A Survey and Analysis of Resāleh-ye Kerāmiyeh and the Necessity of its Textual Criticism

The Treatise of Kerāmiyeh about music (Resāleh-ye Kerāmiyeh), attributed to Dowreh-ye Sofrehchi, is one of the most important writings on music in the Safavid era. This work has been published only once with a different title "On the Knowledge of Music Science", without critical correction and sufficient explanation, only based on a single manuscript, by Yahyā Zokā in a compilation of essays named Nāmeh-ye Minavi (1971) in Tehran. It has not been thoroughly and methodically analyzed and criticized. This printed version, despite its precedence over the present study, is not without errors and mistakes, and in many cases, both in the body of the prose and its poetic verses, differs pointedly from our compiled versions; As far as it can be considered as a completely different treatise due to the changes, additions, and deficiencies. In this study, while identifying the problems of Zokā's version in various fields, including incorrect recording of names and technical terms, the introductory prose (which is adorned with poetic verses and is also relevant from the perspective of literary studies) has been compared with 13 manuscripts and corrected by the method of "Apparatus Criticus". The most significant finding of this study is that a simple comparison between the proposed correction and the printed version reveals that the edition of Zokā is based on an eclectic and plagiarized version and bears no acceptable resemblance to the various preferred versions of the treatise. Therefore, a new correction of this important musical work of the Safavid era seems necessary.