he came in contact with a fellow soldier who was the trumpeter of the regiment. From this soldier he learned how to play the trumpet (Ḵāleqi, II, pp. 38-39). Two years later, at age sixteen, on returning to Tehran, Vaziri asked his maternal uncle, a physician and an amateur tār player, to teach him how to play the tār. (He also studied the French language with this uncle.) From that point on, the young ʿAli-Naqi developed an insatiable appetite for musical studies of all kinds. Serendipitous encounters with various musicians prompted study of different musical instruments. He received violin lessons from Ḥosayn Hangāfarin, who also taught him Western musical notation. Hangāfarin and a number of other musicians who befriended Vaziri had been educated at the Music School founded in the 1860s, with French teachers for training of military band musicians (Khoshzamir, p. 53). They were all familiar with musical notation and had some knowledge of the theory of Western music. In remarkably quick succession, Vaziri not only became a competent violinist but also learned to play the kamānča (Persian fiddle), santur (Persian dulcimer), and the mandolin.

One of his friends, Moḥammad Ḥejāzi, who was an amateur violinist, had been a pupil at the St. Louis missionary school in Tehran, established and run by French instructors. Ḥejāzi introduced Vaziri to one of his former teachers, a priest called Pere Geffroie, who was a musician and a good pianist. He took an interest in Vaziri and gave him several sessions of instruction in theory and harmony (Ḵāleqi, II, p. 41; Sepantā, 1990, p. 136). On Pere Geffroie’s return to France, Vaziri had further studies in harmony with Solāymān Khan, a former pupil of Alfred Lemaire, the long time principal and teacher at the above mentioned Music School. It was Solaymān Khan who urged Vaziri to study piano, so that he could better understand harmonic techniques such as chord progressions and modulation (Ḵāleqi, I, pp. 219- 20, III, p. 43).

Concurrent with his growing fascination with the theory of Western music, and Western musical instruments, Vaziri was equally attracted to the intricacies of Persian traditional music. Tār was his favorite instrument, which he practiced diligently. For a period, he received instructions from Mirzā ʿAbd-Allāh, the celebrated tār and setār master and one of the most respected musicians of the late Qajar period. Through his contacts with Mirzā ʿAbd-Allāh, Vaziri became familiar with the repertoire (radifs) of Persian traditional music. He persuaded Mirzā ʿAbd- Allāh to allow him to write down, in Western notation, the entire repertoire as performed by this great master. The task took some eighteen months to accomplish (Ḵāleqi, II, pp. 45-47; Akbarzāda, I, p.100). It must be understood, however, that Vaziri’s notation was significant only as a documentation of Mirzā ʿAbd- Allāh’s rendition of the radif at a given time. The intention was not to foster performance of traditional music from notation, as the wealth of this music is in its ever changing manifestations through extemporization. It goes without saying that to perform the radif in a fixed manner, from notation, is bound to make it intolerably tedious.

Although, due to limited means available, Vaziri’s introduction to Western classical music had been, to say the least, erratic, he was, nevertheless, overwhelmed by the richness and diversity of this musical heritage. He admired the expressive range of Western music, the beauty of polyphony, and the great possibilities it avails to composers. It was soon clear to him that, by remaining in Persia, he could not obtain the sort of well- rounded musical education he desired. By 1914, he had decided to seek further musical studies in France, but, with the outbreak of World War I in Europe, his planned trip had to be postponed. Late in 1918, after armistice was declared, Vaziri arrived in Paris, in the company of his friend and mentor, Moṣṭafāqoli Khan Bayāt, who had undertaken to assist in financing Vaziri’s musical education. He was accepted at the Ecole Superieure de Musique; however, since at the age of thirty-one he was considerably older than other students, he was admitted as an auditor. He attended classes in harmony and counterpoint, as well as receiving some instruction in violin, piano, and singing. Later, he also studied composition, privately, with Paul Antonin Vidal (1863-1931), a well-known French conductor, composer, and teacher (Khoshzamir, p. 56; Ḵāleqi, II, pp. 64-66).

In 1921, Vaziri moved to Berlin and was enrolled, as a mature student, in the Hochschule fur Musik. There, he pursued further studies in musical composition and also attended classes in musical pedagogy. All through his years in Paris and Berlin, he continued with a rigorous work schedule in which practice of violin and piano figured prominently. While in Berlin, Vaziri associated with a group of Persian intellectuals who lived there and were publishing a periodical called Armaḡān. It was in this journal that Vaziri published his first article, “Ṣanāyeʿ-e mostaẓrafa." He also published his first book on music, Dastur-e tār, in Berlin.

At the end of summer 1923, Vaziri returned to Tehran, firmly resolved to work for the advancement of Persian music through the systematic application of Western techniques of composition and Western teaching methods. He made immediate preparations to establish a private music school. He devised a comprehensive curriculum covering practical training in musical instruments, both native and Western (primarily violin, piano, and tār), plus theoretical studies pertaining to both Persian traditional and Western classical music. Particular emphasis was placed on the study of notation, solfeggio, sight singing, and harmony.

In March of 1924, Vaziri’s school, with the grand title of Madrasa- ye ʿāli-e musiqi (Superior school of music), began its operation. He personally undertook the teaching of all subjects, but for administration and book-keeping he had part time assistance from a close friend, Solaymān Sepānlu, who was an amateur tār player. Among the first batch of students who registered for instruction were Musā Maʿrufi, Abu’l-Ḥasan Ṣabā, and Ruḥ-Allāh Ḵāleqi, who became major figures of Persian music in the 20th century. Other future celebrities whose musical education began with Vaziri included Esmāʿil Mehrtāš, Mehdi Barkešli, Ḥosayn Sanjari, Ḥosayn Golgolāb, and his own cousin ʿAbd-al-ʿAli Vaziri.

Soon after the school began to function, Vaziri created a school orchestra composed of those students who already had some proficiency in playing an instrument. The orchestra was formed by a combination of instruments including violin, violoncello, piano, flute, clarinet, and tār. Later he added to the ensemble the bass tār (tār-bās),an invention of his own. In the summer of 1924, he founded a musical association called Kolub-e musiqi (Club Musical) A number of well-educated and progressive- minded individuals, all of whom knew and respected Vaziri and were in sympathy with his reformist views, took membership in this club. Prominent among them were distinguished writers and scholars such as ʿAli Dašti, Moḥammad Ḥejāzi, ʿAli-Akbar Dehḵodā, Saʿid Nafisi, Rašid Yāsami, Naṣr-Allāh Falsafi, and ʿAbbās Eqbāl. The Club became a hub of cultural activity where the school orchestra gave concerts, conducted by Vaziri, often performing his own compositions (Ḵāleqi, II, pp. 33-36). He also presented lectures in the Club hall, on the significance of music as an art and its place in society. These concerts and lectures were open to both sexes. Vaziri’s attempts at encouraging ladies to attend cultural events was an exceptionally daring move at a time when women in Persia were in veil and were almost entirely excluded from public life.

From the outset, Vaziri enjoyed the support of not only his pupils but also most of the country’s intelligentsia. But his zeal for modernization, his aggressive pronouncements on the need for musical reform, and most of all his teaching methods, met with hostile reaction by many musicians of the old school. In him, they saw a European-educated musician who, through the infusion of Western ideas and practices, was upsetting time- honored traditions. A number of articles, notably one by the popular poet and musician, Abu’l-Qāsem ʿĀref Qazvini, appeared in newspapers, severely criticizing Vaziri for his Westernized views.

Conservative musicians were particularly troubled by Vaziri’s emphasis on theoretical studies that rested on Western musical concepts. This was inconsistent with standard procedure of teaching by rote and on a one to one basis. Traditionally, the sole object was to learn to play an instrument well and to become adept at improvised performance with the use of melodic material from the radif. No notation or books were used; any understanding of the theoretical foundations of music was a mere by-product of practical training and was rooted in the teacher’s views. Accordingly, most performers’ theoretical knowledge of music rested on an oral tradition, and was often patchy, imprecise, and poorly articulated.

Vaziri remained undeterred by disapproving voices. Within two years of the founding of his music school, he had garnered a great deal of support and had gained much respect within the elite of society. His concerts and lectures were widely attended. He even received encouragement from Reżā Khan, who, when prime minister in 1924, had attended one of Vaziri’s concerts at the Club Musical (Khoshzamir, p. 60). This was gratifying, but it was not Vaziri’s intention to promote an elitist enterprise; his primary aim was to provide music with a public arena, where ordinary citizens could come to hear music and develop appreciation and respect for music as a great art.

By late 1920s, Vaziri had become the country’s undisputed musical authority. His detractors were sidelined and his position, as the educated musician who had mastered both Persian and Western music, was widely acclaimed. In 1928, the Ministry of Education asked Vaziri to take charge of the old Music School (Madrasa-ye muzik), founded some sixty years earlier for training military band musicians. Accordingly, Vaziri acted as the head of both his own private school and the State Music School (Madrasa-ye musiqi-e dawlati), which was financed by the government. Within a few years the two schools were amalgamated into a music conservatory with a five year course leading to an accredited secondary school diploma. A number of Vaziri’s more accomplished pupils were engaged as teachers in this conservatory.

In 1930, Vaziri made a formal proposal to the Minister of Education recommending that music theory and group singing should gradually be introduced in the primary school curriculum throughout the country. This was an ambitious move at a time when very few were qualified to teach such subjects. It was, moreover, a most audacious move in a country where for centuries, due to religious proscription, public musical activity simply did not exist. Nevertheless, in keeping with modernization and far-reaching reforms that was transforming the country during the reign of Reżā Shah, the proposal met with approval. Unfortunately, given the dearth of music teachers, the program was introduced in only a few of the schools in the capital and eventually had to be withdrawn.

The ten years between 1924 and 1934 represent Vaziri’s most productive period. He was active as a tireless educator, music administrator, and the leading spokesman for the cause of modernization of music. His prodigious accomplishments in publication of books and articles, as well as composition of a sizable corpus of music, shall be discussed below. In 1934, however, Vaziri fell out of favor with the Shah and was removed from the headship of Madrasa-ye musiqi-e dawlati. The rift leading to his dismissal, according to Ruḥ-Allāh Ḵāleqi, emanated from Vaziri’s refusal to comply with a directive from the Royal Court for the school orchestra to perform at the Royal Palace in the course of a dinner given by the Shah for the heir to the thrown of Sweden. Vaziri had responded that he and the orchestra will be honored to perform a concert at the palace, but not while the guests were having dinner.

In the following seven years, Vaziri remained largely absent from the front line of musical activity, where his presence had been so dominant during the previous ten years. This period allowed him more time for research and composition. Moreover, in 1936, the governing board of the University of Tehran appointed Vaziri to the newly-created chair of aesthetics. It was in this position that he demonstrated the remarkable versatility and breadth of his cultural attainment. He gave lectures not only on aesthetics in music and arts, but also on history of art and architecture. Vaziri retained his professorship at the University until his retirement in 1965.

With the abdication of Reżā Shah, subsequent to the invasion and occupation of Persia by the Allied forces in September 1941, and the succession of Moḥammad-Reżā Shah to the throne, once again Vaziri rose to prominence. During the preceding seven years, the state music school, now called Honarestān-e musiqi, under directorship of Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Minbāšiān, had been purged of its Persian music subjects. It had become primarily a school geared to the study of Western classical music, with emphasis on performance, on the model of European conservatories (Ḵāleqi, III, p. 79). In 1941 Vaziri was reinstated as the head of this Conservatory and courses on Persian music and musical instruments were reintroduced. He was also asked to take charge of the music department of the recently established Tehran Radio. A third position that was offered him was the headship of music office within the Ministry of Education, with the brief to oversee music education throughout the country.

Vaziri’s re-entry into musical limelight did not last long. By 1946, political upheaval, in the aftermath of World War II, resulted, once again, in his removal from the headship of the Music Conservatory and the music office in the Ministry of Education. Although he maintained some contact with Tehran Radio and his compositions were often heard on the air, as he approached his 60th year, Vaziri effectively retired from public life. He continued with his seminars on aesthetics and art history at the University of Tehran and lived long enough to witness the revolution of 1978-79, the fall of monarchy, and the beginnings of the Islamic Republic. The stringent policies initially adopted by the clerical regime, as regards music and its place in society, must have sat very painfully with Vaziri. Sadly, he did not live to see that these policies were gradually moderated, and that the public enthusiasm for musical activity rendered any remaining restriction ineffectual. He died in his home, on the slopes of the Alborz mountains north of Tehran, on 9 September 1979, aged 92.

By all accounts, Vaziri was an extraordinary figure, quite unique among Persian musician of the 20th century. From his youth he displayed forceful personal characteristics; he was uncompromising, resolute, forthright, and courageous. An enormously energetic man, he was never idle and kept a rigid daily work schedule. He was fond of sports and made a habit of daily physical exercise, which he maintained into his old age. As a highly articulate and charismatic man, Vaziri exerted influence on nearly everyone who came in contact with him. This was particularly true of his pupils who held him in great esteem. He was an avid supporter of reform and modernization. From early life he was drawn to the dynamics of Western civilization and believed that Persia must be rescued from stagnation and backwardness through westernization.

Vaziri first married when he was only nineteen years old. His only surviving offspring, Badr Āfāq (Badri) was born three years later (1909); she married her cousin Ḥosayn-ʿAli Mallāḥ, ten years her junior, who was a devoted disciple of Vaziri and became a distinguished scholar of music. At the time of his departure for Europe in 1918, Vaziri and his wife, Aḵtar Ḵānom, had separated. His second marriage to Oḏrā Ḥejāzi, a sister of his friend the writer Moḥammad Ḥejāzi, took place in 1937 (Mir ʿAli-Naqi, pp. 577, 582).

Although Vaziri had been deeply moved by the grandeur of Western art music, he remained essentially committed to Persian music. In his view, Persian music had unlimited possibilities for development, but centuries of religious proscription had made it insular and inert. Its salvation and flowering, he firmly believed, had to be achieved through fresh creative output and the application of Western polyphonic techniques.

As a performer of the tār, he attained technical prowess on a level unmatched by any of his contemporaries. It must be added, however, that his accent on display of virtuosity represented a departure from the more contemplative performance style of traditional music and was not to everyone’s liking. He was also a fluent performer of the setār, the violin, and the piano, and was well acquainted with most wind instruments.

Vaziri’s most radical, and controversial, musical contribution was the theory of the quarter-tone scale. In a brief chapter on theory, in his first published book, Dastur-e tār, and more extensively in Musiqi-e naẓari, he sets forth the proposition that all the modes of traditional music can be conceived within an octave scale of twenty-four equidistant (tempered) quarter- tones. This concept has no historic precedence in Persia and is not verified by the reality of Persian music. It was proffered with the intention of accommodating the application of Western harmony to musical compositions within Persian modes. For his quarter-tone scale, Vaziri derives justification from the fact that Persian modes employ, in addition to the semi-tone and the whole-tone, intervals that lie in between the two. He postulates that these intervals are equal to a three-fourths tone, disregarding the fact that they are highly unstable and almost never fall exactly halfway in between the semi-tone and the whole-tone. More remarkably, while Vaziri recognizes that the quarter-tone, by itself, has no place in Persian music (Mir ʿAli Naqi, p. 297), he insists on taking it as the basic unit with which his twenty-four-tone-scale is constructed. Unfortunately, Vaziri’s profession of the quarter-tone theory has planted, in the minds of many of his followers, to this day, the unsupportable notion that Persian music is founded on quarter-tones.

Works. Vaziri’s creative output include books and articles, musical compositions, and recordings.

Books. Dastur-e tār (Berlin, 1922) is the first known publication of its kind pertaining to the study of a Persian musical instrument. It contains a brief chapter on the theory of Persian music according to the quartet-tone scale discussed above, while the main part provides a series of graded exercises and pieces written for the tār in Western notation.

Dastur-e jadid-e tār (Tehran, 1936) is a collection of more graded pieces for advanced studies of the tār, including many of Vaziri’s own compositions. Dastur-e violon, (2 vols., Tehran, 1933-37), a book of graded exercises and pieces for the violin.

Musiqi-e naẓari (3 vols., Tehran, 1934). The first volume is an introduction to Western musical notation, tonalities, and their scales. The second volume covers the theory of Persian modes, explaining the structure of Dastgāh and āvāz system according to the author’s quarter-tone theory. Here, Vaziri introduces some modifications to the traditional classifications; for example, he recognizes not seven, but only five dastgāhs (Šur, Segāh, Čahārgāh, Homāyun, and Māhur) and refers to the remaining two (Navā and Rāst-Panjgāh) and the five secondary dastgāhs (Abu ʿAṭā, Dašti, Bayāt-e Tork, and Afšāri) not as āvāz, but as naḡma. He also makes alterations in the scale of Bayāt-eEṣfahān, in order to make it correspond with the harmonic minor scale of Western music. The third volume is concerned with the theory of Western music and the principles of harmony.

Sorudhā-ye madāres (Tehran, 1933), a collection of anthems, composed by the author, for use in primary schools. He is also the author of a book on aesthetics (Zibā-šenāsi dar honar wa ṭabiʿat, Tehran, 1950) and another one on the history of visual arts (Tāriḵ-e ʿomumi-e honarhā-ye moṣawwar, qabl az tāriḵ tā Eslām, Tehran, 1961).

Vaziri’s unpublished works include a book on “Instrumentation,” a book on “Harmony in Persian music,” “Advanced exercises for the study of violin,” “Advanced exercises for the study of tār,” and “Exercises for the study of setār.” Articles. A collection of four of Vaziri’s lectures, given at the Club Musical, under the title of Dar ʿālam-e musiqi wa ṣanʿat, was edited and published as a booklet by Saʿid Nafisi in 1925.

In addition to the article on fine arts, referred to above, published in Majalla-ye armaḡān (Berlin, 1923), Vaziri wrote a series of articles on the issue of harmony in Persian music and four articles on theatre arts. They were all published in Majalla- ye musiqi in 1941-42.

A collection of Vaziri’s unpublished short articles, some of his professional letters and interviews, plus editor’s commentary were collated, edited, and published by Sayyed ʿAli-Reżā Mir- ʿAli-Naqi, under the title: Musiqi-nāma-ye Vaziri (Tehran, 1999).

Compositions. It is very difficult to account for the exact number of Vaziri’s musical compositions. All of his books on study methods of musical instrument (violin, tār, and setār) contain numerous pieces that he wrote for these instruments. They are mostly short pieces geared to the student’s need at various levels in the learning process. He also wrote a number of occasion-pieces such as anthems, hymns, and marches, such as Sorud-e mehr-e Irān, Sorud-e ey waṭan, Mārš-e varzeškārān, and Mārš-e madāres.

His songs (taṣnif), on classical, or contemporary poetry, in various Persian modes, are perhaps his most important compositions. These are artfully composed pieces with marked attention to the emotional content of the text as reflected in music. In each of them, melodic references to one of the dastgāhs establish a bond with traditional music; at the same time, a thin harmonic underpinning gives the piece a light polyphonic texture. This merger of Persian modality with elements of harmony and counterpoint represents Vaziri’s cautious approach to the objective of modernizing native music through the application of Western compositional techniques.

Vaziri also composed incidental music for a number of plays which went under the heading of operetta. He is reputed to have written a few symphonic movements (Sepantā, 1990, p. 148), but apparently they were never performed.

Notable among his purely instrumental compositions are pieces for tār solo and tār duets. These compositions are heavily imbued with Western mannerisms, devised to display virtuosity and technical dexterity. Use of large leaps, double stops, chords, runs in parallel thirds, all alien to traditional Persian music, characterize works such as: Bandbāz (Acrobat) and Žimnāstik muzikāl (Musical gymnastics). In his duets for two tārs, he employs contrapuntal devices such as imitation, inversion, and canon.

During the 1920s and 1930s, some thirty seven 78rpm recordings were made, and were commercially marketed, containing compositions (mostly taṣnifs and soruds) by Vaziri (Sepantā, 1990, p. 147). Included were also a number of tār solos of his own compositions, as well as improvisations in various Persian modes. Many of Vaziri’s vocal pieces, and solo performances on the tār, were recorded for radio broadcasts. Some of these, presumably, have been preserved in the archives of Tehran Radio.

Bibliography:

Pežmān Akbarzāda, Musiqidānān-e irāni, 2 vols., Shiraz, 2000-2, I, pp. 99-102.

Hormoz Farhat, The Dastgah Concept in Persian Music, Cambridge, UK, 1990.

Ruḥ-Allāh Ḵāleqi, Sargoḏašt-e musiqi-e Irān, 2 vols., Tehran, 1954-56; III, ed. Sāsān Sepantā, Tehran, 1998.

Mojtaba Khoshzamir, “Ali Naqi Vaziri and His Influence on Music and Music Education in Iran,” Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1979.

Ḥosayn-ʿAli Mallāḥ, “Colonel ʿAli-Naqi Vaziri,” Jahān-e now, no. 6-15, 1951.

Idem, “Ṭarḥ-i az Ostād ʿAli-Naqi Vaziri dar bāb-e musiqi-e melli-e Irān,” Soḵan, 1973, 4.

Parviz Manṣuri, “Vaziri, noqṭa-ye ʿaṭf-i dar tāriḵ-e musiqi-e Irān,” Rudaki, no. 12, October 1972.

Idem, “Honar as now-āvari mimānad,” Rudaki, no. 48, October 1975 (an interview with Vaziri).

Ḥabib-Allāh Naṣirifar, Mardān-e musiqi-e sonnati wa novin-e Irān, Tehran, 1990.

Ruḥangiz Rāhgāni, Tāriḵ-e musiqi-e Irān, Tehran, 1998.

Sāsān Sepantā, Čašmandāz-e musiqi-e Irān, Tehran, 1990, pp. 134-60.

Idem, “ʿAli-Naqi Vaziri, Pišgām-e musiqi-e novin-e Irān,” Faṣl- nāma-ye Kermān, no. 19, Winter 1995.

Idem, “Barresi-e tāriḵ-e now-āvari dar musiqi-e Irāni,” Faṣl- nāma-ye māhur, no 15, Autumn 2002.

Mehdi Setāyešgar, Nām-nāma-ye musiqi-e Irān-zamin III, Tehran, 1998.

Ella Zonis, Classical Persian Music: An Introduction, Cambridge, Mass., 1973. (Hormoz Farhat)

Originally Published: July 20, 2003

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VENDĪDĀD the common name given to the Avestan text widaēwa-dāta-, Pahl. jud-dēw-dād “The Law repudiating the Demons.”

VENDĪDĀD

the common name given to the Avestan text widaēwa-dāta-, Pahl. jud-dēw-dād “The Law repudiating the Demons.”

i. Survey of the history and contents of the text.

ii. Transmission of the Vīdēvdād in India.

(Multiple Authors)

Originally Published: March 9, 2015

......

VENDĪDĀD i. Survey of the history and contents of the text Of the three major divisions of the 21 Nasks of the Sasanian Avesta, the Vendīdād was the last of those called dādīg “dealing with law,” and 19th overall. The summary of its contents given in the 9th-century Dēnkard accords closely with the extent of the received text.

VENDĪDĀD

i. Survey of the History and Contents of the Text

Of the three major divisions of the 21 Nasks of the Sasanian Avesta, the Vendīdād—Avestan widaēwa-dāta-, Pahl. jud-dēw- dād “The Law repudiating the Demons” (Benveniste, 1970)—was the last of those called dādīg “dealing with law,” and 19th overall. The summary of its contents given in the 9th-century Dēnkard (Bk. 8.44; West, 1892, pp. 6-8, 152-66; ed. Madan, pp. 777-84) accords closely with the extent of the received text. In both the latter and the former chapter 12 is omitted, though in the Mss the numbering after 11 jumps to 13. K2 and the Mss descended from it contain a chapter 12, but this is an 18th century composition (West, 1892, pp. 160-61). Thus, the received text of both the Avestan and Pahlavi versions (see below) is as it was in the 9th century, and we can only assume that at some point after the fall of the Sasanian empire the twelfth chapter became lost. Since this chapter is also absent from the Vendīdād Sāde Mss. (on which, see below), we can conclude that the composite texts were constructed after the 7th century, that is, after the loss of Chap. 12, and that the Widēwdād- ceremony (Modi, 1922, pp. 350-51) is an innovation of the Islamic period. Why did the Vendīdād survive almost intact, while so much else of the Sasanian Avesta was lost or has been preserved only in the countless citations of the 9th century books? The answer lies, most probably, in its ritual use for the nocturnal Widēwdād- ceremony intended to protect from the demonic menace, as well as in its general applicability to crucial matters of purity and pollution. As a work of literature and theology, the Vendīdād has generally been the object of much abuse by scholars (see Bishop, 1974, pp. 12-14), in that, like Leviticus, it has little appeal to modern tastes. Nevertheless, it is nearly unique among Avestan texts in the view it gives of certain aspects of the life of the Zoroastrian community.

The manuscripts, text-criticism, and translations. Owing to the special employment of the Avestan text in the Widēwdād- ceremony, there developed two parallel, though not wholly independent, manuscript traditions. The one may be called the Pahlavi Vendīdād (PV), in that the Avestan text is accompanied by the Pahlavi “translation.” The other is the Avestan text interpolated, along with the Vispered, into the Yasna (for details see Modi, 1922, pp. 351-54), with the entire compilation bearing the name Vendīdād Sāde (VS). Further, there are two VS Ms traditions: an Iranian one, which is quite faithful to the Avestan text of the PV, and an Indian one, which diverges from the Iranian VS and the PV. The Mss of the VS became the Vulgate texts of their respective communities, and, while they abound in number, they (especially those of the Indian branch) are of limited text-critical value.

Of the PV tradition there exist two old Mss to which all later Mss can be traced. L4 was completed on 28 August 1323 by the scribe Mihrābān Kay Ḵusrow at Nawsari. K1 was completed by the same scribe on 17 May 1324 at Cambay. Both are now incomplete and damaged, though folios 2-32, then in the possession of Ervad Mānekjī Rūstamjī Unvālā, were used by D. Hoshang Jāmāsp in his 1907 edition. Nevertheless, Ml3 completed on 13 May 1594 by Ardašir Zīwā at Broach is preserved as the sole complete and direct transcript of K1. From Ml3 are immediately descended B1 and K3b, both undated. From a lost copy of B1 are immediately descended K3a, M3, both undated, and P2, completed in 1728 by Dastur Dārāb at Surat. Finally, in the K1 line are K2, also by Dastur Dārāb and much influenced by the Vulgate, and P10, a 19th-century copy based on both K1 and L4 lines. The only authoritative Ms in the L4 line is Pṭ. Undated, this Ms appears to be a copy of a lost copy of L4. It is both influenced by the Vulgate and has been corrected by a second hand in conformity to P2. Through colophons the prehistory of the L4-K1 lines can be plotted. Mihrābān used a Ms which his father Rustam Mihrābān Marzbān had made shortly after his arrival in India in 1269, who in turn had copied a Ms made by Ardašir Wahman in Iran ca. 1205. Finally, that copy was of a Ms made by Hōmāst (date?). (See Table 1.)

Both Iranian and Indian classes of the VS derive from a Ms tradition older than Rustam’s PV manuscript. The authoritative Mss of the Iranian line are Mf2 (29 May 1618) and Jp1 (13 July 1638), both in the Yazd tradition. In K. F. Geldner’s opinion these represent the Iranian Vulgate and are the descendants of a revised, critical version which would have been composed “in strict adherence to a Pahlavi Avestā codex now lost” (Avesta I, p. xxiii). The Indian VS appears to derive from the Seistan tradition. As mentioned, its Mss are of limited text-critical value. The Pahlavi commentary was first edited and published by Spiegel (1853), where the Avestan and Pahlavi texts, both in their respective scripts, are given separately. P. Sanjana (1895) published the Pahlavi text only, as “the text prescribed for the B.A. and M.A. examinations of the University of Bombay.” Again, H. Jamasp (1907) published the Pahlavi version beside his edition of the Avestan text. These latter two are useful editions in Pahlavi script, but must be used with caution, as the authors had recourse to a small numbers of Mss either in their possession or available in contemporary Bombay, as well as to the Spiegel edition. In any case, the Pahlavi version of the text is surprisingly faithful to the original. Although it is often referred to as a translation, as, for example, in the AirWb. citations of the “Pü” (= Pahlavi Übersetzung), it is not so much a translation as a running word-for-word gloss. That is, without changing the word order to reflect Middle Persian syntax, the commentator has, in the same manner as the Yasna commentary, glossed in order every Avestan word, often, though not always, adding an eżāfa or a preposition to indicate syntactic relationships. The biggest problem for understanding the glosses is in respect to verb endings, as there is a constant vacillation in the 3rd person between singular and plural endings, often in disregard of the obvious Avestan form. Is this due to a very faulty scribal tradition, or was it part of the original gloss?

There are only two worthwhile complete translations. The more philologically reliable is the German translation of Fr. Wolff, itself based on Chr. Bartholomae’s dictionary. In many ways far more useful, provided one reads with great care, are the translations of J. Darmesteter. His Zend-Avesta was first brought out in English translation in the Sacred Books of the East (1880) and again in French (1892) with greatly expanded notes. A second English edition, revised by the author and completed after his untimely death by West, appeared in the SBE (1895). The French translation is a monument of Avestan scholarship, its greatest value residing in the copious notes, which attempt to deal seriously with the Pahlavi version and more generally with the authority of the Pahlavi books.

Dating of the Avestan text. Since the nature of the received text itself is composite and heterogeneous, it is impossible to assign a date to the text without specifying what the date refers to. Thus, final redaction will have a much younger date than those which one might assign to the various parts. Henning (1942, pp. 235-39) argued that, in matters of linear measurement, Avestan texts exhibit two systems. The one, consisting of the hāra and carətu or carətā, was used for long distances and was derived from the measurements of race courses. This system is found especially in older texts, such as the Yašts, and is Iranian in origin. The other, used for short distances, “so closely resembles the common Greco-Roman system, as a whole and in all details, that its foreign origin can be taken for granted. It was presumably introduced into Persia by the Macedonian conquerors.” Accordingly, at least those sections of the text which use the system of measurements for short distances could be assigned a post-Achaemenid date of composition (cf. Gershevitch, 1968, p. 27; Boyce and Grenet, 1991, p. 68). However, there is substantial evidence, derived from Achaemenid architecture, that measures corresponding to the Greek were already in use (Bivar, 1985, pp. 625-30). Further, the Avestan terms may simply reflect an indigenous system analogous to the Greco-Roman system, as the latter cannot claim priority in the assignment of fingers, hands, spans, cubits, fathoms, feet, and paces for units of measure. The Avestan terms are all good Iranian words (except for baši and t̰ bišiš, whose meaning is unknown, unless one assumes a priori the exact correspondence to Gr. kóndulos “knuckle”), and many correspond to terms in Old Indian: Av. dišti ‘short span”: OInd. diṣṭi, Av. wītasti “normal span”: OInd. vitasti, Av. paδa “foot”: OInd. pada; Av. frārāθni “cubit”: OPers arašni, OInd aratní; Av. ərəzu “finger(breadth)” is glossed by Pahl. angust (cf. Av. angušta): OInd. aṅgúṣṭa = aṅgula. That is, the measurement vocabulary found in the Vendīdād cannot reliably serve as a guide to dating the text.

There is general agreement among scholars that the Avestan of the Vendīdād bears witness to a late and degenerate state of the language. One encounters such infelicities as lack of agreement in case and number, as well as gender, in unexpected verbal forms, and in tortured syntax. A huge editorial conundrum is to decide where the received text preserves the reading that the author intended and where the Ms tradition is the cause of error. Quite apart from text-critical problems of Ms readings, however, stands the problem of understanding how the text was constructed. A review of the contents of the Vendīdād (see below) reveals that this is a quite heterogeneous work. Rather than the creation of a single author composing in his native language, the Vendīdād is the conscious product of a redactor (or redactors) who has assembled diverse materials from sources now mostly lost. Seen in this light, many of the grammatical and syntactical problems are more accurately traced to the incongruity of sources which frequently make up the patchwork of the text. For example, Chap. 3.14 is composed out of at least three different sources. The opening prohibition, “Let no one carry a dead (man) alone” (mā.ciš +barō aēwō yat̰ iristəm), appears to be coordinated with the protasis of the immediately following statement: “But if for him he should carry a dead (man) alone” (āat̰ yezi.šē barāt̰ ...). But the enclitic –šē, having no referent, betrays the independent source. The apodosis, “the Nasu will surely contaminate (him)” (upa wā nasuš raēθβāṭ), is in order; however, raēθ- should take the instrumental case rather than the ablative in the following series of body-parts, which, accordingly, will have been taken from another context (cf. Vd. 9.16 ff.). Also in this series the term paitiš.xwarənāδa “from the jaw” is a gloss on “having a tongue” (hizuma(n)t), i.e., mouth.” Then, there is an abrupt switch to the plural: “This Nasu Druj flies upon their nails. They become incapable of being purified for ever and ever” (aēšąm paiti sruye aēša druxš yā nasuš upa.dwąsaiti. ayaoždya bawainti yawaēca yawaētātāeca). In this example we see that the passage is not the rude essay of someone attempting to compose in Avestan; rather, it is the piecing together of separately good Avestan phrases by someone who could not compose Avestan, yet who could produce, nonetheless, an intelligible statement. These considerations lead to the conclusion that the text of the Vendīdād was redacted after Avestan ceased to be a live medium of communication, yet was still understood in its general contours. If, as is generally held, the Zoroastrianized verses of the Yašts were composed in decent Avestan approximately in the 5th century B.C.E., then the Vendīdād will have been composed in the Arsacid period, if not even under the early (?) Sasanians.

As imprecise as the dating of the redaction may be, the dating of the materials so redacted seems a nearly hopeless task. One can observe, though, that the repetitious style of many sections, which has brought the charge of literary vacuity, is probably traceable to oral compositions, for which one can find ample analogies, for example, in the originally oral Theravāda Buddhist scriptures.

Dating of the Pahlavi text. Despite the differences of opinion among scholars over the dating of the great compilation of the Sasanian Avesta and the invention (probably for this enterprise) of the Avestan script (see AVESTA), the Iranian traditions of the cultural blossoming under Xusrow I (531-79 C.E.) certainly included writings on law. The one remaining collection of legal judgments from the Sasanian era, the Mādayān ī Hazār Dādistān, can be dated to ca. 615 C.E. in the reign of Xusrow II (591-628) (Perikhanian, 1997, p. 12). As already noticed, the Sasanian Avesta contained the Vendīdād as one of its dādīg Nasks. Now, the Pahlavi commentary to Vend. 4.49 makes reference to Mazdak son of Bāmdād (mazdak ī bāmdādān), who was active in the reign of Kawād (488-531) and put to death under the then crown prince Xusrow ca. 528. While Mazdak’s name became synonymous with rebellion thereafter into Islamic times (Frye, 1984, p. 324), this date does mark a terminus post quem. However, the usefulness of the notes like this one in the commentaries is compromised by the fact that they were written after the completion of the word-by-word gloss. The commentaries also mention the names of various authorities who themselves composed commentaries called cāštag “teaching” and who are quoted in other Pahlavi works. The Šāyast-nē-šāyast even refers to the “Vendīdād of Mēdyōmāh,” apparently a full commentary now lost. It seems impossible to place any of these men in a more specific context than late Sasanian times (for details on the names and citations, see West, 1880, pp. 242-45).

We may, then, identify at least two main phases of the development of the Pahlavi text of the Vendīdād. The first will be the word-by-word gloss which was composed uniformly as the zend (or zand) of the 19th Nask. The date one assigns this is dependent upon the general dating of the Sasanian Avesta. The second phase will be the commentary, that is, the longer explanations and comments inserted throughout the text. Here we have little to go on except to recognize that these are marginalia gleaned from late Sasanian cāštags. Whether they are the work of a single hand, like the “Vendīdād of Mēdyōmāh,” or collected notes added over generations, is impossible to tell, though their randomness suggests the latter and does not rule them out as the product of 9th-century scholasticism.

Authorship and place of composition. From the fact that the overriding concern of the Vendīdād, often in the most minute detail, is pollution, scholars have generally agreed that the authors of the text were the Magi. This is due to the observation of Classical authors concerning the fastidiousness of these Median priests. The same Classical sources, as well as the Achaemenid inscriptions, document the prominent role of the Magi both in Media and in Persis, and Middle Persian terminology (moγmard, mowbed) shows the continuity of this priesthood through history. However, the extant texts of the Avesta mention this name only once (Y. 65.7 moγu.t̰ biš “hostile to the maγu”; see Molé, 1963, p. 80), using instead other terms (aθrawan-, zaotar-, mąθran-), the Vendīdād being no exception. Matters are further complicated by the geographical details offered in the first chapter of the text. The chapter opens with Ahura Mazdā (AhM) telling Zaraθuštra: “I established a place of habitation that affords peace, not one devoid of joy. For if I had not established a place ... devoid of joy, the entire material world would have gone to Airyana Waējah.” In order to avert overpopulation (also a problem addressed in Chap. 2), AhM established other localities as alternate abodes for Iranians, thereby defining the bounds of suitable habitation. The location of Airyana Waējah “The Expanse of the Aryans” (see ĒRĀN- WĒZ), the homeland of the Avestan people, has been the subject of much discussion. Although in the Vendīdād list it may be a substitute for Xwārazmī (Chorasmia), one senses that the term is more ideological than specifically geographical, like the later concept of Ērān-šahr or the Indian concept of Aryavarta. In any case, the area bounded by the entities included in the list is defined by Raγā farthest west, Sogdiana farthest north, the region of the southern Hēlmand farthest south, and the Panjāb farthest east. Prominently absent in comparison with the satrapy lists of the Achaemenid inscriptions are Māda and Pārsa, among others. The Vendīdād list also differs from the inscriptions in the use of place names; thus, Gawa glossed with suγδō.šayana- ‘abode of Sogdiana” = OPers. Suguda; Waikṛta “Kābul” = Gandāra; Xnanta glossed with wəhrkānō.šayana ‘abode of Wṛkāna” = Warkāna. In other words, the list appears to be thoroughly eastern Iranian and uninfluenced by the well publicized satrapy lists. (See AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY.)

The conundrum is: if the Vendīdād were composed by the Magi either during or after the Achaemenid period, why do they avoid all allusion to the historical centers of political power in western Iran? Christensen (1943, pp. 81-82) offered the weak argument that because burial of the dead, an abomination in the Vendīdād, was practiced in Persis, it was deliberately omitted from the list, even though all Classical sources attest to the power and prominence of the Magi in all matters pertaining to the Persian religion. Other explanations involve elaborate theories about how the Magi came to appropriate eastern texts without mentioning themselves or western Iran. Leaving aside the question of the redaction which created the received text (see above), the evidence is that the substance of Chap. 1 is thoroughly eastern Iranian, like the rest of the Avesta. Further clouding the issue of Magian authorship is the assumption that they would have been the only priests in ancient Iran preoccupied with purity and pollution.

The Vendīdād as law-book. Although one can find analogies with other ancient works dealing with law, the Vendīdād is a unique form of composition. Since, from the Zoroastrian theological point of view, all revelation came to Zaraθuštra directly from Ahura Mazdā, the entire work is framed as a dialogue between God and prophet, though at times the author is unable to sustain the literary fiction, e.g., Vend. 19.1-6, a fragment of the Zaraθuštra legend. As in the Pentateuch, where pericopes are introduced with the formulaic voice of authority, “And the Lord said to Moses ...,” pronouncements have the authority of AhM’s voice and are not the creation of a king or the prophet. Also, similar to the literary framing of the laws of the Pentateuch in a broad narrative, the author of the Vendīdād carefully placed his “laws” within an opening narrative context of geography and creation of the world and a closing (Chaps.19-21) of loosely arranged themes foreshadowing the eventual defeat of Aŋra Mainyu. If there is a common strand binding all the disparate material, it is maintenance of righteous living in pursuit of happiness in a world constantly threatened by pollution and chaos from the demonic powers.

In using the word “law” to translate Av./OPers. dāta- (a word borrowed into Akkadian, Aramaic, and Hebrew), one should not think of legislative statutes. Rather, it has been long recognized (Landsberger, 1939) that ancient Near Eastern law codes are literary collections of judgements. Such was the case of Sasanian law as well. In ancient India, by contrast, the dharmaśāstras are largely collections of aphorisms on legal principles. Stripped of the literary framework of question-answer many of the laws in the Vendīdād follow the formulaic model of the ancient Near East, approximately: “If a man does X, then Y should happen.” Aphoristic verses do occur, for example, the praises of agriculture (3.24-33). Still, a large portion of the text is devoted to questions that demand either prescriptive or descriptive responses. Thus, in Chap. 9 to a query about cleansing after contact with a corpse, AhM gives a long descriptive account on how one should perform the baršnūm (see BARAŠNOM) purification ritual; in Chap. 5 Zaraθuštra formulates a series of occasions when one might incur pollution through indirect contact with a corpse, and asks what expiation should be made.

The “laws” contained in the Vendīdād are of various sorts. Some appear to have a basis in civil jurisprudence, for example, those dealing with assault, contracts, oaths; many others dealing with pollution fall under what one might call religious law. However, the distinction between civil and religious law is not a concept to be found in the tradition. For a community which believed the world to be overrun with demonic forces whose most powerful weapons were pollution and disease, infringement of rules of conduct designed to combat and negate these evils, would have been tantamount to exposing the righteous believers to grave danger. Nevertheless, a survey of the punishments prescribed reveals that those for civil offenses have the ring of practical authenticity, while those for religious transgressions often far exceed what could have been actual practice. For example, the punishments for the types of assault and battery escalate according to the gravity of the crime and repeated offense. For assault 10 lashes (see below) are prescribed for the first offense, 15 for the second, to 90 for the sixth and 200 for the incorrigible. In contrast, the punishment for placing a full piece of clothing, whether of fabric or leather, on a corpse is 1,000 lashes, a flogging that could not be endured.

The impression of artificiality one gets from these and other examples, is strengthened by the literary structure of many of the formulations. Especially prominent is the penchant for either ascending or descending enumeration of entities and punishments according to prestige, value, or severity. In Chap. 7, for example, to Zaraθuštra's simple question about the possibility of purifying a cup which has been polluted by contact with the nasu “corpse” of a dog or dead man, AhM responds with a long series of repetitions reflecting the descending hierarchy of metals: “If they are of gold (silver, bronze, steel, stone), then they should wash them once (twice, thrice, four times, six times) with bull’s urine, fill them up once (twice, thrice, four times, six times) with earth, wash them once (twice, thrice, four times, six times) with water; then they will purify them.” In the case of violated contracts (4.5-16) the legal principle is advanced that the family of the contract-breaker also becomes responsible, with the responsibility extending ever wider according to the value of the pledge which concluded the contract. A word obligates 300 male members of the family, a handshake, 600; a sheep, 700; a cow, 800; a man, 900; and a tract of land, 1,000. In parallel, the punishment for the contract- breaker extends from 300 to 1,000 lashes.

Although legal procedure is never spelled out, we can identify some of the main terminology. The judge was called ratu, a member of the priestly estate. Punishment is encountered throughout the text, usually when, after having posed a situation of transgression, Zaraθuštra asks with the formula kā hē asti ciθā “What is his ciθā?” In most cases this term can be translated as “punishment,” yet there are contexts where the basic meaning “expiation, atonement” (PahlGl tōzišn) is a better rendering. That is, the expiation entailed either a corporeal or monetary consequence, and was regarded not only as punishment, but also as a form of purification. Flogging is the standard form of corporeal punishment. Its specifications occur in the formula: X upāzananąm upāzōit̰ aspahe aštraya X sraošō.caranaya “One should inflict X lashes of the horsewhip, X of the scourge.” It is not certain exactly what the aspa aštrā, lit. “(instrument for) the driving of a horse,” was, and altogether uncertain what the sraošō.caranā ‘instrument of obedience” was. Further, it is unclear whether the text is specifying double flogging with two instruments, or whether the terms form a literary hendiadys. The priest (cf. Vend. 5.58) who carried out the flogging was called the sraošāwarəz “who works obedience.” Most severe of the levels of crime, both civil and religious, are those whereby the perpetrator becomes tanū.pərəθa or pəšō.tanū (see Gershevitch, 1959, pp. 245-48) “whose body is forfeit, owed,” a term whose PahlGl is tanāpuhl, marg-arzān “worthy of death.”

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENT

Chap. 1. See above under Authorship and place of composition.

Chap. 2. The chapter presents two general mythic motifs, both, in some sense having to do with the ordering of the Earth after the initial creation. After an initial question of Zaraθuštra concerning whom AhM first taught the “ahuric, Zoroastrian Religion” and AhM’s reply that it was Yama, secs. 3-19 recount how Yama rejected AhM’s request that he be the first priest, then accepted the second request that he expand, prosper, and rule the Earth, that is, be the first ruler; how at the end of segments of 300 years he had to drive the Earth so that she could expand to accommodate the overcrowding of creatures. During these periods life remained in a paradisiacal state without hot or cold winds, and without sickness or death. In spite of the ideal conditions, evil had entered the world. Secs. 20-43 recount a “Noah’s ark” type of myth. At an assembly of gods and men AhM warns Yama of a terrible winter to come and instructs him in how to build the wara, some sort of elaborate barn in which to store food and shelter, male and female of the various species, so that creation might survive the destructive cold. Although detailed instructions are given, it is not always clear exactly what the wara was to look like, owing mostly to the corrupt state of the text. This last section of the chapter appears to be an extensive redaction of older sources which preserve an ancient pastoralist myth about the first winter cattle station.

Chap. 3. Secs. 1-6 (5 is an amplification of 4) employ the question and answer formula: “‘Where is it, first (second, etc., to fifth), most happy on this Earth?’ ... ‘Where most of all ....’” The happiest places are ones where proper religious practices are maintained and where house and agricultural economy flourish. The formula repeats, with substitution of “most unhappy” for “most happy,” in sec. 7-11 and specifies five places of demonic activity involving demonic presence in the home or demonic settlement, improper treatment of the dead and the enslavement of wife and child. Sec. 12 initiates a new formulaic series that is interrupted by several long interpolated digressions. Thus, the formula “‘First (second, etc., to fifth), who propitiates this Earth with the greatest propitiation?’ ... ‘Where mostly ....’” forms secs. 12, 13, (interpolation), 22, 23, (interpolation) and 34-35 with 36-39 as a further interpolation expanding on AhM’s response in 35. In order, the Earth is best propitiated when one digs up a place where a corpse is buried, razes a daxma “cinerarium or ossuary(?),” digs away the Ahrimanic abode (of xrafstras, the evil creations), cultivates food-producing plants, and either irrigates or drains soil, and where the laborer is justly compensated. The first interpolation, secs. 14-21, deals with the inexpiable transgression of carrying a corpse alone and the capital punishment involving scalping, to which the sinner is ultimately subjected. The second interpolation, secs. 24-33, is a sustained praise of agriculture and the cultivation of the earth. Secs. 40-42 form an appendage in which the, sometimes harsh, punishments prescribed in the chapter are mitigated by the power of the Good Religion to absolve the penitent man of his sins.

Chap. 4. One who does not repay a debt is a thief (sec. 1); secs. 2-16: the six kinds of contracts (miθra), ordered according to the value of the pledges made; family obligations in honoring a contract and the punishment of the contract breaker (miθrō.druj). Secs. 17-43: the three types of violent crime—threat (āgərəpta), attack (awaoirišta), and premeditated wounding (arəduš)—and punishments for levels of severity of the crime, including manslaughter. Secs. 44-45: obligations to give money, a wife, or instruction to a coreligionist who petitions. Secs. 46, 50-55: a section on oaths and punishments for perjury, in the midst of which was inserted a digression on the virtue of worldliness as opposed to asceticism.

Chap. 5. This and Chap. 6 deal almost exclusively with nasu (corpses and carrion generally) the primary cause of defilement and contagion. In secs. 1-7 Zaraθuštra raises hypothetical situations of unintentional defilement, as when a bird, having eaten carrion, defecates in a tree which is later cut for fuel, or when a dog, fox, or wolf drowns in an irrigation ditch. In these cases a man is not sinful through pollution of fire, water, and earth. Secs. 8-9: neither fire nor water kills a man; rather, the demon Astō.wiδātu does. Secs. 10-14: how to treat a corpse in winter by constructing a special chamber where the body can be kept until a thaw, when the body can be exposed. Secs. 15-20: how pure water becomes increasingly polluted as it passes from rain to streams to eventually become purified in the Pūitika (The Filter) Sea. Secs. 21-25: praise of the Mazdean Religion and the Zoroastrian anti-demonic Law (dātəm yim wīdōyūm zaraθuštri). Sec. 26 is obscure. The precise sense of secs. 27-32 is not altogether clear. When members of a household, including dogs, sit touching each other and one dies, the extent of the pollution extends according to the rank of the individual in the social hierarchy, with the urupi-dog (sec. 33-34) in a separate category. Secs. 35-38: extent of evil influence of the “biped scoundrel” on the world. Secs. 39-44: rules for removal and return of fire and ritual utensils from the house where someone has died. Miscarriage is the subject of secs. 45-58 with special attention to the restoration of the woman and the household to states of purity. Secs. 59-62: an appendage of miscellaneous matters.

Chap. 6. Secs. 1-25 prescribes a one year ban on cultivating earth where men or dogs have died. Before sowing any field all bones and other remains must be removed. The dropping of a human or dog bone that still has flesh on it, is punishable with increasing severity according to the size or quantity of the bone(s). Secs. 26-41: the pollution of moving water, the obligation to remove a corpse from it. Secs. 42-43: polluted haoma. Secs. 44-51: prescriptions for disposal of the dead, including the making of an erection (uzdāna) to shelter the corpse.

Chap. 7. The ghastly Nasu Druj, as a filthy fly, invades the body immediately upon death or in the next watch in exceptional cases (secs. 1-4). Secs. 5-8 = 5.27-30. Secs. 9-15: rules for washing polluted clothing. Secs. 17-22 = 5.57-62. Secs. 23-27: ghoulish men and those who bring carrion to fire or water cannot be purified. Further, they aid the hostile forces of nature: xrafstras, drought, and winter. Secs. 28-35: rules for purification of kindling wood, grain, and grass. Secs. 35-44: the practice of medicine and fees allowed. Secs. 45-52: concerning different types of burial, namely, deposit on the earth, interment, placement in a daxma; and the proper time for exhumation or exposure. Secs. 53-59: the daēwas congregate mostly at daxmas. Secs. 60-72: this segment returns to the subject of miscarriages, but adds three more stanzas, of which sec. 71 is obscure. Secs. 73-75: rules for purifying drinking vessels of different metals. Secs. 76-79: milk and other products of a cow who has consumed nasu are forbidden for a year.

Chap. 8. Secs. 1-22 describe funeral rites for men and dogs: the isolation of the corpse for 2-3 days (or until weather permits) until proper disposal for exposure by the two corpse-bearers (nasukaša); their purification with urine of livestock or next-of- kin. The path traversed by the corpse must be cleared of the Nasu Druj by leading a four-eyed white dog with yellow ears along it. The text is not entirely in order, but this is the first reference to the all-important Zoroastrian ritual of the sagdīd (see DOG ii). Secs. 23-25: punishments for putting different sized pieces of cloth or leather on a corpse. Secs. 26-32: no expiation for the crime of pederasty, whether the individual be an active or passive sodomite. Secs. 33-72 form a long, exceptionally repetitious section, in which first the baršnūm purification ritual with urine and water is described, then a body- part by body-part enumeration of the exit path from head to toe of the Nasu Druj. Secs. 73-96: rewards for the rescue of fires used for cremation or burning of bodily excretions; the rescue of fires used in baking clay and smelting of metals. Secs. 97-107: the problem of accidental contamination in a deserted place. Chap. 9. Secs. 1-36: detailed description of the baršnūm gāh and the entire ceremony. Secs. 37-44: the honoraria for the priest who administers purification. Secs. 45-46: Gāthic verses to recite in order to repel the Nasu Druj. Secs. 47-50: capital punishment for the unqualified priest who attempts to administer the baršnūm. He should be scalped and left to be eaten by vultures. Secs. 51-57: the heterodox teacher (ašəmaoγa) takes away all prosperity and health, which can only be restored when he has been slain or converted.

Chap. 10. In order to repel the flight of the Nasu Druj from the corpse to a living person, AhM prescribes the recitation of the Gāthic verses called bišāmrūta, trišāmrūta, and caθrušāmrūta “recited 2 [3, 4] times.”

Chap. 11. Secs. 1-8: more Gāthic verses to be recited in order to purify house, fire, water, the earth, cattle, and plants. Secs. 9-13 appear to be interpolated verse formulae: “I oppose Wrath (Nasu and other daēwas)” and “--?-- (paršta) Wrath, etc.” Secs. 14, (15- 16 = 9-10) 17: more Gāthic verses to be recited.

Chap. 12. This is a later addition (see above), a formulaic series of instructions on how long to mourn various kin.

Chaps. 13-14. This segment describes the sanctity, roles, proper treatment, and punishment for mistreatment of dogs and other animals (hedgehog [?], otter). Especially important to the community are the dogs who guard herd and settlement (pasušhaurwa and wišhaurwa), and the hunting dog (wohunazga). Also mentioned is the waŋhāpara, glossed in the Av. text with dužaka, in the Pahl. zūzag “hedgehog,” but described as having a pointed head and perhaps, rather, a mongoose. Punishments, especially, for injuring or slaying an otter, are strikingly severe.

Chap. 15. Secs. 1-8 lists the 5 deeds which render a person pəšō.tanū: causing apostasy of a believer, giving unground (?) bones to a dog so that it choke or food so hot that the dog burn its mouth and tongue, harming or frightening a bitch with a litter, having intercourse with a menstruating woman, having untimely intercourse with a woman who has given birth. Secs. 9-19: other cases of illicit sex not pəšō.tanū and the obligations of the man. Secs. 20-51: rules about caring for bitches and puppies in various situations.

Chap. 16. Secs. 1-7: the necessity of isolating a menstruating woman. Secs. 8-12: if a woman finds traces of blood after 9 nights, she must undergo a purification ceremony. Secs. 13-18: again prohibitions against intercourse with a menstruating woman.

Chap. 17. Secs. 1-6: how to dispose of hair properly to avoid infestations of daēwas and xrafstras. Secs. 7-11: how to dispose of nail clippings to avoid their becoming weapons for the Māzanian daēwas.

Chap. 18. Secs. 1-6: a man who does not perform ritual actions or recite properly is not to be called a priest (āθrawan). Secs. 7- 10: the demon Maršawan is the source of the danger from the ašəmaoγa. Secs. 11-12: various obscene gestures one should make when encountering an ašəmaoγa. Secs. 13-29: the rooster (parō.dərəs), called by the vulgar (kahrkatāt), identified as the constable (sraošāwarəz) of Sraoša. By waking people up it combats the demon Būšyąstā (Procrastination), and by its exhorting of people to prayer demons are driven away. Those who heed it, care for it, or give a pair of chickens reap great rewards, including Heaven. Secs. 30-59: a dialogue between Sraoša and the demoness Lie (Druj), in which Sraoša poses a series of questions. How does she reproduce? She is impregnated by four men: one who has no charity, one who urinates on the tip of his foot, rather than squat and urinate back between the feet, one who has a nocturnal emission, one who goes uninitiated, without girdle and shirt, after age 15. The antidote for 1, 2 and 4 are performance of required action; for 3 he must immediately recite a number of mąθras. Secs. 60-65: most vexing to AhM is the whore who contaminates the semen of all men and, through a mere glance, despoils creation. Secs. 66-76: in contrast with 15.8, where he is pəšō.tanū, here a man who knowingly has intercourse with a menstruating women can gain expiation through a series of elaborate presentations of sheep, kindling, barəsman (see BARSOM) sticks, libations, and bridge timbers, through the killing of thousands of snakes, frogs, and ants, and through 1,000 lashes.

Chap. 19. Secs. 1-10: a fragment of the “temptation” episode in the Zaraθuštra legend, where Aŋra Mainyu attempts to seduce Zaraθuštra, but is repulsed by the hāwanā mortar, the cup, and haoma and by the recitation of the ahunwar and other mąθras. Secs. 11-16: AhM instructs Zaraθuštra to invoke the Aməša Spəntas and other deities to banish the Lie from the community. Secs. 17-19: use of the barəsman to worship the plant-creation. Secs. 20-25: again, purification of a well-meaning man who is polluted through contact with nasu. Secs. 26-34: preparation for and passage over the Cinwat bridge (see ČINWAD PUHL), where the souls meet the beautiful maiden who conducts the righteous across, but plunges the wicked into darkness. Secs. 35-42: a long list of invocations, not all grammatical, with the formula nizbayemi “I invoke (call down)...” Secs. 43-47 return to the initial theme of the chapter, namely, Zaraθuštra’s power over the demons; the daēwas retreat into darkness at the birth of Zaraθuštra.

Chap. 20. Secs. 1-3: Thrita, the first physician, received cures from Xšaθra wairya. Secs. 4-6: AhM provides thousands of medicinal plants to combat various diseases, and the latter (secs. 7-14), as demons, are assaulted with curses and mąθras, especially powerful being the ā.airyəmā.išyō (see AIRAMAN IŠYA) prayer.

Chap. 21. Secs. 1-16: invocations of the Cow, Waters, Sun, Moon, and Stars. Secs. 17: curse against the demoness Kaxužī. Secs. 18-23 = 20.9-14.

Chap. 22. This is a rather ungrammatical collection of stanzas dealing with Aºra Mainyu’s creation of diseases against AhM and the acquisition of antidotes eventually from Airyaman. Secs. 21- 26 = 20.9-14.

Bibliography: B. T. Anklesaria, Pahlavi Vendīdād, Bombay, 1949.

E. Benveniste, “Que signifie Vidēvdāt?” in W. B. Henning Memorial Volume, London, 1970, pp. 37-42.

D. L. Bishop, “Form and Content in the Videvdad: a Study of Change and Continuity in the Zoroastrian Tradition,” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1974.

A. D. H. Bivar, “Achaemenid Coins, Weights and Measures,” in Cambridge History of Iran II, 1985, pp. 610-39.

M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism I, Leiden, 1975, pp. 294- 330.

M. Boyce and F. Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism III, Leiden, 1991.

H. Brockhaus, Vendidad Sade: die heiligen Schriften Zoroaster’s Yaçna, Vispered und Vendidad, Leipzig, 1850.

J. K. Choksy, Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism, Austin, 1989.

J. Darmesteter, Le Zend-Avesta II, Paris, 1892 (repr., Paris, 1960), pp. v-xxiv, 1-293. Idem, The Zend-Avesta, Pt. I, The Vendîdâd 2nd ed., Oxford, 1895.

A. Christensen, Essay sur la démonologie iranienne, København, 1941.

Idem, Le premier chapitre du Vendidad, København, 1943.

K. F. Geldner, Avesta: the Sacred Books of the Parsis I, pp. xiii- xxiv; III, Stuttgart, 1896.

I. Gershevitch, The Avestan Hymn to Mithra, Cambridge, 1959.

Idem, “Old Iranian Literature,” in HO IV, 2.1, Leiden, 1968, pp. 1- 30.

W. B. Henning, “An Astrological Chapter of the Bundahishn,” JRAS, 1942, pp. 235-39.

Dastoor Hoshang Jamasp, Vendidâd, Avestan Text with Pahlavi Translation vol. I, Bombay, 1907.

H. Humbach, “Bestattungsformen im Videvadat,” Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 77, 1961, pp. 99-102.

D. D. Kapadia, Glossary of Pahlavi Vendidad, Bombay, 1953. A. Kammenhuber, “Totenvorschiften und ‘Hunde-Magie’ in Vidēvdāt,” ZDMG 108, 1958, pp. 299-307.

B. Landsberger, “Die babylonischen Termini für Gesetz und Recht” in Symbolae ad iura orientis antiqui pertinenties Paulo Koschaker dedicatae, Leiden, 1939, pp. 219-34.

W. W. Malandra, An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion, Minneapolis, 1983, pp. 162-82.

J. J. Modi, The Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees, Bombay, 1922; repr., New York and London, 1979.

M. Molé, “Le guerre des géants,” IIJ 3, 1959.

A. Perikhanian, The Book of a Thousand Judgements (A Sasanian Law-Book), tr. N. Garsoïan, Costa Mesa, 1997.

D. P. Sanjana, The Zand î Javît Shêda Dâd or the Pahlavi Version of the Avesta Vendidâd, Bombay, 1895.

B. Schlerath, Awesta-Wörterbuch, Vorarbeiten 1, Wiesbaden, 1968, pp. 192-236 [complete index of secondary literature]. M. Schwartz, “The Old Eastern Iranian World View According to the Avesta,” in CHI II, 1985, pp. 640-97 [much material drawn from the Vendīdād].

Fr. Spiegel, Avesta, die heiligen Schriften der Parsen, Bd. I: der Vendidad, Wien, 1853.

Idem, Commentar über das Avesta, Bd. I, Wien, 1864.

E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts, Pt. I, Oxford, 1880; Pt. IV, Oxford, 1892; repr., Delhi, 1965 [= Sacred Books of the East, Vols. V, XXXVII].

N. L. Westergaard, Zendavesta: the Religious Books of the Zoroastrians, Copenhagen, 1852-54, pp. 1-10, 343-485.

F. Wolff, Avesta: die heiligen Bücher der Parsen, Strassburg, 1910 [repr., Berlin, 1960], pp. 317-439.

(William W. Malandra)

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VENDIDAD ii. Transmission of the Vīdēvdād in India

The number of Pahlavi Vīdēvdād (PV) manuscripts that have been copied is quite high, but their distribution in time is irregular. Among these manuscripts, we have noticed that only a few are dated for certain before the 18th century.

VENDIDAD

ii. Transmission of the Vīdēvdād in India

The number of Pahlavi Vīdēvdād (PV) manuscripts that have been copied is quite high, but their distribution in time is irregular. Among these manuscripts, we have noticed that only a few are dated for certain before the 18th century: the copy of Ardaxšīr Wahman Rōzweh in Sīstān in 1205 and an even earlier copy of its source manuscript by Homāst Wahišt; L4 in 1323; K1 in 1324; Mihrābān’s copy of L4 in 1353; IM (described in Jāmāsp’s editon of Vīdēvdād) in 1575; in 1594, Ml3. The largest number of dated manuscripts belongs to the 18th and 19th centuries: D62 (Cama Oriental Institute) was written in 1742; P5 and P10 in 1758; G25 (Meherji Rana Library) in 1794; F10 in 1817; G34 (Meherji Rana Library) before 1835; T44 (Meherji Rana Library) in 1844; R404 (Cama Oriental Institute) between 1820 and 1850. The rest of the known PV manuscripts (M3, B1, P2, RSPA 231 [British Library], E10, T44, Bh11 [Bhandarkar Oriental Institute]) are not dated, but presumably they all belong to the 18th or 19th century as well.

In the 13th century, no PV manuscript was available in India, but at that time one was brought to India from Sīstān. Around the year 1231 A.D., Māhyār Māhdād brought to India a manuscript written by Ardašīr ī Wahman ī Rōzweh Šāhburzēn Šāhmard from a manuscript copied by Homast Wahišt. This was copied twice in India. From one of these two copies, the copy of Rōstām Mihrābān Marzabān, two other copies were made by Mihrābān Kayhusraw. These are the manuscripts L4 and K1. Fortunately, we know about the existence at the beginning of the 20th century of a manuscript independent of the copy of Rōstām Mihrābān, namely, the manuscript IM used by Dastur Hoshang Jāmāsp in his edition of Vīdēvdād. This manuscript was written in Kermān in 1575 A.D., by Marzabān Frēdōn Wahrām Rōstām Bundār. A Zoroastrian Iranian named Siyāwaxš Ormazdyār brought it to India and presented it to Mānakjī Sōhrābjī Kāwusjī Ashburner in 1853 A.D., according to a Persian colophon on the last folio. Finally, it was in Jāmāsp’s possession in 1907, but we do not know where it is now.

As a matter of fact, all manuscripts copied in the 18th and 19th century are copies from L4 or K1, but none of them is a trustworthy copy of its original. In all of them the transmitted text is corrected in order to produce the best possible manuscript. The corrections, however, are carried out to a very different extent in each manuscript, and schools of copyists must clearly be differentiated. Although it is not easy to say to what extent the earlier manuscripts may have shared similar tendencies, as we do not know the source of L4 and K1, and Ml3 and IM are now lost, it seems that, from the oldest known copies on, there is a tendency to introduce minor changes where the copyist recognized a mistake. This procedure is already evident, for example, in the changes introduced in Vd. 19.42 by K1 and L4 as a result of the loss of a folio between Vd. 19.42 and 45 in their common source. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this tendency becomes much more obvious, but to very different degrees, in each manuscript.

We can affirm the existence of different schools of copyists with different techniques of copying manuscripts. There are conservative schools in which copyists mainly tend to reproduce exactly the manuscript they are copying, although rare corrections are made when mistakes are very obvious. There are also more innovative schools which do not hesitate to make changes in the manuscripts in order to get the best possible copies. The scope of the changes is not the same in all innovative schools: some of them limit themselves to corrections of the Avestan text according to the Sāde (see above, i) tradition; others introduce serious changes even in the Pahlavi translation.

Most probably, the triggering event for the development of these different schools was the visit of Jāmāsp Īranī from Kermān to Surat (Anquetil-Duperron, 1771, I, pt. 1, pp. 326 ff.). Because of a dispute between traditionalists and reformists concerning the use of the padām, a priest named Jāmāsp came from Kermān to Surat forty years before A. H. Anquetil-Duperron wrote his travel report, that is, sometime in the 1720s (see also PARSI COMMUNITIES i). After resolving the dispute, he decided to check the current version of the Pahlavi Vīdēvdād used in Gujarat. He concluded that it was too long and not very accurate in several passages. In order to change this regretful situation, he taught Avestan and Pahlavi to three Parsi Dasturs: Dārāb (the teacher of Anquetil-Duperron) from Surat, Jāmāsp from Nawsarī, and a third one from Broach. Furthermore he is supposed to have left a corrected Pahlavi Vīdēvdād manuscript in Surat. After he went back to Iran, his students continued teaching and correcting their Pahlavi Vīdēvdād manuscripts.

In Surat there arose a new school of copyists around the reformist Dārāb. The principal representatives of this school are the manuscripts P5 and K2. The teachings of Jāmāsp were intended to correct the transmitted Pahlavi translation (PT) and to rearrange the misplaced Avestan texts and delete unnecessary repetitions. Both characteristics are shared by these manuscripts. Both tend to leave out the long commentaries and many of the short glosses in the Pahlavi translation. In fact they tend to eliminate each word of the Pahlavi translation that is without a corresponding word in the Avestan text, such as prepositions. Comparable to this trend is the total adaptation of the word order of the PT in P5 and K2 to the Avestan word order. Furthermore, both manuscripts tend to complete the missing Pahlavi translations that have been lost in the course of the transmission or have never existed. When the translation existed in the manuscripts of the family of L4, this seems to be the source of the translations, so that these manuscripts were obviously collated with another one of the L4 family. But new translations were also created when they were not available in L4. It is in this context that the new creation of a Pahlavi translation for Vd. 12 in K2 (and in other manuscripts) has to be placed. Concerning the Avestan texts, the changes introduced are limited to the rearrangement of misplaced texts. In fact, in P5 and K2 all the big misplacements present in K1 are rearranged (Vd. 3.25 ff., 9.16 ff., and 18.7 ff.). But the most important addition was the quite systematic introduction of Avestan texts available in the Sādes, but missing in K1. Only very few texts from the Sādes that are missing in K1 are left out in P5 or K2 (e.g., the omission in Vd. 16.8-9 in K2 or the beginning of 18.6 in both manuscripts).

On the other hand, the traditionalist school continued copying manuscripts in the old way. The Pahlavi translation is copied unaltered. The disorders of the Avestan texts are reproduced as such, but small corrections are done when they are considered necessary. Sometimes even texts omitted in K1 are reintroduced owing to the influence of the Sādes (the longest is the omitted text in Vd. 16.8-9). To this school belong the following manuscripts of the family of K1: B1, M3, P10. A middle position between both schools is also attested. It is represented by the manuscripts P2, D62 and RSPA 231. They do not change the Pahlavi translation, although sometimes missing translations are added. Regarding the Avestan text, they mostly rearrange the disordered Avestan texts. It is very interesting to note that D62 shows the disordered text of Vd. 9 twice: once in the right order and once in the wrong order of folios 201 and 203 of K1. The introduction of Avestan texts from the Sādes is more frequent than in B1, M3 and P10, but less so than in K2 and P5.

In Nawsari, a new school of copyists was established as well, as a consequence of the teachings of Jāmāsp. The manuscripts from Nawsari show obvious distinctive characteristics. Most of them are copies from L4 or other manuscripts of its family, with the exception of F10. The Pahlavi translation is left unaltered, except that, as in K2 and P5, new translations are created for the Avestan texts lacking them. The addition of missing Avestan texts by comparison with the Sādes is as systematic here as in K2 and P5, but omissions in L4 are noticeably less frequent than in K1. In principle, L4 seems to be a more trustworthy copy of their common source than K1. This is probably the reason why we do not have evidence that the manuscripts of the family of L4 were collated with those of the family of K1. The best representatives of this class of manuscripts are E10, T44 and Bh11. Other manuscripts from Nawsari, such as G25 or 34, share the same characteristics but to a lesser degree. Not only texts from the Sādes but also missing Pahlavi translations are added to the transmitted text of L4, but not as frequently as in E10 and T44. Manuscripts were collated not only while copying new manuscripts, but also in order to correct already available copies. During the 18th and 19th centuries, many Vīdēvdād manuscripts were collated with other manuscripts, and the corrections and additions were made between the lines or in the margins. It is obvious that at this time in India an intensive, pre- scientific philological work was done in order to produce the best possible copy. The triggering event was most probably, as mentioned above, Jāmāsp’s visit to Surat from Kermān, and such work was intensified later, probably by the activities of Anquetil-Duperron. Although this trend was general, the amount of the pseudo-philological changes introduced into the manuscripts depended on the general position of the priests involved in copying in the community. The reformist movement showed, as expected, a more open attitude to the modification of manuscripts than the traditionalist schools.

Bibliography:

A.- H. Anquetil Duperron, Zend-Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre …, 2 vols., Paris, 1771.

“Avestan Digital Archive,” a search engine for manuscripts, available at http://www.avesta-archive.com.

A. Cantera, “The Pahlavi Videvdad manuscripts of the Meherji- rana Library (Nawsari, India),” in Munus Quaesitum meritis. Homenaje a Carmen Codoñer, Salamanca, 2007, pp. 131-40. A. Cantera and M. A. Andrés, “The Transmission of the Pahlavi Vīdēvdād in India after 1700 (I): Jamasp's Visit from Iran and the Rise of a new Exegetical Movement in Surat,” Journal of the Cama Oriental Insitute 66, 2008, pp. 81-142.

K. F. Geldner, “Prolegomena,” in Avesta. The Sacred Books of the Parsis I, Stuttgart, 1886.

H. Jamasp, Vendidâd. Avesta Text with Pahlavi Translation and Commentary, and Glossarial Index, 2 vols., Bombay, 1907.

N. L. Westergaard, Zendavesta, or The Religious Books of the Zoroastrians. Copenhagen, 1852.

(Alberto Cantera)

Originally Published: March 9, 2015

______

VETCH

See ʿADAS.

(Cross-Reference)

ʿADAS

"lentils."

ʿADAS.

i. Lentils.

ii. Vetch (ʿadas-e waḥšī).

i. Lentils

Two main species are found in Iran: common (ʿadas-e maʿmūlī, Lens culinaris) and oriental (ʿadas-e ābī, Lens orientalis). The common lentil grows wild in northwest, east, south and southeast Iran, while the oriental lentil grows around Tehran to the north, west, south and southeast. Used extensively in Persian cuisine, lentils are a major source of protein for the poor. Only the large gray variety, known as French lentils or lentille large blonde, is used. Among the most popular dishes employing lentils is ʿadas-polow: Rice and lentils are cooked separately, then mixed together for the final steaming process, and usually served with chicken or lamb. The dark specks of lentils in the white rice add color as well as flavor; sometimes toasted slivered almonds are sprinkled on top. A less elegant variety mixes tiny meatballs with the rice. Because lentils are inexpensive, ʿadas-polow is considered a family rather than a company dish. Lentils are also used in different kinds of soups, the best known of which are āš-e rešta and āš-e ǰow: Lentils are mixed with other dried legumes, onions, rice, barley, green herbs, and spices to make a thick, filling soup which, served with bread, is a complete meal. Sometimes these soups have a small amount of meat added, usually lamb shank. A less well known variety is āš-e ʿadas, a variation on the same theme, but with a heavier concentration of lentils and a smaller amount of chick peas and beans. The aroma of ʿadasī, frequently sold in stalls on street corners, can permeate an entire block: The lentils are boiled until tender, onions are added with salt and pepper, and the dish is simmered until most of the liquid has been absorbed and the lentils have a thick, almost soupy consistency. A small amount of butter is sometimes added to enhance the flavor.

Bibliography:

A. Parsa, Flore de l’Iran II, Tehran, 1948, p. 457; VIII, 1960, p. 110.

N. Ramazani, Persian Cooking, New York, 1974.

(A. Parsa and N. Ramazani)

ii. Vetch

About fifty species of ʿadas-e waḥšī (Vicia) grow in Iran, including the following: Gāvdāna, bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia), cultivated in many places and considered a good forage. Bāqalā, horse bean, lima bean, or broad lima bean (Vicia faba), a native of Iran and universally cultivated. Māšak, tiny vetch (Vicia hirsuta), a good fodder. ʿAdas-e waḥšī-e maʿmūlī, common or spring vetch (Vicia sativa), a winter annual known as tares, native to Eurasia. It grows wild in the north and west of Iran and is cultivated for hay, silage, green feed, pasture, and seed. ʿAdas-e korkdār, hairy or winter vetch (Vicia villosa), a native of Iran, found in the north, northwest, west, east, and central parts of the country and utilized mainly for seed and green manure. ʿAdas-mūšūk or mūšūk (Vicia peregrina), growing in the north, west, northwest and central parts of the country. ʿAdas-e waḥšī- e Īrān, Persian vetch (Vicia persica), in the north and northwest. ʿAdas-e zard or ḵolar, yellow vetch (Vicia lutea), in the littoral of the Caspian sea. ʿAdas-e Ḵazar, Caspian vetch (Vicia hyrcanica), in the north, west, and northwest. Jūrvāǰūr ʿadas (Vicia variegata), called zabān vāš in Lāhīǰān and molholī in Khorasan. ʿAdas-e barg bārīk, bramble vetch (Vicia tenuifolia), called māšaka in Ardahāl and mūšūkū in Jahrom.

Bibliography:

A. Parsa, Flore de l’Iran II, Tehran, 1948, pp. 439-56; VII, 1959, pp. 204-05.

(A. Parsa)

(A. Parsa and N. Ramazani, A. Parsa)

Originally Published: December 15, 1983

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

ʿADAS

"lentils."

ʿADAS.

i. Lentils.

ii. Vetch (ʿadas-e waḥšī).

i. Lentils

Two main species are found in Iran: common (ʿadas-e maʿmūlī, Lens culinaris) and oriental (ʿadas-e ābī, Lens orientalis). The common lentil grows wild in northwest, east, south and southeast Iran, while the oriental lentil grows around Tehran to the north, west, south and southeast. Used extensively in Persian cuisine, lentils are a major source of protein for the poor. Only the large gray variety, known as French lentils or lentille large blonde, is used. Among the most popular dishes employing lentils is ʿadas-polow: Rice and lentils are cooked separately, then mixed together for the final steaming process, and usually served with chicken or lamb. The dark specks of lentils in the white rice add color as well as flavor; sometimes toasted slivered almonds are sprinkled on top. A less elegant variety mixes tiny meatballs with the rice. Because lentils are inexpensive, ʿadas-polow is considered a family rather than a company dish. Lentils are also used in different kinds of soups, the best known of which are āš-e rešta and āš-e ǰow: Lentils are mixed with other dried legumes, onions, rice, barley, green herbs, and spices to make a thick, filling soup which, served with bread, is a complete meal. Sometimes these soups have a small amount of meat added, usually lamb shank. A less well known variety is āš-e ʿadas, a variation on the same theme, but with a heavier concentration of lentils and a smaller amount of chick peas and beans. The aroma of ʿadasī, frequently sold in stalls on street corners, can permeate an entire block: The lentils are boiled until tender, onions are added with salt and pepper, and the dish is simmered until most of the liquid has been absorbed and the lentils have a thick, almost soupy consistency. A small amount of butter is sometimes added to enhance the flavor.

Bibliography:

A. Parsa, Flore de l’Iran II, Tehran, 1948, p. 457; VIII, 1960, p. 110.

N. Ramazani, Persian Cooking, New York, 1974.

(A. Parsa and N. Ramazani)

ii. Vetch

About fifty species of ʿadas-e waḥšī (Vicia) grow in Iran, including the following: Gāvdāna, bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia), cultivated in many places and considered a good forage. Bāqalā, horse bean, lima bean, or broad lima bean (Vicia faba), a native of Iran and universally cultivated. Māšak, tiny vetch (Vicia hirsuta), a good fodder. ʿAdas-e waḥšī-e maʿmūlī, common or spring vetch (Vicia sativa), a winter annual known as tares, native to Eurasia. It grows wild in the north and west of Iran and is cultivated for hay, silage, green feed, pasture, and seed. ʿAdas-e korkdār, hairy or winter vetch (Vicia villosa), a native of Iran, found in the north, northwest, west, east, and central parts of the country and utilized mainly for seed and green manure. ʿAdas-mūšūk or mūšūk (Vicia peregrina), growing in the north, west, northwest and central parts of the country. ʿAdas-e waḥšī- e Īrān, Persian vetch (Vicia persica), in the north and northwest. ʿAdas-e zard or ḵolar, yellow vetch (Vicia lutea), in the littoral of the Caspian sea. ʿAdas-e Ḵazar, Caspian vetch (Vicia hyrcanica), in the north, west, and northwest. Jūrvāǰūr ʿadas (Vicia variegata), called zabān vāš in Lāhīǰān and molholī in Khorasan. ʿAdas-e barg bārīk, bramble vetch (Vicia tenuifolia), called māšaka in Ardahāl and mūšūkū in Jahrom.

Bibliography:

A. Parsa, Flore de l’Iran II, Tehran, 1948, pp. 439-56; VII, 1959, pp. 204-05.

(A. Parsa)

(A. Parsa and N. Ramazani, A. Parsa)

Originally Published: December 15, 1983

______VETERINARY MEDICINE

See DĀM-PEZEŠKĪ.

(Cross-Reference)

DĀM PEZEŠKĪ veterinary medicine.

DĀM-PEZEŠKĪ, veterinary medicine.

i. In the pre-Islamic period.

ii. In Islamic Persia.

i. In the Pre-Islamic Period

Widespread and developed animal husbandry, which was a prominent feature of Iranian economic and social life in ancient times, could not have prospered as it did without commensurate veterinary practice. The horse (see asb), ox (see cattle), and dog (see also domestic animals) were venerated allies of the Iranian horseman and herdsman. The cow, as the benign source of livelihood, and the dog, as the unfailing guardian of cattle and home, were highly revered by the Zoroastrians. Therefore the care and welfare of cattle, which were patronized by the Amahraspand (see aməša spənta) Vohu Manah “Good intention,” were not only urged as a response to the exigencies of life but also imposed upon the faithful as a religious obligation.

The dignity (sahīgīh) and worthiness (arzōmandīh) of medicine in general are reflected in an ancient legend about the prophet’s wondrous resourcefulness in converting Wištāsp. The tradition, mentioned cursorily in the Dēnkard (ed. Madan, II, p. 639) and drawn out and ramified in a popular version in the late Zarātošt- nāma (Boyce, Zoroastrianism I, p. 280; Molé, p. 55; Jackson, pp. 62-64), was an account of how the prophet, in order to win his own release from prison and demonstrate the veracity of his divine mission, acted as a horse doctor and miraculously cured the favorite horse of King Wištāsp, which had become paralyzed. This story attests to the fact that veterinary medicine was traditionally regarded as an art comparable to the art of healing human bodies.

The veterinarian was called in Middle Persian stōrbizešk (lit., “draft-animal physician”), which in New Persian became peješk- e sotūr and pezešk-e sotūr (Zamaḵšarī, p. 316), in contrast to mardom bizešk (lit., “physician of men”; Dēnkard, ed. Madan, II, p. 752; West, p. 118). In the Dēnkard the stōr bizešk “veterinary surgeon” is mentioned as an indispensable attendant in the entourage of the army (Dēnkard, ed. Madan, II, p. 730; West, p. 87). It is to be assumed that some medical treatments were applied to men and beasts alike (cf. Fichtner, pp. 49-50).

In the section on the sheepdog (Av. pasuš haurva-, Mid. Pers. pasušhōrw) in the Duzd-sar-nizad nask (Dēnkard, ed. Madan, II, p. 726; West, p. 82) care of the dog and cattle is stressed. Every day at dawn the shepherd was to inspect the flocks and apply remedies to sick, wounded, bruised, and unhealthy (āhōgōmand) sheep. He was the one who had to function as veterinarian, dressing the common or minor injuries of his flock.

To the suppliants who asked how to treat a mad dog (sag ī dēwānag) or one that bites without barking Ahura Mazdā replied: “They shall put a wooden collar around his neck, and they shall tie him to a posṭ . . . by the two sides of the collar they shall tie him” (Vd. 13.29-30). And to the repeated question from the faithful about how to care for a mad or apathetic (Av. a- hąm.baō’əmna-, Mid. Pers. abōy “unperceiving”) dog Ahura Mazdā answered “They shall tend him in the same manner as they tend one of the faithful” (Vd. 13.35), which suggests that, if necessary, they were to call a veterinary physician. From the passage of the Vidēvdād about fees for medical treatment it follows that at that stage veterinary medicine had not yet developed into a distinct branch and that physicians treated men and beasts for the same fees: “He (i.e., a healer) shall heal the master of the house for the value of an ox of low value; he shall heal the master of a village for the value of an ox of average value . . . (Vd. 7.41). He shall heal the son of the master of a village for the value of an ox of high value; he shall heal an ox of high value for the value of an ox of average value; he shall heal an ox of average value for that of an ox of low value; he shall heal an ox of low value for the value of a sheep; he shall heal a sheep for the value of a meal of meat” (Vd. 7.43). On analogy with the manner of payment to the physician, the veterinary practitioner must have been paid after the animal had been cured (Dēnkard, ed. Madan, II, p. 751; West, p. 117). The reckoning of fees for physicians and veterinarians in terms of the values of the domestic animals and natural products was evidently a relic of an economy based on barter.

Bibliography:

H. Fichtner, Die Medizin im Avesta, Leipzig, 1924.

A. V. W. Jackson, Zoroaster. The Prophet of Ancient Iran, New York, 1899; repr. New York, 1965.

Kaykāvūs Rāzī, Zarātošt-nāma, ed. and tr. F. Rosenberg as Le livre de Zoroastre, St. Petersburg, 1904.

J. de Menasce, Le troisième livre du Dēnkart, Paris, 1973.

M. Molé, La légende de Zoroastre selon les textes pehlevis, Paris, 1967.

E. Pūr-e Dāwūd, Farhang-e Īrān-e bāstān I, Tehran, 1947 Š./1968, pp. 212, 256.

E. W. West, tr., Pahlavi Texts IV, SBE 37, repr. Delhi, 1969.

Jār-Allah Abu’l-Qāsem Maḥmūd b. ʿOmar Zamaḵšarī, Pīšrow-e adab yā Moqaddamat al-adab, Tehran, 1342 Š./1963. (Mansour Shaki)

ii. In Islamic Persia

Traditional veterinary science in Persia. The ancient Persian traditions of dām-pezeškī (Ar. bayṭara) and human medicine were carried over to the Islamic period. Most of the early writing about veterinary matters is to be found in books on hippology (faras-nāma) and falconry (bāz-nāma), but a few more com- prehensive works were also compiled, and useful discussions of animal diseases and their treatment were sometimes included in books on general human medicine (see below). Writings of Abū ʿObayda Maʿmar b. Moṯannā Bājarvānī (d. ca. 213/827), a Persian mawlā of Taym, namely his Ketāb al-ebel (on camels) and Ketāb al-ḵayl (on horses) are among the earliest works on animal physiology and veterinary science compiled by a Persian after the Arab conquest (Ebn al-Nadīm, ed. Flügel, p. 59; Ebn Ḵallekān, ed. ʿAbbās, V, p. 239). Ketāb al-ḵayl (ed. Hyderabad, Deccan, 1403/1982) contains passages about diseases of horses (pp. 41, 46, 121). The first work written on the subject in Arabic was Ketāb al-forūsīya wa’l-bayṭara by Ebn Aḵī Ḥezām, who is said to have served, during his long career, as stablemaster for both the caliphs al-Moʿtaṣem (218-27/833-42) and al-Moʿtażed (279-89/892-902; Brockelmann, GAL, S. I, pp. 432-33; Sezgin, GAS III, p. 375). The oldest Arabic work dealing solely with general veterinary medicine, however, seems to have been the translation (Ketāb al-bayṭara), probably by Ḥonayn b. Esḥāq (d. 260/874), of a treatise on hippiatrics by the 4th-century Greek writer Theomnestos, preserved in the Köprülü library in Istanbul (ms. no. 959; Sezgin, GAS III, pp. 353-54). In the same library is an Arabic manuscript on veterinary medicine (Ketāb al-bayṭara fī ṣefat al-dawābb men al-ḵayl wa’l-ebel wa ḡayrehā) translated from Persian in the 9th century (Köprülü Kütüphanesi I, p. 488- 89, ms. no. 959; cf. de Slane, p. 506). The existence of this manuscript not only shows that veterinary science had been a subject of interest to Persians but also attests to the continued vigor of the tradition in the Islamic period. According to Ebn al- Nadīm (ed. Flügel, p. 85), Ebn Qotayba Dīnavarī (d. 276/889) was the author of a book on horses (Ketāb al-faras) in forty-six chapters, a book on camels (Ketāb al-ebel) in sixteen chapters, and a book on beasts of prey and other wild animals (Ketāb al- sebāʿ wa’l-woḥūš) in seventeen chapters.

The 9th-century physician ʿAlī b. Rabban Ṭabarī described in the fourth discourse of his Ferdaws al-ḥekma (pp. 421-27) the functions of parts of the bodies of various animals—camels, bulls, asses, elephants, and lions—and discussed animal diseases and their appropriate treatments. In the 10th century Moḥammad b. Aḥmad Ḵᵛārazmī devoted a paragraph to the teeth of animals as indicators of their age (pp. 12-13). His contemporary Senān b. Ṯābet b. Qorra deserves mention as another observer of animals and their diseases (Ebn Abī Oṣaybeʿa, I, p. 221). In the 12th century Sayyed Esmāʿīl Jorjānī discussed veterinary topics in his medical encyclopedia, Ḏaḵīra- ye ḵᵛārazmšāhī, in which he included studies of rabies in dogs, wolves, jackals, foxes, and weasels (pp. 638-40). Faḵr-al-Dīn Rāzī (543-606/1149-1209) also allotted space in his Jāmeʿ al-ʿolūm to veterinary subjects, including nine diseases of riding animals and the behavior and diseases of falcons (pp. 140-41, 143-45).

Persian research on animal diseases, as in other fields of medicine, won a high reputation in distant countries. Ebn ʿAwāmm of Seville is thought to have based the chapter on animal diseases in his Ketāb al-felāḥa on information about Persian stockbreeding and veterinary practice (Senet, pp. 51-54). In India Faḵr-e Modabber (12th century) included in his Ādāb al- ḥarb wa’l-šajāʿa descriptions of such animal diseases as cataracts, coughing, chest pain, night blindness, fever, and worms (in horses), with recommendations for treatment (pp. 221, 227, 228-29).

Regulations related to veterinary practice, as set forth by a very strict moḥtaseb (controller of the market), Ebn al-Oḵūwa, must have been enforced, at least for a time, in the eastern territories of the caliphate. They required that a veterinarian be expert on no fewer than 320 diseases of riding animals, including quinsy, headache, rabies, stomach disorders, and eye and ear ailments, as well as on the proper treatments for each. If a veterinarian made a mistake resulting in the death of an animal or a fracture of any of its bones, he had to pay compensation (pp. 150-51).

As noted above, books about horses and falcons are the main source of information about medieval Persian veterinary practice (for a partial list of mss., see Monzawī, I, pp. 405-96). In an anonymous faras-nāma written in Persian prose, probably dating from before the Mongol invasion, the author discussed such equine eye diseases as cataracts, amaurosis, night blindness, and pterygium (nāḵona), then described in detail the symptoms of glanders (ḵonām) and cutaneous glanders (sorāja); he also wrote about plague (rinderpest) in cattle and horses, inflammation of the udders and teats, diphtheria, asphyxia, rabies, infectious fevers, and other diseases (Do faras-nāma, pp. 22, 80, 82-83, 98-99 and index). The 14th-century author Moḥammad Āmolī devoted part of the fourth chapter of his Nafāʾes al-fonūn to veterinary medicine (ṭebb al-dawābb), writing about some common diseases of horses and game birds (pp. 345-50).

In the Il-khanid period (654-136/1256-1336) veterinary work appears to have been a vocation distinct from medicine, as is clear from a story about a veterinarian in Saʿdī’s Golestān (ed. ʿA. Qarīb, Tehran, 1363 Š./1984, p. 173). Šams-al-Dīn Moḥammad Donayserī, in a compendium of scientific knowledge from this period, described curative properties of parts of the bodies of certain animals, some animal diseases, and appropriate remedies (pp. 215-46).

Works on veterinary science continued to be written under the Safavids (907-1145/1501-1732). According to Ḥasan Rūmlū (ed. Navāʾī, p. 454), Moṣleḥ-al-Dīn Moḥammad Lārī (d. 980/1571) wrote a treatise on veterinary science. Another noted scholar of the period, Mollā Moḥsen Fayż Kāšānī, wrote Waṣf al-ḵayl (Šīrāzī, p. 83), a description of horses. In the reign of Shah Ṭahmāsb (930-84/1524-76) equine diseases like pterygium and quittor (šoqāq) were mentioned in a faras-nāma composed in verse by a certain Ṣafī (Do faras-nāma, pp. 143-44). In the reign of Shah ʿAbbās I (996-1038/1588-1629) Moḥammad-Taqī Tabrīzī translated into Persian Damīrī’s Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān under the title Ḵawāṣṣ al-ḥayawān (Wāseṭī, p. 101). At the behest of Shah ʿAbbās II (1052-77/1642-66), Neẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad wrote Meżmār- e dāneš, in three chapters and a conclusion; it was devoted to the training of horses and symptoms and cures of equine diseases (fols. 41b-89a). D. N. Marshall (Mughals in India, p. 184) mentions a faras-nāma written by Moḥammad-ʿAlī Ḥazīn in Isfahan in about 1127/1715; the author prepared an abridged version of the book during his later stay in India. In fact during the 16th and 17th centuries numerous books on veterinary subjects were written in the Persian language in India. Notable among them is a faras-nāma with the title Toḥfat al-ṣadr, by Ṣadr-al-Dīn Moḥammad Khan b. Zabardast Khan in the reign of Awrangzēb (1068-118/1657-1707); its sixteenth chapter is devoted to a wide range of equine ailments, for example, the growth of superfluous teeth preventing insertion of the bit and the swallowing of food. The author recommended extraction and application of pitch (zeft) and asafetida (ḥeltīt) boiled in olive oil to make the wound heal quickly (p. 32). To cure inflammations and green-colored swollen veins under the tongue, he recommended phlebotomy (p. 32). For listlessness and lethargy in horses he found it useful to feed them barley meal mixed with Chinese rhubarb and dūḡ, and he was confident that equine eye diseases like pterygium (ẓofra) and cataracts could be cured by the same therapies applied to similar human diseases (p. 33). Another, similar work is a farās-nama translated from an old Sanskrit work, Śālihotra, into Persian by Abu’l-Ḥosayn Hāšemī during the reign of Moẓaffar Shah of Gujarat (968-80/1561-73; see Barafrūḵta, no. 1321 Š./1942, pp. 2779-80). It deals first with equine diseases of particular parts of the body, beginning with the head, eyes, and mouth (pp. 58-62), then with fevers, catarrh (pp. 65-67), and so on. Apparently an earlier Persian translation of the same work had been made by ʿAbd-Allāh b. Ṣafī at the request of the Bahmanid Aḥmad Shah I (825-39/1422-36; Monzawī, I, p. 449). Also noteworthy are Aʿmār al-ḥayawānāt by Moṣṭafā-Ḥasan Kassāb; the anonymous Faras al-fawāʾed, in verse with illustrations; an illustrated Fīl-nāma, about elephants, by an unknown author and artist (Fehrest-e kotob-ḵāna-ye Āṣafīya [Hyderabad, Deccan] III, p. 420); and manuscripts with the titles Dām-pezeškī and Ḵayl-nāma by unknown authors (Monzawī, I, pp. 433, 448).

From the Qajar period there are more reports about infectious animal diseases then common. Kalāntar Żarrābī (p. 201) mentioned an epidemic of hematuria (ḵūn-šāš), a symptom of anthrax, among both animals and humans. Najm-al-Molk, in his account of his travels in Ḵūzestān described infectious diseases that afflicted dogs and human beings and methods used to treat them (p. 137). Both Mīrzā Ebrāhīm (pp. 209, 213) and J. E. Polak (II, p. 98; tr. p. 333) noted that rinderpest was widespread and often destroyed all the cattle in a district. Contemporary Persian veterinarians were well informed about diseases of particular organs in animals, for example, the eyes, nose, digestive system, and genitalia, and also about wounds of all kinds, as well as sores on the foot, leg, and skin. The methods of treatment were traditional, including drugs concocted from mineral, vegetable, and animal substances and ancient surgical procedures. From this period, aside from faras-nāmas and bāz- nāmas, chapters on veterinary medicine were included in general medical and pharmacological texts (e.g., ʿAlī b. Rabban, pp. 421-28; Jorjānī, pp. 280-83, 638-40; Heravī, p. 166). Among the techniques then in use were cauterization, phlebotomy, excision of bone tumors, eye surgery, disinfection of the uterus, and stomach surgery for relief of dropsy (estesqāʾ).

Modern veterinary science in Persia. The crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā was the first Persian official to attempt to import modern veterinary knowledge into the country. He arranged with the French military mission from Napoleon, led by General Claude Gardane, for the appointment of several French veterinary officers to work in Persia, but with the failure of the French mission this plan came to nothing (Trézel, tr., p. 84). In 1267/1850, during the reign of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah (1264- 1313/1848-96), two British veterinarians arrived in Persia, but no record of their activities has been found. In the time of his successor, Moẓaffar-al-Dīn Shah (1313-24/1896-1907), a French veterinarian with the surname Carré was engaged to work in the royal stables, and for a time he also taught veterinary science at the Moẓaffarī college of agriculture (Madrasa-ye falāḥat-e moẓaffarī). Under Moḥammad-ʿAlī Shah (1324-27/1907-09) two Russian veterinary officers were employed in the Cossack Brigade, and it was they who organized the first formal courses in veterinary science in Persia (Barafrūḵta, 1322 Š./1943, pp. 3765-68). In 1332/1914 two veterinarians and an expert farrier from Sweden came to Persia and opened the first veterinary school, offering a two-year course; apparently four of these courses were completed, but in 1343/1924 the school was closed. During the same period the veterinary services of the army were placed on a firm footing (Barafrūḵta, 1324 Š./1945, pp. 3767-68), and most of the graduates of the veterinary school found work with the army. In a manual of regulations for internal services (Neẓām-nāma-ye ḵadamāt-e dāḵelī) issued by the Ministry of war (Wezārat-e ḥarb) in 1303 Š./1924 veterinarians were repeatedly described as “special personnel of the military” (fard-e neẓāmī-e ḵārej az ṣaff; pp. 16, 19, 20, 33); each had a number of apprentices (šāgerd), whose duties were to inspect the horses daily and to report to him on their condition (pp. 40, 65, 180).

The Pasteur institute of Iran was established in 1300 Š./1921 with the help of the Institut Pasteur of Paris; Joseph Mesnard was appointed its first director. It included departments of human, animal, vegetable, and industrial bacteriology. The department of animal bacteriology produced an antianthrax vaccine, which was distributed to the veterinarians then working in the country (Mesnard, p. 7). In 1304 Š./1925 this department, together with the Department for combating pests of animals (Šoʿba-ye dafʿ-e āfāt-e ḥaywānī) in the Ministry of public welfare, agriculture and commerce (Wezārat-e fawāʾed-e ʿāmma wa falāḥat wa tejārat), was moved to Ḥeṣārak near Karaj. In addition to the antianthrax vaccine, it began to produce a vaccine against rinderpest, which had spread at an alarming pace in the 1920s, mainly in the Caspian region. Later the Ḥeṣārak laboratory was closed, then reopened as the Rāzī institute (Moʾassasa-ye Rāzī) in 1310 Š./1931. Its reactivation was owing to the efforts of Dr. ʿAbd- Allāh Ḥāmedī and a newly appointed French colleague, Dr. Louis Delpy. The Rāzi institute, later renamed Moʾassasa-ye vāksan wa serom-sāzī-e Rāzī (Rāzī institute for vaccines and serology), has continued to produce vaccine and serums for human and animal use until the present day.

In 1927 the International Health Office issued a resolution stressing the need to establish regular veterinary services in all countries. After some delay, in 1312 Š./1933 the Persian government responded by establishing a veterinary section (Edāra-ye koll-e dām-pezeškī) in the Ministry of agriculture (Barafrūḵta, 1326 Š./1947, p. 190).

Ḥāmedī can be considered the founder of the modern veterinary profession in Persia. In 1302 Š./1923, in the course of his medical studies, he had worked under Mesnard in the department of animal bacteriology at the Pasteur institute; later he was transferred to the department for combating pests of animals, where he was engaged in the production of the antirinderpest serum. In 1305 Š./1926 the government sent him to France, where he obtained a doctorate in veterinary medicine and received practical training at the Institut Pasteur. He returned to Persia in 1310 Š./1931 and was entrusted with the task of organizing the Rāzī institute. In 1315 Š./1936 he established a large number of veterinary offices throughout the country. The idea of founding a faculty of veterinary medicine had come up in 1306 Š./1927, but nothing was done until 1311 Š./1932, when Moṣṭafāqolī Khan Ṣamṣām-al-Molk Bayāt was head of the Department of agriculture (Edāra-ye koll-e falāḥat). In that year a veterinary college (Madrasa-ye ʿālī-ye bayṭārī) was opened under the supervision of the department. It was at first located in the Bāḡ-e delgošā in the western section of Tehran, but for the school year 1312 Š./1933-34 it was moved to the nearby Bāḡ-e Sardār Moḥtašam and in 1313 Š./1934 to Karaj. Delpy, then head of the Rāzī institute, and Dr. Vechten, who was director of the Veterinary institute (Moʾassasa-ye dām-parvarī), taught at this college for several years (Maḥbūbī Ardakānī, p. 367). The veterinary college was attached to the College of agriculture in 1314 Š./1935 (Maḥbūbī, Moʾassasāt I, p. 408; Behnām, p. 148) and returned to Tehran in 1318 Š./1939. In 1319 Š./1940 responsibility for its scientific and technical performance passed to the University of Tehran, but control of its financial and administrative affairs remained in the hands of the Department of agriculture. In October 1945 it was formally incorporated into the university (Maḥbūbī Ardakānī, p. 368). In 1315 Š./1936 Ḥāmedī, by then director of the Veterinary department (Edāra-ye dām-pezeškī) of the Ministry of agriculture, was appointed dean of the veterinary college, and in the same year he launched its journal, Nāma-ye dām-pezeškī, which is still published (ʿAṭāʾī, pp. 20-29, 281-82).

The functioning of the veterinary college, the civil and military veterinary departments, the Rāzī institute, and similar bodies in the provinces made it possible to control infectious diseases of animals in Persia. Since the 1930s Persian veterinarians have continued this work and have conducted basic research. During the 1970s veterinary faculties were established at the universities of Shiraz, Ahvāz, and Urmia.

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(Mansour Shaki, Ḥasan Tājbaḵš, and Ṣādeq Sajjādī)

Originally Published: December 15, 1993

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VIOLET

See BANAFŠA.

(Cross-Reference)

BANAFŠA

“violet,” common name for the genus Viola L. in New Persian. From certain botanical features of violas there have developed some violet-based similes and metaphors in classical Persian literature.

BANAFŠA (Mid. Pers. wanafšag, arabicized as banafsaj; cf. the cognate Kurd. wunawša, Māzandarāni vanūše, Semnāni benowša, etc., and the Armenian loanword manušak), common name for the genus Viola L. in New Persian.

Of the very large group of violas distributed in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, A. Parsa, Flore I, “Violaceae,” pp. 956-70, lists and describes the following 16 species as native to Iran: 1. Viola alba Besser.; 2. V. armena Boiss. & Huet; 3. V. cinera Boiss.; 4. V. ebracteola Fenzl (= V. modesta Fenzl var. parviflora Fenzl); 5. V. hymettia Boiss. & Heldr.; 6. V. kitaibelina Roem. & Shult (= V. tricolor L. var. kitaibelina Ledeb.); 7. V. modesta Fenzl; 8. V. occulta Lehm.; 9. V. odorata L.; 10. V.pachyrrhiza Boiss. & Hoh.; 11. V. riviniana Reich.; 12. V. silvestris (Lam.) Reichb. (= V. caspica Freyn., and the var. mesenderana Freyn. & Sint); 13. V. sintenisii W. Bekr; 14. V. spathulata Willd.; 15. V. suavis M.B. (= V. odorata L. var. suavis Boiss.); 16. V. tricolor L. var. arvensis Murr. (In the 7 published vols. of A. Ghahreman’s Flore de l’Iran, vol. I, no. 40, a new variety, V. spathulata Willd. var. latifolia Ghahreman, and vol. VI, no. 748, the species V. stockssi Boiss. are also found.) Details about these species and varieties may be found in these works. In this article only the V. odorata L. and the V. tricolor L. will be discussed.

The Viola odorata (or some other odoriferous species and varieties popularly assimilated to it), called simply banafša or sometimes banafša-ye īrānī “Iranian violet” (in contradistinction to banafša(-ye) farangī “European violet” i.e., pansy; see below) or banafša-ye moʿaṭṭar/ʿaṭr “the fragrant violet,” grows wild in Iran, typically in out-of-the-way shady cool spots both on high and low lands almost everywhere where climatic conditions are favorable, but, reportedly, it is particularly abundant in Rostamābād (in Gīlān), in Kandavān valley (near Čālūs), in the forest around Rāmsar, and in the woods in Gorgān (for Gorgān, see A. Ḵalīqī, p. 365; cf. banafša-ye ṭabarī “the violet native to Ṭabarestān,” sometimes used in classical Persian poetry to designate it). An old favorite in Iran, this violet is already mentioned in the Bundahišn (tr. Anklesaria, 16.13, pp. 148-49) among plants having sweet-scented blossoms and (16A.2, pp. 152-53) is said to belong to [the Īzad] Tīr. In the text King Xusraw and His Boy (par. 82) it is said that the scent of violets is like the scent of girls.

Violets, whether Viola odorata or others, are not necessarily violet in color: hues ranging from white to deep, blackish purple (including yellow, blue, lilac, dark blue [kabūd], violet, etc.) have been reported. Some earlier historical evidence to this effect can be found in Persian literature and in some works on materia medica: a white violet is attested in the poetry of Manūčehrī Dāmḡānī (d. 432/1040-41; Dīvān, ed. M. Dabīrsīāqī, 5th ed., Tehran, 1363 Š./1984, p. 207); the (dark) blue vault of heaven has been qualified by some as banafšagūn “violet-colored,” and Bīrūnī (362-440/973-1048) quotes Būlos (i.e., Paulus Aeginata, fl. 640) as having written, “Some people use the oil from the purple [banafsaj], some that from the saffron-colored one, and some that from the white one” (Ṣaydana, p. 102; see also below on the color implications in reference to the hair on the head and the down on the face of poets’ sweethearts). From certain botanical features of violas there have developed some violet-based similes and metaphors in classical Persian literature. The peculiar corollas of violets or, perhaps, a bunch of these suggest ringlets, disheveled or curly hair, or a loose lock of hair. This feature plus the blackish purple color of some varieties, with or without the idea of fragrance, have formed the basis for such a metaphor as banafša : hair, and for such similes as banafša-mūy/zolf “having violety hair,” referring to the hair of some poets’ sweethearts. The poet Qāʾānī Šīrāzī (d. 1270/1853), in the opening distich of a picturesque mosammaṭ (Dīvān, Tehran, 1363 Š./1984, pp. 669-71), has this further heightened comparison for violets: “Violets have grown on brooksides as if the houries of Paradise had loosened their hair” (gosasta ḥūr- eʿīn ze zolf-e ḵᵛīš tārhā). The bluish gray hue of some other varieties has resulted in similes such as banafša-ʿāreż/ʿeḏār “having violety cheeks/face,” referring to the grayish nascent down on the cheeks and upper lip of the poet’s (imaginary) adolescent inamorato (these similes are often chromatically enhanced by a contrast to the color of the cheeks/face compared to lāla “[rosy] tulip” or saman “[white] jasmine”).

Also typically, violets are low-growing plants with inconspicuous, humble, pensive-looking (cf. the etymology of pansy, Viola tricolor, in English) flowers which, in some species, slightly bend on their stalks, as if looking down for shame. Further, they seem to prefer secluded, shady spots (underbrush, hedges, cracks in alpine rocks, etc.), almost overshadowed by neighboring vegetation. A certain combination of these features has given rise in Persian literature to three romantic associations of ideas: (1) modesty, bashfulness, humility; (2) neglectfulness; (3) neglect, regret, sorrowfulness, mournfulness (an Arab author quoted by Šehāb-al-Dīn Aḥmad Nowayrī, 677- 733/1278-1332, Nehāyat al-arab XI, p. 229, even compares the sweet violet to “a forsaken lover, resting his head [in grief] on his knee,”—a motif also found in the Persian poet Ḵāqānī, d. 595/1199: “like the violet, I am laying may head on my knees, while these are a thousand times more violetish [i.e., bruised] than my lips”).

Wild sweet-smelling violets may also be naturalized as garden plants. As early as 921/1515-16, the agriculturist Abū Naṣrī Heravī (Eršād al-zerāʿa, pp. 207-08) provides instructions for the cultivation of banafša (in the Herat area), of which he mentions three varieties: “dark blue, both double (sad-barg, lit., “centipetalous”) and ordinary (rasmī), purple, and white.” Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, in his al-Maʾāṯer wa’l-āṯār I (ed. Ī. Afšār, Tehran, 1363 Š./1984, p. 136), which records all the innovations and achievements during the first forty years of the Qajar Nāṣer- al-Dīn Shah’s reign (1264-1313/1848-96), mentions the cultivation of “three hues of double [por-par] Iranian violets” as well as the introduction of “three varieties of pansies [banafša-ye farangī]” in city gardens in Tehran. Incidentally, Abū Naṣrī Heravī (op. cit., p. 223) also mentions a banafša-ye kūhī, lit., “mountain violet,” “whose plant grows up to half a cubit high, and whose flowers are purple and fragrant.”

Wild pansy, V. tricolor L. var. arvensis Murr., grows in woods and meadows in the north, northwest, and west of Iran as well as in the Alborz and Tehran regions (see Ghahreman, op. cit., VI, no. 749). In contrast to its fragrant relative, V. odorata, it is scentless (this may account for its local Māzandarāni name vasnī-benafše, mentioned by Ghahreman, ibid., lit., “violet of the vasnī [i.e., the co-wife]”). The cultivated, hybridized pansy, V. tricolor var. hortensis, generally called banafša-ye farangī “European violet,” as indicated by its Persian epithet and by Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana (see above), is a rather new addition to garden flowers in Iran. Although scentless like its wild parent, it has become very popular, because it blooms early in spring and is associated with the Iranian Nowrūz festivities, all the more so as the strange markings on the blooms make them look somewhat like jovial human faces, an anthropomorphism appealing particularly to the Persian imagination.

Phytotherapists or physicians of the Islamic era, generally indifferent to the botanical diversity of native species of Viola, have recognized numerous medicinal properties in banafša/banafsaj (occasionally called forfīr/ferfīr in some Arabic sources; from Gk. porphyra “purple color”) in general, an account of which will be found in most works on traditional materia medica (e.g., in Arabic, Ebn al-Bayṭār, al-Jāmeʿ I, pp. 114-15, and, in Persian, ʿAqīlī Ḵorāsānī, Maḵzan al-adwīa, pp. 127). The earliest reference in Persian works to Viola varieties from a medicinal viewpoint probably is that by Mowaffaq-al-Dīn ʿAlī Heravī, author of the oldest extant independent Persian treatise on materia medica, K. al-abnīa (probably compiled in 339/950?), ed. A. Bahmanyār and Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī, p. 67: “The best is [first] banafša-ye kūhī [mountain violet], and then banafša-ye eṣbahānī [Isfahan violet], and the more fragrant [they are, the better]” (on “Isfahan violet,” see also below). Aḵawaynī Boḵārī (d. ca. 373/983?), author of the oldest extant medical text in Persian, Hedāyat al-motaʿallemīn, mentions the following uses for banafša, some of which, absent in previous works, probably are from his personal experiences. He uses it as part of an enema against quinsy (p. 308); in a pectoral poultice against a kind of “dry” cough (p. 318); in an emollient enema against pleurisy (p. 328); in an enema against ileus (p. 429); in a hepatic poultice against jaundice (p. 467); in a dorsal (or lumbar) poultice against nephritis, and in a concoction “to be poured” on the patient’s back in case of suppurative nephritis (p. 482); in an ointment against vesical inflammation (p. 503); in an infusion to be used as a sitz-bath against uterine cancer (p. 538); in a poultice against sciatica (p. 572); in an infusion “to be poured” on the patient’s head in case of fever caused by sunstroke (p. 649); in a sitz-bath against fever caused by grief and preoccupation (p. 654); in baths against hectic fever (pp. 665, 667), etc. The internal uses of banafša and of banafša-ye eṣbahānī (the difference between the two is not specified by the author) are: (banafša) in a mixture (with some other simples) against headache of bilious origin (p. 225); (banafša preserve) in kašk-āb against vesical inflammation (p. 501); in a linctus against pleurisy (p. 329); in a laxative infusion against anorexia (p. 357); (banafša-ye-eṣbahānī) in an electuary against colic (p. 434); in a drink with rosewater against hepatic dysfunction (p. 437); with sugar against tertian fever, etc. Nowadays, in popular or traditional therapeutics, dried violet blossoms are sometimes used by themselves in infusion as febrifuge, but usually with some other vegetable simples, the best-known combination of which is the č(ah)ār-gol (“the four flowers,” i.e., violets, water lilies, mallows and squash/pumpkin flowers) in a concoction indicated as febrifuge, “coolant,” emollient, or pectoral.

Bibliography:

Given in the text. See also Qāsem b. Yūsof Abū Naṣrī Heravī, Eršād al-zerāʿa, ed. M. Mošīrī, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967.

Abū Bakr Rabīʿ b. Aḥmad Aḵawaynī Boḵārī, Hedāyat al- motaʿallemīn fi’l-ṭebb, ed. J. Matīnī, Mašhad, 1344 Š./1965. M.-Ḥ. ʿAqīlī Ḵorāsānī, Maḵzan al-adwīa, offset reprint, Tehran, 1349 Š./1970? from the litho. ed., Tehran, 1276/1859-60.

Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī, K. al-ṣaydana fi’l-ṭebb, ed. Mohammed Said and Rana Ehsan Elahie, Al-Bīrūnī’s Book on Pharmacy and Materia Medica, Karachi, 1973 (p. 102 n. on etymology from Skt. *vana-puṣpa “wood flower” is proposed).

Ebn al-Bayṭār, al-Jāmeʿ le mofradāt al-adwīa wa’l-aḡḏīa, 4 pts. in 2 vols., Bulaq, 1291/1874.

A. Ghahreman, Flore de l’Iran en couleur naturelle, Tehran, 1978-.

Horn, Etymologie, p. 53. Aḥmad Ḵalīqī, Golkārī: Parvareš-e gīāhān-e zīnatī-e Īrān, Tehran, 1364 Š./1985-86.

Mowaffaq-al-Dīn Abū Manṣūr ʿAlī Heravī, Ketāb al-abnīa ʿan ḥaqāʾeq al-adwīa, ed. A. Bahmanyār and Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967-68.

Šehāb-al-Dīn Aḥmad Nowayrī, Nehāyat al-arab fī fonūn al-adab, 16 vols., n.p., n.d. A. Parsa, Flore de l’Iran, Tehran, I/1, 1951.

J. M. Unvala, The Pahlavi Text “King Husrav and His Boy,” Paris, n.d.

(H. Aʿlam) Originally Published: December 15, 1988

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VIOLLET, Henry

(b. Paris, 1880; d. Paris, 1955), French archeologist and architect.

VIOLLET, Henry (b. Paris, 1880; d. Paris, 1955), French archeologist and architect. His father, Paul-Marie Viollet (1840- 1914), was an archivist in the French National Archives and member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, who played an important role in his son’s career. Henry Viollet was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1901 to 1911. During this period, his first contact with the Orient took place when he traveled to Egypt and Sudan (November 1904 - March 1905), where he produced a remarkable series of photographic portraits. He also carried out three archeological missions in Mesopotamia (September 1906 - April 1907; October 1907 - December 1908, and March - September 1910), financed by the Ministry of Public Instruction with the aim of carrying out research relating to the monuments of the Abbasid period (750- 1258).

Graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts on December 28, 1911, Henry Viollet, accompanied by Comte Jean de Moustier, a young cavalry officer, was chosen by the Ministry of Public Instruction to lead an archeological mission to Persia to carry out research on the origins of Islamic Art. From January 24 to April 23, 1912, Viollet and Moustier traveled much of Persia and explored archeological sites in the central and southern parts of the country. Almost a year after this first mission, carried out as a part of the program of the Délégation Archéologique Française en Iran, Henry Viollet was again designated to return to Persia. For this second archeological mission, he was requested to specify new excavations that could be undertaken in Persia from the point of view of Islamic Art.

Viollet, accompanied by his wife Madeleine Besnard, reached Ahvāz on June 5, 1913 and examined and photographed Islamic monuments and ancient ruins in Persia from the southwest to the northeast until December 13th of that year.

According to the documents in the Fonds Viollet (see Bibl.), on his return to France, Viollet sent a report to the Ministry of Public Instruction, and in June 1914 requested a new archeological mission to Persia. A month later, the Ministry announced that Viollet would lead a new mission to Astarābād in 1915. World War I interrupted this project, but Viollet, rather than competing with the German archeologists in the Middle East, joined the French army against the Germans. After the war, he was designated as architect of the Co-operative of reconstruction of “La Coopérative de reconstruction de Lassigny” (Oise), and resided in Compiègne. He also published part of the results of his missions to Persia. In May 1921, he was awarded the medal of Legion of Honor. In 1937, Viollet was in charge of the construction of the Pavilion of Iran for the World Exposition in Paris. After preparing the model, however, the comment of a journalist who ridiculed the Shah of Iran in an article about this Pavilion: “Il n’y a pas de quoi fouetter un Chah,” caused him to abandon the project. Having come to the end of his career Henry Viollet, who had become an architectural expert in the Court of Appeals in Seine, fell ill and died in June 1955.

Works:

“Le palais d’Al-Mutasim, fils d’Harun al-Rashid, à Samara et quelques monuments arabes peu connus,” Comptes-rendus des Séances des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris, 1909, pp. 370- 75.

“Fouilles à Samara en Mésopotamie : un palais musulman du IXème siècle,” Extrait des Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 12, Paris, 1911, pp. 679-715.

“L’Architecture musulmane du XIIIème siècle en Irak: la Madrasa Mustansiriyah à Bagdad,” Revue Archéologique 1, 1913, pp. 1- 18.

“Deux années en Perse,” La Revue du Foyer 16, 1914, pp. 297- 323.

“Les Fronts d’Asie,” Mercure de France I-IV, Paris, 1917, pp. 424- 36.“Un monument des premiers siècles de l’Hégire en Perse: la mosquée de Naïn,” Syria 2, 1921, pp. 226-316 (with S. Flury).

“Sâmarrâ,” Encyclopédie de l’Islam II, Paris, 1925, pp. 136-38. Bibliography:

Archives Nationales de France, Paris, dossier H. Viollet, F/17/17292.

Fonds Viollet, Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III), UFR - Monde Arabe, Institue d’Études Iraniennes.

Marine Fromanger, “Le Fonds Henry Viollet (1880-1955): documents d’archives et photographies,” in: Iran: questions et connaissances, II: Périodes médiévale et moderne, Actes du 4e congrès européen des études iraniennes, Paris, (6-10 September 1999), ed. Maria Szuppe, Cahiers de Studia Iranica 26, 2002, pp. 513-24.

Idem, L’architecture musulmane en Perse d’après les missions d’Henry Viollet (1911-1912), 2 vols, Aix-en-Provence, 1997, (typewritten).

Idem, Les missions d’Henry Viollet en Orient. Inventaire et analyse des archives du Fonds de l’I.E.I, 2 vols., Aix-en- Provence, 1998, (typewritten).

Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam, L’archéologie française en Perse et les antiquités nationales (1884-1914), Paris, Connaissances et Savoirs, 2004, pp. 187-89, 215-18. August 23, 2006

(Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam)

Originally Published: November 15, 2006

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VIS O RĀMIN an 11th-century verse romance by Faḵr al-Din Asʿad Gorgāni (s.v. Gorgāni).

VIS O RĀMIN, an 11th-century verse romance by Faḵr al-Din Asʿad Gorgāni, a poet about whom virtually nothing is known and of whose works, apart from Vis o Rāmin, only three possible examples (a fragment of personal satire, a short ḡazal, and a robāʿi), amounting to fifteen lines in all, survive. However, Vis o Rāmin’s importance as an aesthetic artifact in its own right, as a witness to Persian Pre-Islamic mores and literary production, and as the seminal Persian verse romance has ensured Gorgāni’s position, along with Ferdowsi, as one of the two most significant Persian narrative poets of the 11th century.

The little that is known about Gorgāni has been gleaned from the exordium to his poem, which tells us that it was written in Isfahan, during the reign of the Saljuq ruler Sulṭan Abu Ṭāleb Ṭoḡrel Beg. According to Gorgāni’s account, Ṭoḡrel Beg left Isfahan in the charge of ʿAmid Abu’l Fatḥ Moẓaffar, who commissioned the poem from him. These historically verifiable references place the composition of the poem around 1050 CE. Gorgāni’s description of his sources for the poem appears credibly circumstantial but on closer examination turns out to be somewhat vague. Maḥjub calls it “an ambiguous explanation” (towżiḥ-e mobham, Maḥjub, 1959, 19) referring, as it does, to sources in both Middle (“Pahlavi”) and New (“Farsi”) Persian, and to texts but also to oral recitations (“samar-ha”). Gorgāni simultaneously evokes both oral and written sources, and implies that the poem is at once a translation of a work in Middle Persian, and a reworking of a translation from Middle Persian into New Persian that has been put together by a number of other scholars whose work the poet is now presenting in a more aesthetically pleasing form. His explanation bears some resemblance to Ferdowsi’s account of his sources at the opening of the Šāh-nāma, by which it may be influenced. This suggests that it is, perhaps, to be read as a conventional trope rather than as fact. That the tale existed before Gorgāni’s time is, however, certain, since it is mentioned by the 8th century Arab poet Abu Nowās.

Gorgāni is at pains to demonstrate that he is familiar with Middle Persian, but whether his source was in Middle or New Persian is unclear, and has been the subject of some scholarly discussion (summarized by Maḥjub, pp.18-22). Most scholars have concluded that it was probably in New Persian. Maḥjub (p.20) points out that although Gorgāni refers to the difficulty of understanding some Middle Persian terms, he never refers to the difficulty of reading its notoriously demanding script, which suggests that if he worked from a text, it was one written in the Arabic-New Persian script. Minorsky demonstrated in a series of cogent articles (1943-1946, 1947-1948, 1954, 1962) that the narrative is almost certainly Parthian (see ARSACIDS) in origin. His evidence for this is drawn primarily from the poem’s geography and the names of its characters. He draws attention to the fact that the poem’s action is bounded by Marv in the northeast and by Hamadān (called “Māh” in the poem) in the west, with Marv as the seat of the king, Moʾbad. Fārs, the Sasanian homeland, is virtually absent from the text. A number of the characters’ names suggest a Parthian origin (e.g. Qāren, the father of Vis). Minorsky concludes, “at no period in the long history of Iran, did the material, and especially the geographical conditions, correspond to those described in Vis u Ramin, except at the time of Parthian dominion, under the rule of the Arsacid dynasty” (1947-1948, p.22). He further suggests that the poem is connected with “some scion of the branch (of the Parthian nobility) founded by Godarz . . . (and that) the patronymic of the king of Marv, Moʾbad Manikān, may point to his descent from the Godarzid Bižan (See BĪŽAN) and his wife Maniža” (1947-1948, p.31).

A number of important motifs in the tale, together with its episodic structure, are shared by some Hellenistic romances written in the early centuries of the Common Era. Such shared motifs include: an attempted bridal abduction; the repeated likelihood, which is averted by various spectacular means, that the heroine will have no choice but to sleep with someone other than her true love; an emphasis on close endogamous, rather than exogamous, sexual relations (the marriage of Vis and Viru; further, although Vis and Rāmin are not blood-relations they are brought up by the same wet-nurse, which confers on them a quasi-brother-sister status, and Rāmin is the brother of Vis’s second husband); the presence of a temptress who lures the hero away from the heroine but with whose charms he is soon sated, so that he then reaffirms his love for the heroine. As there was considerable syncretism between the Hellenistic and Parthian cultures, these correspondences suggest it is possible that the tale is, in some of its features, a product of such syncretism (Davis, 2002).

The plot is as follows: Šahru, the queen of Māh, refuses an offer of marriage from King Moʾbad of Marv, but promises that if she bears a daughter she will give the child to him as a bride, (a promise that is condemned by Gorgāni as immoral; Maḥjoub, p. 27, l.51, and l.7). She duly bears a daughter, Vis, who is brought up by a nurse in the company of Moʾbad’s younger brother Rāmin. By the time that Vis is to be married, Šahru has forgotten her promise and marries Vis to her (Vis’s) older brother Viru. The marriage is unconsummated on the wedding night due to Vis’s menstruation. The next day Moʾbad’s brother Zard arrives to demand the bride and fighting breaks out, during which Vis’s father is killed. Moʾbad bribes Šahru to hand Vis over to him. Moʾbad’s brother Rāmin escorts Vis to her new husband and falls in love with her. Vis has no love for Moʾbad and turns to her old nurse, who makes a talisman that renders Moʾbad impotent with Vis. The spell can only be broken if the talisman is broken, and it is swept away in a flood and lost, so that Moʾbad is never able to sleep with his bride. Rāmin uses the nurse as a go- between and after much back and forth Vis falls in love with him, and the two consummate their love. Moʾbad overhears a conversation between the nurse and Vis, and realizes his wife loves Rāmin. He banishes her to her hometown of Māh, but Rāmin follows her. The lovers are pursued by Moʾbad, who tells Vis that she must undergo a trial by fire to prove her chastity. Rather than do this, she and Rāmin elope. Rāmin’s and Moʾbad’s mother makes peace between her sons, and eventually Vis, Rāmin and Moʾbad are again together in Marv, with Moʾbad uneasily watching the lovers while they seize every opportunity they can to be together. At one point Vis asks her nurse to take her place beside Moʾbad in bed while she is with Rāmin. The trick is almost discovered, but Vis is able to sneak back to her bedchamber in time and reproach Moʾbad for his suspicions.

Moʾbad leads an army against a Roman invasion and takes Rāmin with him. Vis meanwhile is imprisoned in a fortress guarded by Zard. Rāmin falls sick while on the campaign and Moʾbad leaves him behind to recover. Rāmin makes his way to the fortress where Vis is held and contrives to scale the walls. The lovers spend some months together before Moʾbad, returning in triumph from his military campaign, hears of what is going on; when he arrives at the castle, Rāmin is able to escape. Moʾbad confronts Vis and the nurse with what he has learned and savagely beats them. Moʾbad and Vis return to Marv, and Rāmin meets secretly with her in the palace gardens; again, they are almost caught by Moʾbad, but again Rāmin escapes in time. Later, at a banquet, Moʾbad threatens Rāmin with his dagger.

At this point Rāmin decides there is no future in his love for Vis and he asks Moʾbad to send him to Māh as his representative. While there, he visits the castle of Gurāb (identified by Minorsky, 1954, p. 91, as the modern “Jurāb, about five miles from Malāyer” where there is indeed a ruined pre-Islamic castle). Here Rāmin meets a beautiful woman, Gol, who immediately sets about seducing him, and whom he marries. He writes a letter to Vis telling her of this. She sends the nurse to remonstrate with Rāmin but he sends an insulting message back. Vis then writes Rāmin a long and rhetorically highly elaborate letter in ten sections, reproaching him for his infidelity and reminding him of her love. By the time the letter reaches him he has already become tired of Gol, and he immediately sets off for Marv in hopes of being reconciled with Vis. When he arrives, on horseback, a snowstorm is in progress; Vis appears on the roof of the castle and rejects all of Rāmin’s lengthy pleas that she take him back. Rāmin rides despondently off into the snow; Vis regrets what she has done and she and the nurse set off after him. After further altercations, the lovers are reconciled.

Moʾbad takes Rāmin hunting, and the nurse plans an insurrection. Vis and her womenfolk visit a fire temple and there she meets up with Rāmin, who has absented himself from the hunting party, together with forty of his companions. Rāmin and the companions disguise themselves as women and return with Vis to the castle. There they kill the garrison, including Zard, and make off with Moʾbad’s movable wealth to Daylam, an area traditionally associated with outlaws. Moʾbad however is killed by a wild boar during the hunt, and Rāmin is able to return to Marv in triumph, without fighting against Moʾbad, and be crowned king. He marries Vis and the two enjoy a long and happy life together. Rāmin reigns for eighty-three years; in the eighty-first year Vis dies, having borne Rāmin two sons. Rāmin hands his kingdom over to his eldest son Ḵoršid, and after two years of mourning at Vis’s tomb, he too dies.

Aesthetically the poem is extremely compelling, despite its episodic and often highly repetitious nature. Gorgāni explicitly asks his readers not to blame the lovers (nabāyad sarzaneš kardan bedišān, p.30, l. 12); on the contrary, their love is enthusiastically and compassionately celebrated, despite its obvious flouting of social norms. The characters are drawn firmly and boldly; Šahru is worldly and venal, the nurse worried and resourceful, Vis high-spirited and determined, Rāmin impetuous and emotionally volatile. The most complex character is Moʾbad, whose hopeless psychological situation flickers wearily from patience to self-assertion to fury and back again. The characters are largely conventional, as is always the case in medieval narratives, but their often long and rhetorically charged speeches do much to individualize them. The language, which combines great sweetness and strength, is in the main fairly simple, and the rhetorical devices most frequently used, e.g. anaphora and amplificatio, are also generally straightforward; these can produce moments of great eloquence (for example, in Vis’s letter to Rāmin, especially its fourth section, which in its acute psychological insight and anguished but beautifully controlled diction is arguably one of the finest passages in the poem). Many of the narrative’s most significant scenes happen at night, and this adds considerably to the poem’s almost constant atmosphere of mingled danger, romance, and intrigue. In contrast to virtually all subsequent Persian romances, carnal love is celebrated in and for itself, and the poem contains no hint that physical love is to be considered as a metaphor for spiritual love. Gorgāni is also more frank, and less prurient, in his descriptions of sexuality than most of the writers who imitated him; for example, Vis’s menstruation and defloration, as well as Moʾbad’s impotence, are openly discussed.

The poem’s most obvious reflection of pre-Islamic mores is Gorgāni’s unembarrassed account of extreme endogamy (e.g. the brother-sister marriage between Viru and Vis). This is in contrast to the discomfort other 11th century writers (e.g. Ferdowsi) tend to display when obliged to deal with material involving such customs. Other pre-Islamic topics include the threatened trial by fire, as well as references to Zoroastrian festivals, fire temples, and beliefs. Vis o Rāmin also contains a substantial number of words that have retained relatively older forms, and is one of the richest extant sources for such items. The poem had an immense influence on Neẓāmi, who takes the bases for most of his plots from Ferdowsi but the basis for his rhetoric from Gorgāni. This is especially noticeable in his Ḵosrow o Širin, which imitates a major scene (that of the lovers arguing in the snow) from Vis o Rāmin, as well as being in the same meter (hazaj) as Gorgāni’s poem. Nezami’s concern with astrology also has a precedent in an elaborate astrological description of the night sky in Vis o Rāmin. Given Nezami’s own paramount influence on the romance tradition, Gorgāni can be said to have initiated much of the distinctive rhetoric and poetic atmosphere of this tradition, with the exception of its Sufi preoccupations, which are quite absent from his poem.

No discussion of Vis o Rāmin can avoid the question of whether it has any relationship to the European story of Tristan and Iseult (the first extant version of which, by Béroul, appeared some one hundred years after Vis o Rāmin). The tales share a number of motifs, including the hero falling in love with the heroine while escorting her as a bride to his king and close relative; the hero being renowned as both a minstrel and a hunter; the crucial role of the heroine’s servant/confidante as go-between; the substitution of a female servant for the heroine in the king’s bed; the episode of the hero’s false love (Iseult of the White Hands, Gol; the characterization of the two is extremely similar); a threatened but averted trial by fire that will establish the lovers’ culpability or innocence; the lovers’ escape together to an “uncivilized” area (the forest, Daylam); the hero’s disguising himself as someone of intrinsically lower status (Tristan as a leper, Rāmin as a woman) in order to gain access to the beloved; Moʾbad’s being killed by a boar, while a dream has the equivalent character’s (King Mark’s) palace despoiled by one. Even where there are differences between the tales, tantalizing parallels exist. Tristan is King Mark’s nephew, while Rāmin is Moʾbad’s younger brother. But twice Rāmin is also referred to as Moʾbad’s son (Maḥjub, p. 82, l.17; p. 177, l.63), and once he refers to Moʾbad as his father (op. cit., p.351, l.20). Rāmin could be both son and brother to Moʾbad by Parthian custom, a relationship that was obviously impossible in Europe; it seems plausible that a brother and son could turn into a brother’s son when the story moved to another culture. Although the magic love potion handed by Iseult’s confidante to the lovers is absent from Vis o Rāmin, Vis’s confidante is also a practitioner of magic (she prevents Moʾbad from sleeping with Vis by means of the talisman), and Gol says that Rāmin’s heart is bound to Vis by “the old nurse’s spells” (Maḥjoub, p.241, l.100); moreover, the metaphor of love as a wine that induces intoxication and delirium, and which one drinks mutually, is a commonplace of the poem. The most obvious difference between the two tales is the ways in which they end, and this can be put down to differing perceptions of the cultures from which the tales are presumed by their authors to have sprung. Both narratives are essentially “Pagan” vis-à-vis the culture in which they were written down in the forms that have reached us. On the one hand, the deaths of Tristan and Iseult imply that the values by which they lived have no ultimate validity in the Christian world, which cannot allow the lovers to be rewarded by success or happiness. On the other hand, Vis and Rāmin are vindicated, despite their highly (in Islamic terms) transgressive lives, and this suggests a nostalgia, which is also visible in some other 11th century texts, for the imagined world of pre-Islamic Iran. In the argument against the existence of a connection between the two tales, much has been made of the absence of evidence of textual transmission, but a greater awareness of the ways in which stories travel orally from culture to culture makes such concerns perhaps less decisive than they once seemed. A possible conduit could have been the Saljuq court culture of Syria, which showed a lively interest in literature in Persian (e.g. the 12th century Persian compendium of advice, Bahr al-Favāʾid, was a product of its patronage) and also had extensive contacts with the crusaders of Outremer. Although the notion of a connection between the tales has been rejected by most scholars who have examined the topic, it is the present writer’s opinion that their parallels are too numerous and telling to discount, and that Vis o Rāmin did probably contribute some motifs to the Tristan legend, although whether it should be considered as the tale’s sole “origin” remains more problematic.

Bibliography:

Faḵr al-Din Asʿad Gorgāni, Vis o Rāmin. Editions: Ed. W. Nassau Lees, Calcutta, 1865; ed. M. Minovi, Tehran, 1314/1935; ed. Moḥammad Jaʿfar Mạjub, Tehran 1337/1959; ed. by A. Devonaqulov, Dushanbe, 1966; ed. M. Todua and A. Gwakharia, Tehran, 1349/1970.

Translations: Eng. tr. by G. Morrison, New York, 1972; French tr. by H. Massé, Paris, 1959; Russian tr. by S. Lipkin, Moscow, 1963; Georgian tr. (11th century C.E.), called Visramiani, by S. Tmogveli, Moscow, 1938; Eng. tr. of the Georgian version, by Oliver Wardrop, London, 1914, repr. 1966. J.C. Burgel, The Romance in Persian Literature, ed., E. Yarshater, New York, 1988, pp. 164-65.

Dick Davis, Panthea’s Children: Hellenistic Novels and Medieval Persian Romances, New York, 2002.

P. Gallais, Genèse du roman occidental: essai sur Tristan et Iseut et son modèle persan, Paris, 1974.

Julie Scott Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry, Princeton, 1987.

Vladimir Minorsky, “Vis u Ramin: A Parthian Romance,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. XI, 1943-46, pp. 741-63; Vol. XII, 1947-1948, pp. 20-35; Vol. XVI, 1954, pp. 91- 92; “New Developments.” Vol. XXV, 1962, pp. 275-86.

Ḏabih-Allāh Ṣafā, Tāriḵ-e adabiyāt dar Irān, Vol. II, pp. 370-83, Tehran, 1987.

For a detailed thematic, rhetorical, and lexical analysis of Vis o Rāmin, its imagery and traces of Mazdayasnian beliefs, see: Ṣādeq Hedāyat, “Čand nokta darbāra-ye Vis o Rāmin,” in Nevešta-ha-ye parākanda-ye Ṣādeq Ḥedāyat, Tehran, repr., 1965, pp. 486-523.

(Dick Davis)

Originally Published: July 20, 2005 ______

VISPERAD name of a lengthy Avestan text divided into 24 chapters; the name derives from Av. vīspe ratawō meaning “all the ratus.”

VISPERAD (or Visprad), name of a lengthy Avestan text divided into 24 chapters (Pahl. kardag, Pers. karda); the name derives from Av. vīspe ratawō meaning “all the ratu-s.” It was never meant to stand alone, its chapters being inserted for recitation into various parts of the Yasna. Nor does it form part of the normal, daily performance of the Yasna. Rather, its original purpose was to embellish the Yasna ceremony during the five main festivals (Pahl. gāhānbār) of the yearly religious calendar.

The word ratu- has two distinct meanings. The easiest to define is “season, period of time” and by extension “seasonal festival.” In this sense it is certainly cognate with OInd. r̥ tú- “season, proper time.” The second meaning is more difficult to ascertain. Chr. Bartholomae (AirWb, cols. 1498 f.) gave “judex” as the primary meaning, with a secondary meaning “authority” in general. In the Visperad the term is used extensively in the latter sense and is applied to all manner of deities, abstractions, and the prototypical creatures, namely, the Bovine (see GĀW Ī ĒWDĀD), Gayō Marətan (see GAYŌMART), and Zaraθuštra. J. Kellens has argued that 2ratu- should be understood as “prototype des espèces vivantes” inasmuch as “à chaque espèce appartient un habitat saisonnier idéal et une période de reproduction.” Although this may apply in certain instances, it is better to adhere to Bartholomae' determination and translate as "chief, chief authority, master."

The expression vīspe ratawō, as the title of a text, occurs only once in the extant Avesta, in a late addition to the Mihr Yašt. Karda 30 contains materials pertaining to the worship of Miθra, where stanzas 121-22 are set in a question-answer frame familiar in the Vendidād: “Zaraθuštra asked … Ahura Mazdā said …” The particular question here is, “How shall a righteous man drink the purified libations?” so that Miθra will not be displeased. The response is that they should ritually bathe and undergo whip lashes as penance. The stanza closes with an injunction: “Let no one drink of these libations who is not versed in the Staota Yesnya, the Vīspe Ratawō” (mā.ciš mē åŋhąm zaoθranąm fraŋwharāt̰ yā [fem.] nōit̰ staotanąm yesnyanąm āmātō [masc.] vīspe ratawō [nom. pl.]). The relative clause is ungrammatical, and it appears that vīspe ratawō is an interpolation specifying one of the two texts the worshiper is required to recite. The fact that the words have been placed at the end of the line, without any grammatical connection to what precedes, strongly suggests that they have been a later addition, as we would have expected the genitive plural. In any case, since in recorded Zoroastrian practice the Visperad is never recited alone, the implication is that the worshiper be able to recite the Staota Yesnya together with Visperad, as, for example, in the modern practice of the priestly initiation (navad). There are two occurrences where wīspa- ratu- are not the title of a text: Y. 1.19 vīspaēibyō aṣ̌ahe ratubyō and Y. 2.18 vīspe aṣ̌ahe ratawō “all the ratus of Truth,” as the objects of worship.

As the passage from the Mihr Yašt suggests, the Visperad was closely associated particularly with the Staota Yesnya. Although the common tradition is that the Staota Yesnya embrace Y. 14-58 (see YASNA), the internal evidence of the Visperad suggests that it recognized only Y. 27.14-58.33. This is clearly the plan of Vr. 1.3-8. After invoking the ratus of the creatures of both spiritual and material worlds (1.1) and the ratus of the five festivals, plus the year-end Hamaspaθmaēdaya (1.2), stanza 3 invokes “The well-offered portions of the Staota Yasnya, the righteous ratu(s) of Truth.” What follows is a series of invocations to: Ahuna Vairya (Y. 27.14), Aṣ̌a Vahišta (Y. 27.15), Yeŋhē Hātąm (Y. 27.16); then Ahunawaitī Gāθā (Y. 27-34), Yasna Haptaŋhāitī (Y. 35-41), Uštawaitī Gāθā (Y. 43-46), Spəṇtā.Mainyu Gāθā (Y. 47-50), Vohuxšaθrā Gāθā (Y. 51), Vahištōišti Gāθā (Y. 53), Airyaman Iš́ya (Y. 54.1), and Fšūšō Mąθra (Y. 58; followed by the invocation of “the lofty Haδaoxta ratu,” a reference to Y. 58.33 fṣ̌ūšō mąθrəm haδaoxtəm, on which see HĀDŌXT NASK). Note, however, that Vr. 24.1 has the clause “what is between the Ahuna and the Airyaman” (yat̰ asti aṇtarə ahuna airyamana).

The occurrence of the words vīspe ratawō in the Mihr Yašt is relevant to the problem of dating the Visperad. Although counted as one of the “great Yašts,” the Mihr Yašt (q.v.) is an extended text containing layers of composition and editorial redaction. Even if the final redaction took place in the mid- to late Sasanian period, the text would not necessarily have been exempt from occasional interpolations. The fact that vīspe ratawō occurs here in grammatical isolation shows that the words have been quoted, perhaps as a fossilized form, from some other, now lost, Avestan source. In terms of relative chronology, the Visperad is dependent upon the Yasna for it existence. Beyond these meager facts a more precise dating is elusive.

The Pahlavi Visperad follows the usual pattern of the Pahlavi Yasna, except in its brevity through the abbreviations of repetitions, in that it presents two distinct aspects. The major part is a word-for-word gloss of the Avestan text. To individual glosses are often appended brief words, phrases, or sentences of commentary, which sometimes make oblique reference to material found in Pahlavi literature, sometimes give a ritual context not explicit in the Avestan text. It is possible that the Pahlavi gloss is based on a text older than the one attested in our Mss. For example, Vr. 7.2 in all Mss contains a redundant yazamaide (“we worship”) where arštātəm yazamaide is followed by series of descriptives of this deity and concludes with a second yazamaide. That the Pahlavi glosses each word except the final yazamaide shows that it was adhering to a correct tradition not reflected in the Mss.

As a work of literature the Visperad fails utterly. It is a derivative text that borrows extensively from the Yasna, yet also seems to draw quotations from sources we cannot identify. The editors who assembled it are, more frequently than not, oblivious of grammar and syntax. Nevertheless, it is usually quite obvious what entities are the objects of veneration, while the arrangement of the chapters has a clear rationale, as they follow key moments in the Yasna ceremony. If we assume the position of the priests who were charged with greatly expanding the Yasna ceremony for the festive occasions of the Gāhānbārs, we can appreciate that they never intended to produce a literary work. By necessity they needed simply to provide Avestan text in order to augment the Yasna.

The contribution of the Visperad to Avestan philology comes from those words and phrases which are not to be found elsewhere. For example, Vr. 2.5 closes with a series of three phrases, the last of which is a direct quote, in Standard Avestan, of Y. 43.6c. It is preceded by an unconnected phrase yōi mąθrəm saoš́yaṇtō, which, as Geldner (ad loc.) opined, must be a quote from a lost text. That in turn is preceded by an octosyllabic pāda spəṇtąm ārmaitīm [aramatim] darətəm, which by itself makes little sense. Another case is the archaic-looking phrase frā gawe vərəṇdyāi at Vr. 4.2 (see Benveniste, 1935, p. 82). Similar with tmesis is frā tanwō rəṇjayeiti at Vr. 7.2.

In addition to verbatim or nearly verbatim borrowings from the Yasna, we occasionally find clever ways in which an author has spliced and altered borrowed text. For example, Vr. 16.3 offers a well constructed sentence using both Y. 51.22ab and Y. 27.5 (yeŋhē hātąm): “Zaraθuštra is both ahu and ratu of these of whom bounteous Ahura Mazdā knows what is better in respect to our worship (of them)”:

Vr. 16.3 yaēšąm nō ahurō mazdå aṣ̌awa yesnē paiti vaŋhō vaēδa aēšąm zaraθuštrō aŋhuca ratušca

Y. 51.22 yehyā mōi aṣ̌āt̰ hacā vahištəm yesnē paitī vahištəm vaēdā mazdå ahurō…

Y. 27.5 yeŋhē hātąm āat̰ yesnē paitī +vaŋhō mazdå ahurō vaēθā aṣ̌āt̰ hacā …

In the borrowed sentence of Vr. 16.3 the entities over which Zaraθuštra presides are unnamed; however, they are specified as waters, fields, and plants in the “we worship (yazamaide)” clause which immediately follows.

Vr. 13.3 and 14.1 contain the technical vocabulary for the compositional structure of the Gāθās. Hāiti- “section, chapter” (Pahl. hā) refers to a hymn as a whole. Each hymn is made up of stanzas or strophes called vacastašti “the fashioning of words/speech.” Each stanza is composed of a fixed number of full verse lines (in the case of Ahunawaitī Gāθā three to a stanza) called afsman. In turn, a full verse line is divided into two parts with caesura after the first. The half-line is a pad-, lit. “foot” (like the Sanskrit pāda). Finally, the smallest unit is the individual word wacas. We also find (Vr. 15.2) the words anapyūxδa- “without embellishment” and anapišūta- “without alteration” in reference to the recitation (Vr. 13.1) of the Tišra Paoirya, the “First Three” hā of the Ahunawaitī Gāθā, and to the recitation (Vr. 15.2) of the Yasna Haptaŋhāitī—a reference to various styles of recitation which deviated from the straight text. And Vr. 14.1 refers to the recitation of the Ahunawaitī Gāθā “together with the explanation (āzainti-), together with the question (pərəsu-), together with the interpretation (paiti.pərəsu-), together with both voices.” Moreover, there is a rich vocabulary for the mental retention and the expression of text.

There are two general manuscript traditions of the Visperad. Inasmuch as the Visperad is not an independent text, it is incorporated into the long liturgy of the Vendidād Sāda (VS), that is, the Yasna text with insertions of the Visperad and the Vendidād (see the index, below). In the case of the Mss of the VS, the text of the Visperad is given in extenso. This is not the case with the Pahlavi Visperad, which, as a non-liturgical text, is characterized by extreme abbreviation through the elimination of almost all of the repetitions of the Sāda text. For complete treatments of the two traditions, refer to K. Geldner”s “Prolegomena,” I, pp. xix-xxiv, and xxxvii-xl and to M. N. Dhabhar, Pahlavi Yasna and Visperad, pp. 9-11.

The following is an index of the chapters of the Yasna with the insertions of the chapters of the Visperad.

Yasna 1. 1-8

Visperad 1, which replaces Y. 1.9

Yasna 1.10 - 2.8

Visperad 2, which replaces Y. 2.9

Yasna 2.10 - 11.8

Visperad 3.1-5

Yasna 11.9 -15

Visperad 3.6-7 through 4.2

Yasna 11.16 through Y. 14.5

Visperad 5

Yasna 15

Visperad 6

Yasna 16 and 17

Visperad 7 and 8 ( 7 is recited after Y. 25 and 8 after Y. 65)

Yasna 18 through 21.5

Visperad 9

Yasna 22 Visperad 10 and 11

Yasna 23 - 27

Visperad 12

[Vendidad 1-4]

Yasna 28 - 30 (Ahunawaitī Gāθā, of which 28-30 are called the Tišra Paoirya)

Visperad 13

[Vendidad 5 - 6]

Yasna 31 - 34

Visperad 14

[Vendidad 7 - 8]

Visperad 15

Yasna 35 - 42

Visperad 16-17

[Vendidad 9 - 10]

Yasna 43 - 46 (Uštawaitī Gāθā)

Visperad 18

[Vendidad 11 - 12]

Yasna 47 - 50 (Spəṇtāmainyu Gāθā)

Visperad 19

[Vendidad 13 - 14]

Yasna 51 (Vohuxšaθrā Gāθā)

Visperad 20 [Vendidad 15 - 16]

Visperad 21 - 22: note that 21.4 refers to Y. 52 as "the other Yasna" (apara-yasna-)

[Vendidad 17 -18]

Yasna 52 - 53 (Vahištōišti Gāθā)

Visperad 23

[Vendidad 19 - 20]

Yasna 54 (Airyaman Išya)

Visperad 24

[Vendidad 21 - 22]

Yasna 55 - 72

Visperad 8 is repeated after Y. 65

Bibliography:

Chr. Bartholomae Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strassburg, 1904.

E. Benveniste Les infinitifs avestiques, Paris, 1935.

J. Darmesteter Le Zend-Avesta I, Paris, 1892 (translation with notes rich in details). B. N. Dhabhar Pahlavi Yasna and Visperad, Bombay, 1949.

K. F. Geldner Avesta I, Stuttgart, 1896 (critical edition with Prolegomena and the Avestan text).

A. Hintze, “Avestan Literature” in R. E. Emmerick and M. Macuch, The Literature of Pre-Islamic Iran, London and New York, 2009, pp. 26-38 (with references to the older literature).

J. Kellens, Études avestiques et mazdéennes, vols. I-IV, Paris, 2006-2011 (translations with notes of both Yasna and Visperad).

J. J. Modi Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees, Bombay, 1922, pp. 352-53 (outline of the Visperad insertions in the Vendidād Sāda).

B. Schlerath Awesta-Wörterbuch, Vorarbeiten II, Konkordanz, Wiesbaden, 1968 (a useful reference for the Avestan sources of the Visperad).

F. Wolff Avesta, Strassburg, 1910 (translation following Bartholomae).

(William W. Malandra)

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VISRAMIANI title of the Georgian translation of the Vis o Rāmin, a versified romance by Persian poet Faḵr-al-Din Asʿad Gorgāni.

VISRAMIANI, title of the Georgian translation of the Vis o Rāmin, a versified romance by Persian poet Faḵr-al-Din Asʿad Gorgāni (fl. mid-11th cent.). The 12th-century translation traditionally is attributed as one of the works of a feudal lord, Sargis Tmogveli.

The Georgians were converted to Christianity at the beginning of the 4th century. During the following centuries they created a rich volume of both original and translated ecclesiastic literature, within which developed hagiography, hymnography, types of adventure tales, and amorous narratives; and, above all, they promoted the literary idiom of the Georgian language with an elevated, expressive style. The 11th-12th centuries mark a particular stage of formation and development of a strong secular trend in the Georgian classical literature. It was in this period, not later than the second half of the 12th century, that Gorgāni’s versified romance was translated into Georgian. The highly artistic, colorful prose of the Georgian Visramiani defined its peculiarity. It is generally considered as one of the most distinguished example of ancient Georgian literary tradition (Baramidze et al., 1966, II, pp. 60-87).

There are twenty manuscripts of the Visramiani text, copied in the 17th-18th centuries, besides one dated 1805. The first edition of Visramiani was published in 1884 by I. Cahvchavadze, P. Umikashvili, and A. Sarağishvili. It was based on four manuscripts. The second edition of the text was issued in 1938 by A. Baramidze, P. Ingoroqva, and K. Kekelidze. It was based on fourteen manuscripts and, to some extent, on the second edition (1935) of the original Persian text. In 1960 appeared the third edition, prepared by I. Lolashvili, who had used the two previous editions, with consideration of all comments and amendments given in scholarly literature concerning them. The fourth edition of the Visramiani, published in 1962, should be regarded as a significant stage in the process of studies concerning the translation. The editors, A. Gvakharia and M. Todua, undertook a line-for-line comparison of the Georgian and Persian texts and devoted two-thirds of the edited volume (763 pages) to critical textual analysis with comments, variant readings, vocabulary list, and index (Mamatsashvili and Giunashvili, 1985, p. 122).

On the basis of line-for-line collation of several passages of Persian and Georgian texts, Nikolai Marr (1864-1934) concluded that the Georgian text was an exact reproduction of the Persian original and that it was of key significance for the critique of the Persian text (Marr, 1925, p. 137). The first attempt for realizing this potential was partially done, via Oliver Wardrop’s English translation of Visramiani, by Mojtabā Minovi, during the preparation of the second edition of Vis o Ramin.

A distinct aspect of this translation is the fact that, in spite of being an almost literal rendering of the Persian original and in contrast to the free use of Persian lexis by Georgian authors of the 12th-13th centuries, it is quite free from any elements of Persian language to the extent that it has been called an original Georgian literary work and the oldest representative of the secular literary monuments of Georgia (Marr, 1925, pp. 164-66).

Questions concerning the textual interrelationship of the Persian original and its Georgian translation, their lexis, various redactions, and the whole complex of philological analysis of Visramiani have been discussed in works of Y. Abuladze, A. Baramidze, J. Giunashvili, A. Gvakharia, G. Imedashvili, K. Kekelidze, D. Kobidze, M. Mamatsashvili, N. Marr, V. Puturidze, M. Todua, and other scholars.

Visramiani attests to its strong link with the Georgian fiction tradition. Reproducing the Persian romance in his native language, the Georgian translator succeeded in masterfully blending into one the poetical subject matter of the original and the rich artistic heritage of Old Georgian literature.

Bibliography:

Translations of Visramiani

Oliver Wardrope, tr., Visramiani: The Story of the Loves of Vis and Ramin: A Romance of Ancient Persia, London, 1914 (English).

B. Rudenko, Visramiani – gruzinskiĭ roman 12 veka i persidskaya poema 11 veka Vis i Ramin (Visramiani - Georgian novel of the 12th century and Persian poem Vīs o Rāmīn of the 11th century) Moscow, 1938 (Russian). Ruth Neukom und Kita Tschkhenkeli, trs., Wisramiani oder die Geschichte der Liebe von Wis und Ramin. Uebertragung aus dem Georgischen, Zurich, 1957 (German).

S. Iordanishvili, Visramiani (Vīs o Rāmīn). Roman. Perevod s drevne-gruzinskogo (Visramiani [Vīs o Rāmīn]. Novel. Translation from Old Georgian), Tbilisi, 1960; 2nd ed., 1989 (Russian).

Nelly Amaschukeli und Natella Chuzischwili, Wis und Ramin. Roman einer verbotenen Liebe im alten Persien, Leipzig, 1991 (German).

References

Y. Abuladze, “Visramianis tekstisathvis” (Towards the text of Visramiani), in Literaturuli memkvidreoba 1, 1935, pp. 270-97.

A. Baramidze, G. Imedashvili, and G. Mikadze, eds., Kartuli literaturis istoria (History of Georgian Literature), 2 vols., Tbilisi, 1966.

Faḵr al-Din Asʿad Gorgāni, Vis o Rāmin, ed. W. Nassau Lees, Calcutta, 1865; ed. M. Minovi, Tehran, 1314/1935.

D. Kobidze, “Visramianis sakitkhebi” (Questions about Visramiani), in Kartul-sparsuli literaturuli urtiertobani (Georgian- Persian literary relations) II, Tbilisi, 1969.

M. Mamatsashvili, “Gorganis “ Vīs o Rāmīn “ da kartuli “Visramiani” (Vīs o Rāmīn by Gorgāni and the Georgian Visramiani), Tbilisi, 1977 (in Georgian; summaries in Russian and French).

M. Mamatsashvili and J. Giunashvili, On the Centenary of the First Edition of Visramiani, Rome, 1985.

Nikolai Marr, “Iz gruzino-persidskikh literaturnikh svyazeĭ” (On Georgian-Persian literary contacts), in Zapiski Kollegii vostokovedov pri Aziatskom muzee Rossiĭskoĭ akademii nauk, Leningrad, 1925.

Idem, Voprosy Vepkhistqaosani i Visramiani (Problems of the Man in the panther’s skin and Visramiani), Tbilisi, 1966.

(Jemshid Giunashvili)

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V~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS list of all the figure and plate images in the V entries

V~ ENTRIES: CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

EntryImage Caption

VANDEN BERGHE, LOUIS Figure 1. Louis Vanden Berghe. Courtesy of the author.

VANDEN BERGHE, LOUIS Figure 2. The fire temple complex at Kunar Siāh. (Photograph by Erik Smekens, Ghent University).

VANDEN BERGHE, LOUIS Figure 3. Standard of the “master of animals” type from Tattulbān (8th century. BCE). (Photograph by Erik Smekens, Ghent University).

(Cross-Reference)

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