Persian Literature

COLLEGE 111 ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE TORONTO, CANADA LIBRARY PRESENTED BY Rev. A. A. Yaechalde, C.S.B. c .. i(tj J tv (/VVr-uw^-t) ILLUSTRATED LITERARY CYCLOPEDIAS ITALIAN LITERATURE BY MARIE-LOUISE EGERTON CASTLE 3s. 6d. net. PRESS QUOTATIONS " English readers entering for the first time on a study of Italian literature might search long before finding ;i more attractive or a sounder introduction to this rich field of learning than this interesting hand-book. Brief, yet always well proportioned, well studied, and pointed in its criticisms, the work runs over the long succession of great writers, from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, down to Goldeni, Leopardi, Manzoni, and the writers of to-day, who have made the literature of Italy one of the glories of European culture. The book is sure to become a favourite among English people interested in Italian letters and in Italy." Scotsman. " For a short, general sketch of Italian literature we can very heartily commend this well-written and well- arranged manual. The attractiveness of the book is much increased by some excellently chosen portraits of some of the great names with which the book has to " deal . Bookseller. " A handy guide to a great subject. Altogether this book is a trustworthy and very pleasant guide." Yorkshire Post. I'KRSI \\ MIMA I IK I Ol 1M PERSIAN LITERATURE BY CLAUD FIELD LONDON HERBERT & DANIEL 95, NEW BOND STREET, W. ^L7 (UBRARY, SEP 1 8 1942 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. ANCIENT RELIGION AND LITERATURE OF PERSIA ...... IT. ISLAM AS MODIFIED BY PERSIAN THOUGHT PERSIAN HERETICAL SECTS I SHIAHS, ISMA- ILIANS, MU'TAZILITES (" THE BROTHERS OF PURITY ") 33 III. EPIC POETRY FIRDAUSI 52 IV. LYRICAL POETRY 75 V. COURT AND PANEGYRIC POETRY 95 VI. ROMANTIC POETRY: NIZAMI 119 VII. SUFISM 141 VIII. MYSTICAL POETRY 166 IX. DIDACTIC POETRY I SA*DI !93 X. HAFIZ 213 XI. JAMI .... 230 XII. FOLK-SONGS AND DRAMA 247 XIII. PROSE ROMANCES 264 XIV. HISTORY 280 XV. BIOGRAPHY AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE WORKS 298. XVI. MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY 3i8 XVII. BABISM AND BEHAISM 340 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE PERSIAN MINIATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY Collection H. Fever. Coloured Frontispiece THE BUILDING OF A MOSQUE, SIXTEENTH CENTURY 43 Collection H. Fever. u MS. OF THE SHAH-NEMAH," SIXTEENTH CENTURY 73 Collection H. Fever. VESTIBULE OF THE MAIN ENTRANCE TO MEDRESEH SHAH SULTAN HUSEIN IO9 " From Pascal Coste's Modern Monuments of Persia," 1867. THE QUEEN'S ENTRY INTO THE CAPITAL . 1 63 " MS. of the Shah-Nemab," Sixteenth Century. A . SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SCHOOL . -194 MS. of the "Shah-Nemab" {Collection Marteau). DECORATIVE PANEL ON CLOTH REPRESENTING THE INTERIOR OF A WEALTHY PERSIAN'S HOUSE . 21 8 Collection Henry-Rene D' Allemagne. THE SOVEREIGN S RECEPTION .... 242 " MS. of the Shah-Nemah" Sixteenth Century {Collection Marteau). POLO SIXTEENTH GAME, CENTURY . 295 MS. the of "Shah-Nemah" {Collection H. Fever). A PERSIAN SCHOOL .... 323 MS. the " of Shah-Nemah" Sixteenth Century. Vll PERSIAN LITERATURE CHAPTER I ANCIENT RELIGION AND LITERATURE OF PERSIA The discovery of the Zend-Avesta, or collection of ancient religious texts of Persia, is one of the most striking romances of literature. In the year 1754 a young Frenchman, Anquetil du Perron, when visiting Leroux-Deshauterayes, a famous Orientalist of that time, saw on his table four sheets of manuscript, written in a strange character. They had been given to Deshauterayes by his uncle, Etienne Fourmont, who had received them from the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It was - a copy of part of an Indian manuscript, which, though facsimiles of it had been sent to all the Orientalists of Europe, remained as undecipherable as the cuneiform characters of Assyria and the this On chapter cf. J. B. Fraser, "Account of Persia.' I 2 PERSIAN LllEKAlURE hieroglyphs of Egypt were at the same period. in This proved the turning-point AnquetiPs life, and he started for India as soon as possible, determined to solve the problem. After a nine months' voyage he arrived at Pondicherry, whence he proceeded to Surat, the chief seat of the fire-worshippers, or Parsees. On arriving there, he proceeded with the greatest diligence to inquire after the ancient Zend works. his By connection with the French factory, then established at Surat, he was able, after much diffi- culty and a liberal expenditure of money, to prevail upon two learned Parsee priests, acquainted with Zend and Pehlevi, to teach him those languages, which no European had ever learnt before him. He returned to Europe in 1761, with a hundred and eighty manuscripts, and in 1771 published his " " work called Zend-Avesta in three volumes. This publication was received by the Orientalists and scholars of England with a shout of derision. The foremost among these was Sir William Jones, " who, in his Lettre a Monsieur Anquetil du " Perron, declared that Zoroaster could not have written such foolishness, and that it was doubtless " the rhapsody of some modern Parsee. The " whole college of Parsees," he said, would assure for us in vain, we would not believe it, that the most unskilful charlatan would write the nonsense ANCIENT RELIGION 3 of which your two volumes are full. Either Zoroaster was wanting in common-sense or he did not write the book which you attribute to him. If he had not common-sense, he should be left in if he did not write this it obscurity ; book, was impudent to publish it under his name. Thus you have either insulted the taste of the public in publishing nonsense, or you have deceived it in passing off a forgery as a genuine document. In each case you deserve its contempt." Anquetil did not reply, but the controversy continued during his lifetime and after his death. The whole educated public of England was ranged on the side of Sir William Jones, and for more than sixty years firmly believed that the Zend- Avesta was an apocryphal work of comparatively recent date. His attack, however, had found but few supporters in Germany. The Zend-Avesta was translated into German soon after its publication, and theologians used it for throwing light on those parts of the Bible which relate to Persia. In the early part of the nineteenth century the journey of Rask, the learned Danish Orientalist, to India for the purpose of philological inquiry and the collection of Zend and Pehlevi manuscripts, which he then procured, furnished material for a unanimous verdict among scholars as to the un- doubted antiquity both of Zend and Pehlevi, and 4 PERSIAN LITERATURE as to each having been in its time a spoken language. Anquetil's claim was fully vindicated. The Zend-Avesta, which was brought to light in this remarkable way, consists of twenty-one nosks, or books, of which only one, the Vendidad (the ecclesiastical law of the Parsees), is preserved entire, while of the others only a few fragments exist. The " " name Zend-Avesta itself does not occur until about one thousand five hundred years after it is supposed to have been published, when it is mentioned in the geographical work of Masoudi. The work itself was carefully concealed by the Parsees until Anquetil du Perron drew it from its obscurity and presented it to the European world. The Zend-Avesta is composed in a language of which there is no other specimen, as the Zend differs in many respects from all other dialects ever used in Persia. Although written in characters not unlike the Pehlevi, its structure closely re- sembles that of the Sanskrit. It has forty-eight letters, corresponding in their powers with those twelve vowels of Indian extraction, including ; while the Pehlevi has only nineteen characters and no vowels. A very great number of the words are pure Sanskrit, and altogether it appears to be a dialect of that radical language. The Parsees attribute many wonderful influences to the Zend-Avesta, and claim that it contains the ANCIENT RELIGION 5 principles of all arcs and sciences, although they are concealed under symbols and mysteries. The Vendidad consists of a series of questions proposed to Ahura-Mazda, the god of the ancient Persians, by Zoroaster, with the corresponding replies. The whole is devoid of any pretension to literary merit, a deficiency which vouches in some degree for the fact of its being the work of an early age. The circumstance that it is often referred to with high respect in the other books of the Zend-Avesta, while it proves that they are of a later date, affords also an additional testimony in favour of the antiquity of the former. The Zend-Avesta, generally speaking, consists of a series of liturgic services for various occasions, rather than of matter which would lead us to regard it as an original work on religion, and, as " the Abbe Foucher well remarks, bears exactly the same relation to the books of Zoroaster that our missals and breviaries do to the Bible." The Abbe refers even the most ancient portion of it to a period long posterior to the genuine works of Zoroaster the period of the restoration of the ancient Persian religion under the Sassanides. In Pehlevi there are extant translations of four of the books of Zoroaster the Vendidad, the Vespered, the Yesht, and Khurdavesta. There are, besides, three more books in the same language 6 PERSIAN LITERATURE the Arda Viraf, a description of the Parsee paradise and hell, curiously anticipating Dante; the Bunde- an account of the Creation a hesh, ; and romance, Akhez Jadoo, a still later production. During the last century two other books on the same subject were published, the Dabistan and the Desatir.

Load more