نشریه ادبیات پهلوانی
سال سوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 5، بهار و تابستان 1395)

It is obvious that some parts of the narratives in Persian literature have taken their themes from ancient Iran, or their origins can be found in Avesta or Zarathustran middle-era Persian texts. However, these stories, originating from ancient Persian literature, have not been unaffected by the Islamic or Semitic principles. These points are even seen in the Iranians’ national epic, the Shahname, so that the gnostic ideas of the beginning of Christianity are seen in the words, thought, and behavior of the characters likes Iraj and Khosrow. The ideas like taking material and human soul and body as evil seem to have, probably, come to Manichaeism from Christianity and from there have entered the Shahname. Also, some speeches made by Persian characters are, indeed, translations of the holy Koran’s words like the independence of god; ‘god doesn’t need offspring or wife’. And, some hints in the words of ancient Iranians show they believed in the angels like Gabriel or Israfil. For instance, Khosrow Parviz talks about a life-taking angel in death-bed while, in Zarathustra, an evil named Astveehad takes human life. In another part, it talks about the knowing of the water of the eternal life by an Iranian farmer. Nowhere in Persian Myths, a trace of Iranians’ awareness of that water and Khezr is seen. The present research deals with the effects of non-Iranian beliefs on the Shahname.

In the present article, through a presentation of narcissism and other concepts such as the Imaginary, Mirror Stage, and the Other from the point of view of Jacque Lacan, we try to study and analyze this psychoanalytical phenomenon in the character of Garshasb in the Garshasb-Nameh. This study shows that Zahak creates the sense of narcissism in Garshasb, because he plays the role of ‘the other’ for Garshasb. Garshasb’s narcissism reaches its climax so as to turn him into a cruel and opinionated character. His deeds and behavior such as fighting dragons, toughness, flaunting and arrogance are rooted in his narcissism. With Zahak overthrown, Garshasb’s narcissism subsides and he becomes a calm and peaceful character. In this research, the effect of his narcissism on other characters and on the overall progress of the story will be analyzed. The findings also showed how successful Asadi-Toosi was in the characterization of Garshasb and how well he had realized the psychological aspects of the character, keeping his epic and mythological attributes.

The purpose of writing this article is the introduction a newly found narrative of Rustam war Kok Koohzad and comparing its content with other narrative, especially two edited narratives Ghafoori and Makan. The poet of the newly found 350-verse narrative is not known exactly, but it should be recognized as the middle way between the 710-verse narrative of Makan and the 266-verse narrative of Ghafoori which is different in event details with two narratives mentioned and parts of the story added or reduced. The newly found narrative is different from the other two narratives in terms of topics such as names of Rustam’s friends and their association with him, dialogues and interactions of Rustam with Zal, war details of Rustam with Kok and Rustam’s visit with Zal. It also consists of topics such as the war of two from Kok’s heroes with Rustam named Ghaher and Salook which does not exist in the other two narratives. Furthermore, there are topics such as appeasement of Zal to Kok, the kidnapping of Rostam’s family by Kok, Rustam’s kidnapping a girl from the Kok’s castle and going Rustam and Zal to Manoochehr-Shah in the other two narratives, which are not present in the newly found narrative.

Ever since the creation of the continuous progress of human civilization has stepped forward, thanks to the efforts of the modern civilized society, people, wisely, individually, collectively, or randomly, and through trial and error route of human civilization, have brought a new life and so the cornerstone of the ancient communities were founded. In historical patterns, the first civilization of learners and practices among communities often shaped basic but important mythological narratives and epics. This is mostly due to the efforts of the first king of the gods or the origin of the measures or a fortiori of force. It is of course the positive and negative aspects of the supernatural which have been transformed.
In the mythology of the early teachings and practices of human civilization in the presence of kings and of the ideal and the Kings such as Mashya and Mashyana, Siamak, Tahmores, Hooshang and Jamshid and Fereydoon. This study focused on three factors of sources, learners, and deeds of civilization to know about the issues raised. The sources of the civilization, based on the Shahnameh, are personal, divine, and diabolical, and come from the legislators as high people in the guise of the king-gods, which pushed civilization forward. This descriptive and analytical study is based on the written sources.

The narrative Semiotics is based upon the two facts of action and change. Actors often go on by predetermined programs in this field until they reach appropriate meanings. It seems that the dominant discourse is a logical and narrative phenomenon underlying the structure of mythic stories. In this inquiry, we will study the story of the Zahak and Fereydoun from the Shahname composed by Ferdosi from a semiotic perspective and a descriptive-analytic approach to showing that all narrative components of the story go to alter the semantic features. The results showed that the discourse is dynamic, and at the end, the elementary situation changes to a secondary situation. Zahak wishes to attain the throne while Fereydoun wishes to destroy this government: The stages of language transition are described in the four stages of contract, potential, passive, and analytic. The passive-semantic structure of this discourse is dividable into personal, passive and intermediate places according to their locality.

This article is an attempt to present that there are two sides to a myth. An epic is known as the story of the bravery and heroic role of great men who declare war with people that don’t respect their homeland or people or existence of sacred or valuable things. This side of an epic presents the way of war and courage. An epic presents the way of war and courage. On the other hand, an epic is so deep that it puts aside the aspect of war and presents the depth of generosity. So, the epic is not a battle but a directed program and a powerful model for the inner restoration of people who want to improve their morality. In this way, the attempt of an epic’s hero is not of battle that is an external war, but the hero of war tries to follow the religious model that includes eternal symbols of existence (jahad-e-akbar) and external war (jahad-e-asghar), which is an attempt to change the battle between two characters to a battle between a person with his despotic soul. We can see that in a short period, there is no battle between two persons, but we can never imagine that war stops between a person and his despotic soul. The Indian epic is the story of a battle in which human beings are involved in a span which is the most important reason for the eternity of a religious epic.