فهرست مطالب معصومه باقری حسن کیاده

In some Manichaean hymns, the Father of Greatness, Mihr Yazd and Narisaf Yazd are praised with an epic style and a literary approach that relies more on epithets. Among them, the hymns to Third Messenger (Narisaf Yazd) in the Parthian texts, described as Miϑra, and some of the epithets attributed to him are Miϑra’s that we can see them in Mihr Yašt and Pahlavi sources. Among the hymns to Narisaf Yazd, in the manuscripts in Turfan collection that are kept in the Museum of Berlin, there are two hymns with the M 67 and M 77 signatures that they have references to the Sassanid Zoroastrian community and the Parthian community more than the others. This research primarily focuses on the role of Miϑra and Nariyosang in shaping the character of Narisaf Yazd, and then the literary influences of Avesta, Mihr Yašt and Pahlavi sources on these two Parthian hymns are studied.

The "eloquence" of mythical and epic characters has a long history in Iranian literature. Ferdowsi has introduced many characters of Shahnameh as "speaker", "eloquent", "smooth-tongued", and "sweet-mouthed" and praised them with these epithets. Some literary terms such as "Sokhan Shirin" and "Zaban Shiva" have been used in Avesta, Pahlavi texts, and have been continued in Persian, and some, such as viiāxana "eloquent", the epithet of Mitra in Mehr Yash, has not been continued but were used as an obsolete form of Gyāxan in Rudaki's poetry, and some Persian lexicons, such as Asadī’s Loḡat-e fors, in spite of this, it has continued as a heroic epithet in epic texts among native and foreign heroes. This article examines the semantic range of "Eloquence" that is a common quality of Mithra, the prophet Zarathustra, heroes such as Garshasb, Sam, Rostam and Giv, and even Turanian heroes in Iranian texts from Gahan to Shahnameh.

Ardā Vīrāf Nāmag or Ardā Vīrāz Nāmag is one of the most well-known Pahlavi works that has been translated into different languages, one of these translations, included in Darab Hormazyar's Persian Rivayats, is a Zoroastrian Persian version composed by Anoshirvan Marzban Kermani in seventeenth century A. D. There are other Persian versions of it in verse and prose, including Ardā Vīrāf Nāme versified by Zartusht Bahram Pjjdu, which according to Anoshirvan was not complete and parts of which he has left unsaid; Therefore, in order to complete the text, Anushirvan himself versified it with the same rhythm of Zartusht’s. There are subjects in Anoshirvans’ Ardā Vīrāf Nāme that are not found in any other versions. He has paid more attention to topics such as myths and mythical characters than the Pahlavi and Persian versions. Anoshirvans’ Ardā Vīrāf Nāme is very important as one of the examples of Zoroastrian Persian poetry, whose content, literary and linguistic features have been studied in this research.

It was not just the uneducated human in ancient times who believed in an invisible magic powers in the world، and people have always believed in “ANIMISM” and “FITSH”. From many long time ago، people used to think that some objects، animals، and sky and stars have these invisible magic powers. Because of his little amount of knowledge، he had no chance of understanding the scientific rules that run the world. So he began to believe in the influence of these invisible magic powers over his daily life in order to make reason for bad events of his life or even to prevent them. He had to adjust every little things of his life to these believes. In Iranian religion before Islam، like other ancient religions، many superstitions looked legal and rightful، and also believing in the influence of sky and stars on days and years; in astrology، and in prediction was very usual. In this research، different kinds of prediction according to the middle Persian texts will be studied: prediction based on inspiration، influence of sky and stars on days and years، the things that should be done and not should be done on specific days، soothsaying texts based on numbers in a Zoroastrian Omen Manuscript، including: the number omen with numbers1-5، the omen of JAMASP E HAKIM، and omen of ANAAMOL.

Pars region had a critical importance to the Achaemenid Empire. There are few historical evidences about this geographical area،after the fall of Achaemenid kingdom and before the rise of the Sassanid empire. The only solid evidences about that era to rely on are the coins issued by its local rulers. These discovered coins gave us a little knowledge about the power and independence of the rulers. In the era of the Seleucid empire، the province of Pars was governed by rulers who called themselves «Frataraka”. After gaining more power during the reign of Parthians، these local rulers used» Shah«(king) as their title. They considered themselves as the rightful heirs of Achaemenid Empire and had a semi-independent government. They tried to preserve their ancient Iranian culture and customs against Hellenism and then transferred them to the Sassanids.

“Hunter King" is one of the ideological features of the Achaemenid dynasty. King, as a hunter and guide is considered as the first person in combat. Consequently, hunting and war were a proper place in which the great king’ valor could be proved. Persians who laid claim to the crown such as the young Cyrus (brother Artaxerxes II) had competence in battle, and the love of hunting among all their characteristics that would justify it so they were always praised. Therefore, they intended to legitimize their claim on the throne as having the ideological features of the Achaemenid dynasty. In this research, it was tried to consider the position of hunting for Achaemenids in terms of ideology and analyze its educational aspects and royal features.

The conflict between two views namely the ‘existence of death’ and ‘love for eternal life’ has always preoccupied man’s mind. It has eventually ended with the victory of the second belief that is ‘immortality’and ‘a new birth in another world’.The reflection of attaining eternity in different forms of the myth of ‘the world of the dead’is clearly apparent in different time periods.In this article, the author endeavors to study the trend of evolution in the thought of ‘the world of the dead’and its classification into various stages of paradise, purgatory (inter-world) and hell as conceived by people of ancient Iran based on old and new Avestan texts and Middle Persian scripts.

Among Pahlavi texts remained from Sassanid Era, the text ‘Khosrow Ghobadan and Redag’ discusses different cultural elements. Worth mentioning is the section on musical instruments. Many of the terms for these instruments have not either been deciphered or if read, there have been many doubts about them. Thus, many musical instruments have been thought to have no prior history or mistakenly thought to originate from other lands.The authors try to list the nomenclature of these musical instruments along with well-founded proofs.

Having a look at Dehkhoda's lexicon, we are astonished at the existence of the word "Baad" (wind) in the structure of names of Iran's villages. These names demonstrate the importance of the word "wind" in Iranian thought. It is obvious that believing in holiness and respecting the world's elements and nature's epitome have been common in all primitive tribes. Water, wind, earth and fire have their own importance and special worship. Iranian angel of wind, named Vay, has also been a God great, mighty, eternal and life-giving on one hand and deadly and warrior on the other hand. Vay is a two-dimensional God: benefactor and at the same time ominous since it is the god of both life and death.Civilization and culture of a nation follows two ways in its developmental course to get out of the stage of various legends and myths: it either removes gradually the impure elements to reach the more abstract concepts or versifies its legends and myths to be more rational for the reader. Both processes can be observed in Shahnameh which goes continuously from myth toward epic. Our past myths have been perpetuated in epics of Shahnameh.Therefore, studying the story of Akvan Div in Shahnameh, the mythical figure of bad Vay div (demon) can be obviously depicted.

A mythical character, Garshasb is according to Persian narrations, bound to loose his eternal life due to an unknown sin. His body is covered under tons of snow in the plain of Kabul far from the eyes of the people until the day of resurrection when he rises and kills Zahak who has fled from his jail in mount Damavand and by this he frees the world from Zahak’s vices.Yet his soul remains in the state of inter-world in regret and penitence and cannot enter the paradise. The remaining narratives do not reveal much about his sin. In this article endeavor is done to cast light on the dark corners of the myth.